Photo by Kathrine Gross

There’s only so much thinking ahead that a truck driver can do before lane lines start to get a little blurry and curbs and corners start to creep a little closer. If anything, too much looking down the road and not enough looking straight ahead can be quickly self-correcting.

But during the long hours that sculptor Kevin Caron drove a truck cross-country, the truck wasn’t the only thing on cruise control – his mind was, as well, drafting pictures of things he wanted to create, visions he wanted to make concrete.

“When I’d stop or get home, I’d have to sketch the pictures that I made in my brain,” Caron says. “That way, I could make room for more.”

Ultimately, Caron quit life on the highway to devote himself entirely to art, crafting gates, fountains, wind chimes and bells from found objects, scrap metal and natural, elemental rock. It was a decision, he says, that played to his imagination. His truck-driving experience, paired with stints as an aircraft mechanic in the U.S. Navy – he served aboard the Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean – and as a foreign automobile repairman awarded ample time for his creativity to blossom.

“I have a very vivid, almost wicked, imagination,” Caron says. “Let’s just say that I read a lot of science fiction.”

Caron’s endeavors are anything but ordinary – a giant, steel caterpillar named Munch; FinitO, a 10-tone wind chime; and Stretch, a tall, rusty slip of a fountain, are among his custom-made creations. And just as much as Caron’s work is about visual aestheticism, it’s also about creating an auditory experience.

Take, for example, an untitled project he’s currently crafting. At a hefty 200 pounds, the bell doesn’t look like much – just a long canister – but when it rings, the sound seems like it comes from the center of the earth; it is deep and resonant, pretty and slightly familiar, like the sound of a distant church bell.

“I love the bells because of the sound. Sometimes you have to trick the bell into ringing, and that’s the fun part,” Caron says. “The bigger pieces are fun, but they have to suit my vision. I have to be able to take them apart and move them.”

In fact, “taking apart” is as much a part of the process as “putting together” for the artist, as is creating as many sounds as possible out of one piece, whether it’s a bell or a fountain.