COAL PROJECT
Anthracite coal is a material of the uncanny. Both organic and mineral, its ambiguous materiality spans epochs. Earth’s future climate is written in its carbon. Its color is a mysterious blacksilver. It rewards attention.
SEEING COAL: time|material|scale
Research — Library Company of Philadelphia
Artist’s book — Coal and other four-letter words
Artist’s Book — Thinking through coal
SEEING COAL: time|material|scale
Library Company of Philadelphia, May 3 - August 28, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic affected every person and every cultural institution in Philadelphia, the Library Company included. During the fall and winter of 2020 and 2021, prevented from working inside the Conservation Department, I used the time for writing, curating and creating a narrative for an exhibition about Pennsylvania anthracite coal. The online version of Seeing Coal expands on some exhibition sections and allows people to experience the exhibition while bypassing the social distancing and mask requirements inside the building. The digital version is is an immersive experience that includes all of the exhibition items along with links back to the Library Company catalogue.
ONLINE EXHIBITION LINK: https://seeingcoal.librarycompany.org/
Ballinglen Fellowship — Sept 1 to Oct 15, 2018
My interest in coal began with walking in the peat bogs of West Ireland, and thinking about the long processes that transform organic matter into peat, and eventually coal.
I created the Peat Poems during a Fellowship in Ireland, in County Mayo, where peat bogs blanket the hills. A strong sense of time-place connection suffuses the land. Here people still cut peat blocks by hand, exposing layers of carbon-rich material, the precursor to coal. The peat is dried into lumpy bricks, to be burned for heat, a primitive fossil fuel. The land scars, and heals over, as it has done for thousands of years. Industrial peat extraction, however, is destructive and unsustainable. The Peat Poems employ the 3-lobed form of an industrially produced peat briquette.
Journal pages, below, and selection of works on paper, above, from Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Ireland— Sept.- Oct 2018
Research — Library Company of Philadelphia
Coal is everywhere in 19th century printed materials, a reflection of coal’s omnipresence in 19th century life. Coal fueled world-changing technologies and gave rise to new practical knowledge of the earth. As coal mines were dug, layers of material and rocks became visible. Coal was measured, studied, mapped, surveyed and duly recorded by naturalists, geologists and surveyors. Many of these graphic visualizations are in the collections at the Library Company of Philadelphia, and are a source of creative inspiration.
Click the button below to see more Library Company images of coal.
The video links to a presentation I wrote about the “book as object.”
Artist’s book — Coal and other four-letter words
Coal and other four-letter words is an inviting and tactile book. Each text page is created through a 3-layer process. 1st: hand-breyar carbon black in acrylic medium, 2nd: powdered graphite, rubbed in with a cloth. 3rd: hand-breyar carbon black in acrylic medium with stencil of a room-and-pillar mine. The exposed graphite is hand exfoliated to remove all loose powder. The natural graphite surface shines silver grey against the deep matte black page. The text was rubber stamped then laser printed. The paper is Superfine 100#. End matter text is Avenir Book, laser printed. The binding is a limp paper case on stacked folios, drummed together to create heavy, seamless spreads. A laser-printed paper sleeve for storage.
The text draws from a compilation of 4-letter coalish words. It is a meditation on coal-place; an evocation of the dark presence of coal and deep time.
Coal and other four letter words
2019
6.5” x 6.5” (closed)
Limp paper case binding
13 page openings
Edition of 10 - numbered and signed
Artist’s Book — Thinking through coal
This single-sheet folded book is a visual speed-bump, to slow the eye-mind as information emerges through layers and reversals, advantaging the translucent paper. This small book engages the eye, mind and hand. It is pleasant to manipulate, open and bend.
Thinking through coal / (carbon) sites us / inside an extra-human arc / of mineral existence
2019
4.25" x 3.5" (closed)
Single-sheet book
3 page openings
Variable edition of 4, each one unique.
Translucent paper, graphite, rubber stamp, drawing.
Residency in Iceland — February-March, 2021
A two month studio residency to develop concepts for a May 2021 exhibit about coal at the Library Company of Philadelphia. The essay Coal, Turf and Virus, linked below, summarizes my experiences in Iceland which included a series of epic snowstorms in North Iceland and the coming of the Coronavirus, which cut short my residency.
Related article: COAL, TURF AND VIRUS By Andrea Krupp — IN DIALOGUE | APRIL - JULY, 2020
Journal pages, above, and selection of works on paper, below, from Hafnarborg and Herhus — Feb-March 2020
