Ward and I recently spent a few days in the Laurel Highlands of PA. The main destination of our trip was The Ruins project near Whitsett, PA, which we visited Saturday afternoon. The Ruins are hard to explain, but I'm going to try.
Rachel Sager, a mosaic artist, was raised in this coal mining area. After traveling the world and then living in Pittsburgh, she moved back and bought an old brick house that used to be the office of a local coal company. With the house came 11 acres and an abandoned coal mine. The mine has been closed since 1946 and was totally overgrown. She slowly uncovered some of the crumbling structures from the mine and decided to use them for her mosaic art. Thus began the Ruins project. Over 250 artists from around the world have contributed to the project so far. The common denominator throughout the exhibit is coal mining. The Ruins is a tribute to miners and their hard work and sacrifices in building the modern world.
While the art was amazing, the stories that went with it made the day truly meaningful. Adding to the richness of the tour were two retired coal miners in our group. This is a place you need to see in person to understand, but I'm going to share pictures with you that will hopefully give you a feel for what we saw.
Note: I have more pictures here than I usually like to feature in one post, but this is just a small representation of what we saw.
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| The tour started at the store and studio where Rachel makes and sells mosaic jewelry. |
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Our guide for the afternoon at the entrance to The Ruins.
Above the name is a clock made of local clay. |
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| Along the same wall is a beehive furnace. They were common throughout the area and used to burn coal to turn it into coke. The coke was then shipped to Pittsburgh for steel making. |
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The art also included native plants and animals around the mine.
This life-like cicada was mounted on a tree trunk. |
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The flower petals were made from hardened and oxidized shale -
a by-product of the coke furnaces. |
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The gears represent some of the machinery of the mines. There are various maps on the walls representing countries from which the multiple artists came.
You can see England here. |
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| These houses represent the company houses for the miners that often surrounded the mines. |
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| This toy cap gun was dug up from the dirt around the building. |
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| This is the portrait of the last miner to die in the mine. |
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| This was the chapel with the sun streaming down on a miner and a soldier's boots. |
Miners often also served in the military. Just out of the picture is a 3-D mosaic angel.
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A close-up shows an explosion of the boots.
Both miners and soldiers had to be wary of this danger.
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| Along one long wall is a 67' train mosaic depicting the Pittsburg and Erie lines that hauled the coal from here. |
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| The caboose of the train. On one of the tours was the man who used to service this real-life caboose. The oil can in front of it was used on the actual No. 506. |
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| The Ruins is a work in progress with more installations in the plans. I will definitely go back. |
Tune in next time for our trip home.
