Train to Nowhere

Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions : 160" L x 43.5" W
 
Artist Statement

"Growing up in the coal fields during the beginning of the end of the “big coal boom” gives you an interesting perspective on the resource dependent place you call home. A lump of coal rolling off the back of a truck and cracking my parents windshield was not uncommon. Waiting for the 250 cars of coal to clear the tracks at the bridge was just part of your daily routine. But, when I was almost a teenager the industry started changing. My father was a coal man, he worked in the tipple & sampled the mines all over Kentucky. I loved going to his office because that meant I got to go on the four wheeler. Without my mothers knowledge of course, we would “race the train” trying to keep up so we could cut in front of it before it tied us up at the bridge or crossing where we were in the mountains. I never minded getting caught by the train though, because the first collection of art I ever saw was on the sides of those coal cars. Yes, the internet existed at this point, but it was nothing like what it is now. During this time Oregon Trail was a hot commodity on the school's IBM computers. For me, each one of those coal cars opened up a new section of the world to me. When the trains stopped coal & the companies were all sold off they would ship every building, every conveyor belt, every scrap would be shipped away when a mine shut down. All that was ever left were the 9x9 squares of the floors & occasionally a broken down coal car on a piece of dead end track if you were lucky enough to find it in the weeds.