Voices from the Rust Belt

about art. The artists wanted whatever it is that artists want (recognition, a solo show, a mention in a textbook, a cash award, a residency, a sabbatical, to be called a genius by people that other people call geniuses, anything but a job), and the gallery owners made a little money—which they used to pay back their loans, which means the banks made some money, and some developers got rich. People looking for ways to be young and hip and successful mortgaged ridiculously expensive townhouses and brownstones and bought pretty things to hang on the wall. Hanging things on the wall meant decorating the room. Contractors were hired, supplies were ordered, and workmen were paid. How it all trickles down so beautifully! I try my best to believe that, even if only by accident, some human looked at something made by another human and wondered what it all meant.

It’s all understandable, and it’s shitty, but I can get over that. What I can’t and won’t get over is how the artists swaggered into town like major leaguers going down to the minors on a rehab assignment. While I spent my time being afraid to want something beautiful, they actually went to art school. Some of them arrived here with a certain kind of fame. Some of them didn’t become famous until they saw what we’ve done to ourselves. Along the way, they dragged a few natives into the brief, burning spotlight. I try not to be jealous. But it’s too easy to hate the truly talented. Or the truly connected. Or the lucky.

It’s hard not to feel like the details of my working life became their art. All that beautiful decay, they seemed to say. Look at how wonderful this place used to be. Look at how terrible it all was. This region really says something about the world. This says something about our nation. I feel like I’ve lived here all my life!

I feel guilty for overstating the problem. Then I feel like I am not overstating the problem at all. They came and looked at my secret fears and told me how interesting they are, and how relevant, and how all that misery makes such a fascinating mosaic, if only I could step back and see how all the details have been arranged.

Yet none of them asked where the rust came from.

There’s no way of knowing in the end what matters more: the lives that those mills and factories supported or the art that only exists because those lives no longer exist. In the end, it’s not the fact that I or my friends and family feel exploited. It’s not that the visiting artists were wrong or even that they were right. What most bothers me is that I wasn’t smart enough to exploit the situation for myself. The whole thing was happening all around me, and I was too busy watching what I imagined as real artists watch and document what I called home. All those moments of folly when I gave up my ambitions to pay the bills. All those things that flashed briefly beautiful before I pushed them aside. It all turned out to be art after all. I just missed it.

CAROLYNE WHELAN

King Coal and the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum

WILMA STEELE SITS ON HER screened porch and watches the last of the apples fall from her tree. It’s a beautiful, crisp day in Mingo County, West Virginia. Inside, there is still a faint dampness from when the house flooded as the result of nearby mountaintop removal, but on the porch, the dry air has that warm autumn smell of leaves and soil. Steele has lived in this region all her life, and her lineage traces back deep into the earth of Mingo County as far as she can follow it, like light in the abandoned mine shaft down the street. She is one of the founders of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum1, located in Matewan, Mingo County, and on October 1, as she accepted a Coal Heritage Award from the Coal Heritage Highway Authority on behalf of the museum, Don Blankenship wrapped up the first day of his closed trial.

Don Blankenship was also born and raised in Mingo County—his mother was a McCoy, a descendant of the infamous enemies of the Hatfields. He and Steele went to school together, but after that, their paths diverged: while Steele became a high school art teacher—and a member of her teachers’ union—Blankenship climbed the ladder of corporate coal, ultimately becoming the chairman and CEO of Massey Energy Company and, according to The New York Times, “one of West Virginia’s most feared and powerful figures2,” the kind of man who pumps toxic slurry back into the ground to save his company money3 and throws his breakfast if it’s not to his liking4. In April 2010, twenty-nine miners died as the result of an explosion at one of Massey’s mines, Upper Big Branch; Blankenship subsequently was accused of scheming with others at the company to violate safety rules and deceive regulators. The trial holding a CEO responsible for the deaths of his company’s workers was the first of its kind, and the results could set a precedent for future corporate leaders.5 Although the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum focuses on the history of the region, Steele believes that in light of the Upper Big Branch explosion and the trial, the historical narrative is applicable today.

“The mines used to own people by owning their homes, their stores, their churches, their schools,” Steele says. “Now, they don’t need to, because they own people’s minds. It’s much more psychological.” The coal companies donate money to the local schools, she says, so the teachers will endorse the industry. In response to reports of coal-based pollution and sick children, it was the teachers who wrote to the paper to discredit the accusations as liberal propaganda, Steele says, and it wasn’t until a reporter visited Marsh Fork Elementary School and with his finger wiped