"Form in a picture is justified by our experience of wholeness (coherence) in life, and if we are to be convincingly reminded by art of such experience then the shape in art has to be believably tentative, as fragile as meaning seems to be in life..." - Robert Adams, from a statement he wrote about Ken Abbott's work, in the 2007 Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin.
These pictures are an early selection from trips made in the summer and fall of 2008. I hope to return to West Virginia and other parts of coal country so that I may add to this group, to refine and explore the initial impressions represented here.
It is always a balancing act photographing in new country. The landscape of coal mining is not neutral - even miners and their opponents could probably agree on that. I was moved by the wholesale re-formatting of much of the landscape in coal country. There seemed to be no "middle ground" - figuratively and literally. Perhaps in this way the landscape is a reflection of the current political and environmental debate about coal mining in this country. But for whatever reason it seemed to me that there was the new and the old, the corporate and the abandoned, the wrecked and the pristine. Much of the new stuff seemed false to me, but my strongest response was to how disconnected it all seemed.
Like the landscape, within the culture there seems to be no middle ground - and no middle-class for that matter. There is the coal economy on the one hand, and the flea market economy on the other. Within the towns there is mostly desperation and powerlessness – acted out as patriotism, Red, White, and Blue everywhere.
Perhaps there is one other way out for the powerless in coal country - and that is through resort to the legal and health care industries. Signs for workers comp lawyers, pain medication, and chiropractors are everywhere.
Ken Abbott
Asheville, NC
July, 09