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Finks fine jewelry7/31/2023 ![]() Anything I build and put my stamp on is going to be around for ever.”Nelson descends from a long line of coal miners: His father still works at a surface mine, and he himself spent just shy of five years working underground. The fact that it looks good, too, is just icing on the cake.“A lot of blacksmiths get wrapped up in just the art side, which is totally cool,” said Nelson, a Boone County resident and owner of Nelson Ironworks. It’s to make a knife that will last longer and perform better than the cheap imports you can find in stores. Josh Nelson said his goal when he crafts a knife from old mine railroad spikes isn’t to make art. ![]() “A lot of people have that heritage in their own family and can relate to that, so we wanted to continue with that part of the business while also expanding into a more modern (style) that people would want to decorate their homes with.” “We wanted to preserve the (original) aspects of the business,” Fairchild said. ![]() He said they’ve tried to preserve the original owner’s designs, which leaned toward characterizations of coal miners, while expanding into wall decor. The family sold the equipment business a few years ago, so when Fairchild and his partners found out Black Coal was on the market in 2015, they jumped on it. They display our pieces in their homes it’s like having a little bit of West Virginia wherever they may be.”įairchild’s family has a long association with the coal mining industry: In 1965 his grandparents founded Fairchild International, manufacturing equipment for the underground mine industry. ![]() “It also resonates among people who have moved out of the state, either for employment or other reasons. Some of Black Gold’s designs date to the 1970s, when the original owner began crafting unique, coal-themed figurines others were designed by Fairchild and his partners, his brother Justin Fairchild and Brian Bowman.“We’ve seen a lot of interest in coal artwork, in the heritage of West Virginia and the role coal has played in our history,” Fairchild said. Located in Raleigh, West Virginia, Black Gold manufactures statues, figurines and other decorative items from coal. But while miners and their families wait for state and federal lawmakers to figure what, if anything, they can do to resuscitate West Virginia’s mining industry, Dameron and several other artists are trying to make the best of the hand they’ve been dealt.“We definitely honor it that was the foundation of our business,” said Jeremy Fairchild of Black Gold Coal Crafts. Turning coal into art isn’t going to resurrect thousands of West Virginia mining jobs that have been lost over the past eight years. Another claims 62,000 jobs have been lost just since 2011. One study suggests about 83,000 miners lost their jobs and 400 coal mines went out of business from 2008-2015. Dozens of coal-fired power plants also have shut down. coal production is still generated by companies in bankruptcy. Over the past two years, four of the nation’s biggest mining companies (Peabody, Arch, Alpha and Patriot) declared bankruptcy, though nearly half of U.S. Falling prices, automation, competition from natural gas and renewables and ever-tightening environmental regulations have squeezed the life out of the industry. “So I know what mining means for a family.”Ĭoal fuels America, or at least it used to. “There were times when my dad would ‘double-back,’ we wouldn’t see him for a couple days,” said Dameron. People can buy all sorts of beautiful jewelry, but when they see a piece of jewelry with scrip on it, they instantly will tell you stories about going to the company store when they were young.”Ĭelebrating history, particularly West Virginia’s coal history, is important to Dameron, who said as far back as she can remember coal kept food on her family’s table, clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads. The coal itself is beautiful, but the scrip part, that’s what hits home with people - it means something to them. “Using scrip in jewelry, that’s the history of it. “It was like gold - the only currency they had at the time,” Dameron said. Rather than pay cash, coal companies would give their workers scrip they could spend in the company store for whatever they needed. Working in a studio in her home, Dameron incorporates bits of West Virginia coal and other keepsakes like coal scrip into every piece she makes.Ĭoal scrip, which generally looked like metal tokens, was the currency of coal towns. “I think that’s the allure of our jewelry - the fact that it is our history and it is our heritage,” said Dameron, the creative force behind Beckley-based West Virginia Coal Jewelry. The way Carol Dameron sees it, every time someone buys one of her handcrafted necklaces, they’re buying a piece of history. Wall art made form coal and shaped like West Virginia is a Black Gold Crafts specialty. Coal is shaped into a pendant for a necklace.
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