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Still Time To Register For PA Mine Reclamation Conference August 4-6
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The Eastern PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation will be the host for the 13th Annual PA Conference on Abandoned Mine Reclamation and Coal Mine Heritage on August 4-6 at the Best Western Genetti Inn & Suites, Hazleton, PA.
This year’s conference will focus around the theme of showcasing coalitions “Working Together for Innovation and Success."
EPCAMR is also celebrating it's 15th Anniversary working on PA's abandoned mine land problems and streams impacted by AMD, by holding it's Fundraising Dinner Program/Event on the evening of August 4th, following the Pre-Conference Tour of the Anthracite Region, that is a part of the Conference.
The Dinner will feature many highlights of EPCAMR's accomplishments and partnerships over the last 15 years, Certificate Presentations to EPCAMR Board Members and Sponsoring Organizations, Highlighted Publicity Coverage over the years, a few stories from Bruno Najaka, a founding Board Member, and leading conservationist from Sullivan County, a digital slide show of a collection of photos from over the years, and a Silent Auction that will consist of the sale of local artists works that were created using iron oxide recovered, recycled, harvested, processed, and dried by EPCAMR Staff that is sold to generate discretionary income for its environmental education programs throughout the region.
Call For Artists
EPCAMR put out a Call for Artists to several regional Art Leagues, Art related Studios, and partnering Artists who participated in our first ever EPCAMR Anthrascapes AMD Art Show that was held in August 2006 at the Arts YOUniverse Studios that had been located in the Old Stegmaier Mansion, in downtown Wilkes-Barre through a unique collaboration with the Office of Surface Mining and ourselves.
Over 50 artists participated generating over 100 pieces of artwork from paintings, jewelry, wood stains, sculpture, paper mache, watercolor, pastels, venetian oils, chalk drawings, recycled plastics, fabric dies, ink making, ceramics, photography, and pottery with one thing in common…they ALL used recovered, harvested, and dried, iron oxide provided to them by EPCAMR.
The 2 week show had been a huge success. EPCAMR provided invited artists with a regional watershed tour of Schuylkill, Lackawanna, and Wyoming Valley to talk about the historical mining impacts of our region, our work to clean up the mine scarred lands and water, and showed them dozens of large Anthracite discharges, ALL of which have the potential to develop market uses for the iron oxide that settles to the bottoms of the streambeds in the impacted watersheds.
Some of those same artists are back, along with some new artists, to assist us with our Silent Auction spin-off of the Anthrascapes AMD Art Show to help financially support EPCAMR’s work and theirs.
A Silent Auction Sheet will be placed at each art piece during the event with an information sheets about the individual art pieces and who the artists are, along with a minimum bid. Sign your name, bid your price, and check back often before the Evening Event is nearly over for your final bid, if you like what you see.
The Silent Auction will be a blend of art and the environment, using art to express and highlight the environmental impacts in our area created by past mining practices while at the same time allowing the artists to showcase their talents in various mediums.
Please bring your checkbooks and or credit cards to the Dinner/Fundraiser and take home a wonderful piece or pieces of art created and inspired by our work in the region with our colleagues from iron oxide that EPCAMR is harvesting, collecting, drying, processing, and marketing to these artists and other partners across 8 states nationally already to generate some unrestricted funds for our environmental education and outreach programs.
For a preview of some of the previous art pieces, please visit our Photo Gallery. Click through Pages 1 and 2 of the Gallery.
“When you visit an AMD impacted site, it’s a very stimulating experience of the mind, because not only do you get to take a hike off a few beaten paths of lush greenery and old abandoned railroad grades into these abandoned mine lands, you get to take in the spectrum of colorful wetland vegetation, hydrogen sulfide gas (rotten egg smell) venting from the mines, the damp smell of the coal silt and black culm located in these areas after a morning dew, the sounds of the mine water splashing about from the boreholes or air shafts like fountains, and of course, last but not least, the almost neon-colored hues of oranges, reds, and yellows, of the iron oxide deposits that make many of our waterways, polluted.” Hughes explained.
This endeavor has been supported locally with great enthusiasm by the local art community as a way to recycle what is commonly considered a pollutant to aquatic and insect life in our streams. Due to the hard work and creative thinking of the EPCAMR staff And the local art community, this same pigment is now more commonly being accepted as a valuable resource to the art world as an alternative pigment with value.
The Earth Conservancy has also allowed EPCAMR to tour their lands to evaluate their mine drainage sites and are willing and active partners who allow us to remove the years of iron deposits from their AMD treatment wetlands along Dundee Road in the Nanticoke Creek watershed.
List of Participating Artists:
-- Bonita Mattick, Shavertown, PA - Works of Art, Portraits, Landscapes and Still Lifes;
-- Marianne B. Lurie, West Pittston, PA - Pysanky Eggs and Eggshell Jewelry;
-- Verve Vertu Art Studio, Wilkes-Barre, PA - ”tapping into creative energy of people with special needs;”
-- David Hage, resident of NE PA – sumi ink with iron oxide, recycled plastic with iron oxide;
-- Diane Grant Czajkowski, Ashley, PA – skilled artist working in watercolors, oils, pastel, graphite, pencil, drawings, various paintings of mixed mediums, sketches and other finished works of art, “Iron Horse prints; has a love for horses and loves historic subjects such as local coal breakers, landscapes, and periods of history such as Civil War scenes;
-- Heather Freeman Radel and her students, Back Mountain, PA – artist and architect, as well as a teacher; several students may exhibit and not have their artwork for sale; Heather, however, is creating a piece for the Silent Auction; and
-- Skip Sensbach, Lehman Twp., PA – pottery and sculpture artist; iron oxide glazed bowls.
To register or for more information visit the Conference website.
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7/18/2011 |
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