Helen Sherry spent her youth in Pittsburg. She regularly returns for her school reunion. As with most of us, not all of her memories are always pleasant ones.

“As a child, a grade-schooler, I remember the days when the smoke from the coal-fired smelters of the steel mills hung so low over the city that school would be canceled.”

One morning, many years later, Helen awoke with a theme for a painting in her mind. She mentioned to me, “I want to tell the story of all the miners who have given their lives digging coal so that all of us could enjoy the benefits.” She was to name the painting Coal Country.

A few months later, on August 5, 2007, another mine tragedy occurred, but not in the Appalachians. Triggered by an earth tremor, the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah claimed the lives of six miners.