St. Peabody’s Relic: A Fragment of the True Coal

Joseph McShane

St. Peabody’s Relic: The Last Fragment of the True Coal was created in 1974 in a series of wearable fetishes made, not of feathers, bones and stones, but of Industrial Revolution objects: metals, nuts, bolts and magnifying lenses. St. Peabody’s Relic envisions a time in the distant future when all coal has been extracted from the earth and has become so lost in mythology that Mr. Peabody has become canonized and fragments of the true coal are objects of veneration. It is a reflection on the price paid for the extraction of natural resources, exemplified by the struggles and destruction wrought by the Peabody Coal Company on Black Mesa and the role played by Prescott College.

Copper, brass, stainless steel, glass, coal 3-1/2” x 3-1/2” x 1-1/2” NFS

St. Peabody’s Relic

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