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Three of Tom Leytham’s  watercolor paintings of former industrial sites are on view in the show.  The processing building at the Elizabeth Copper Mine South Strafford has been destroyed during the EPA hazardous waste processing. In Eden at Vermont Asbestos, a covered conveyor belt brought the asbestos tailings up the mountain from the processing plant.  (On a snowy day, it looked like the Great Wall of China snaking down the mountain!)  The pole derrick at the Eureka Slate Quarry in Poultney was located back from the edge of the quarry and required a lookout at the edge of pit to direct the lift.

Bennington Museum’s major summer/fall exhibition for the year explores the historical and cultural significance of Vermont’s “mineral wealth.” Vermont is the only state in the union with three official state rocks: granite, marble, and slate. From the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s quarrying and mining was the state’s leading non-agricultural industry. In addition to our state rocks, often referred to as dimensional stones, which have been used to build monuments and buildings throughout the world, Vermont has also been a leading producer of asbestos and talc (the state mineral during the mid-1900s) and Bennington had a significant iron industry from the late 1700s through the mid-1800s. Topics explored in the exhibition range from the economic and cultural significance of mining and minerals in our state’s identity to the environmental and human health impacts that the mining has had and continues to have on our state’s landscape and people. These stories are told through historic and contemporary works of art, by artists including James Hope, Edward Burtynsky, and Jenny Holzer, photographs, archival materials, and material culture. The exhibition also features a section of aesthetically and geologically exceptional mineral specimens from throughout the state, including world-class examples of Vermont’s state gem, fire orange grossular garnet from the Belvidere Mountain Quarries in Lowell and Eden.