This painting relates to "Layered Lives" in its reflection on the connectedness between fishing and coal mining families. However, it looks at the more individual experience of the women of these families. In Aberdeen, there is an area of the city called Footdee, (pronounced "Fittie" by local people), situated along the North Sea, where fishing families lived in row houses, such as you see from the back in the lower center of this painting. The chimneys are bent away from the sea to protect the inhabitants from the robust waves that wash over the sea walls and rooftops during stormy weather.
Inside the housing complex, the dwellings are arranged in squares which surround a system of gutters and water taps for cleaning and gutting the fish. This was the work of women, from early morning until late in the evenings, sometimes in bitterly cold weather, whenever the fish came in. The women, known as "herring lassies", sold the fish as well, toting their precious cargo on their backs in wicker baskets.
These women had in common with the women of the coal mining families, not only a life of hard work, but also the aspect of risk and the unknown. A man goes out to sea...will he come back? A man goes underground....will he come home that night?
So this image in the upper left of the painting represents the women whose men worked in the Pocahontas Mine, the first coal mine in southwest Virginia, established in the early 1800's and worked primarily by eastern European immigrants. After only a year of operation, the mine exploded, killing all 114 men inside. The women in those days were kept back from the entrance of the mine, and roped off until the news of the fate of their men was brought to them. The woman on the right side of the painting is also waiting, already knowing that her husband has died at sea, but still hoping that his body will wash to shore so that she may give him a proper burial. This painting is owned by Charlotte and Harold Williamson.
Ellen Elmes
PO Box SVCC
Richlands, VA 24641-1101
email: ellen.elmes@sw.edu
phone: 276.964.7205
fax: 276.964.7720