The King Con Ore Bin Ink Project - Part 1
In which I share an ambitious project I've been secretly working on all summer
At the beginning of the summer, I was commissioned by the city of Park City to create a piece of art inspired by the King Con Ore Bin to commemorate its historic preservation. What’s an ore bin you ask? Well, it’s a bin you put ore in of course, and this one, the King Con Ore Bin sits on the side of the Claim Jumper ski run on Park City Mountain Resort. And I spent this whole summer gaining inspiration from this defunct bit of mining history to create a work of art for the 2023 Annual Cindy Matsumoto Historic Preservation Award.
If you know my work from years past, you’ll know that summer is when I’m out foraging and making inks, and this year was no different. Except this time, I went to one location - the King Con Ore Bin (KCOB), and foraged for plants and collected little bits of material to make a whole bunch of living inks (around 20, although some of them didn’t work). I collected flowers, pine cones, mushrooms, lichens, rusty bits of metal, copper wire, plaster, charcoal, and more. The hike out and back to the Ore Bin was around three hours round trip, plus time for foraging, painting, and discovering. And I went out to the KCOB a number of times this summer.
The plan for the art piece:
Forage for plants and materials within view of the KCOB site
Make a collection of living inks from foraged materials
Make a series of paintings from said living inks
Let the awarding committee choose their final painting
Decide what to do with the rest of the paintings
Now if only I had kept it that simple... because once I got out there the first time, I became obsessed. I collected plants and material I thought would make good inks and for posterity, I kept track of all the plants I found along with any other materials that were in an around the site like bones, amazing jelly cup mushrooms, charcoal, bits of wire and rust, trash, all the flowers, feathers and so much more.
Then I was like, well what did the mine actually look like? So I went to the Park City Museum and worked with Dalton Gackle, the curator/historian to pull up all the pictures they had of the mine and any maps or information they had about the site. Read more about the mine here via Park City Museum (such a great website and resource!)
The KCOB is all that remains now of the fabled King Con Mine Complex, which originally started around 1880 and went through a number of owners and phases before mining in Park City and around the West died out. When the ski industry took over, old overburden (stuff pulled out from the shaft that isn’t wanted) and tailings (stuff left over after wanted ore is removed) were smoothed out to make way for ski runs. For the King Con Mine, all that remains is this bin, and in 2022, Calder Richards Consulting Engineers and Xcavation Company completed the renovation to ensure the bin would remain standing as a reminder of our past.
And because I couldn’t quite figure out where this Ore Bin was in the photos, I contacted the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History to see if they knew anything, and boy howdy, did they ever. I got a personal tour of the mine site by Sandy Brumley and Melissa Clark, who took me up via ski lift to easily get up to the Ore Bin and we walked around comparing historical photos, aerial tramway alignments, and historic fire maps to see if the bin was in its original place and how it was used. Want to know more about local Park City mining history? Take one of their amazing walking tours.
Here’s a short video clip of what it looked like before and now.
Sandy even phoned in a friend, a mining expert named Mark Danninger, and between them all, we *think* this bin might have actually been used for coal, not ore (sad), and was probably moved from its original location to make way for the ski run (reasonable). I am so grateful to my mining history experts for sharing their knowledge and their time on this project.
Meanwhile, I hadn’t actually made any art yet! I was still collecting plants and materials, as well as information, and then making the inks. Learning about the history of the place seemed just as important to me as the inks and the art. Smashing around in the woods looking for the remains of the bunkhouse foundations and the water tank seemed somehow critical and just as important as seeing if I could make an ink from Pink Yarrow. And YES! You can find a pale pink Yarrow in the wilds sometimes, which makes a completely different colored ink than the white one. Yellow Yarrow also makes a different colored ink, but there wasn’t any there.
The preservation of the KCOB and the other mine remains are a visible reminder of the collective history of Park City, representing the industry of our mining era and the people who lived it. And it should be noted, that of course miners in Park City were not the first people in this area and we need to acknowledge the presence and history of the local native people, the Shoshone. Surrounding the Ore Bin is a wild and beautiful location filled with flowers, plants, trees, and animals that have maintained their presence throughout the evolution of this town. While the KCOB is no longer active, the area around it is still teeming with life.
Preserving the KCOB is one way of protecting our history, but another way is to create a work of art that celebrates that history of industry and nature. My work creating living inks from foraged plants and matter will be used to preserve the beauty of this site through the colors found there. I love making and working with these handmade living inks, because it’s a way to create art with the help of nature, and also, my favorite, to spend more time outdoors. What began as an experiment 4 years ago has become an obsession with using natural materials to make art.
Each year, I create a new series of paintings using inks I’ve made from nature. It continues to be an exciting new realm for me to see what is possible and share the beauty of the natural world with others. This project with the KCOB is my first site-specific work to collect materials from one single location to create art with. In the past, I have collected materials from many places creating works that are more about color and feeling, but this has provided me an exciting opportunity to explore what I can create from one location.
So, what’s next? Well, after a summer of gathering, collecting and processing, I made a collection of inks and then a series of 21 (well actually 37) ink & encaustic paintings. I am currently working with the Historic Preservation Advisory Board to help them choose their final painting that will then go on to be included in Park City’s official art collection and hang inside City Hall. I also hope to put together a small book explaining the history of the mine and the process of making the art as well as the complete collection of all of the finished artworks.
I actually just finished the paintings this week and am very excited to share the final results. But you’ll have to be patient, because I also have to finish the artwork for my solo encaustic show at Gallery MAR “Metabolizing Change” which opens November 3rd here in Park City. SO, stay tuned for Part 2 when I share the inks and the final works of art. PS, email info@gallerymar.com to get on the email preview list for my new solo show.
Big thanks again to Park City, Cindy Matsumoto, the Park City Historical Preservation Board, the Park City Museum and Dalton Grackle, Melissa Clark, Sandy Brumley, Mark Danninger, all the people who built and worked in the Silver King Con Mine, and of course Matt Meinhold for all their help over the course of this project.