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Thursday, January 15, 1998 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 1C 





Hard coal fueled his dreams &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Down, down, down, C. Edgar Patience used to descend into gloomy shaftsBut
the Wilkes-Barre man wasn't a miner. He was an artist who collected his raw
material- anthracite coal- directly from its source. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Other people might have said coal was just a rock that you could burn in a
stove or a furnace, a cheap fuel you could use to bake a pie or heat your
home. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 But with his artist's eye, Patience saw in coal the potential for something
more. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 He knew that by carving and chiseling, sanding and polishing he could
sculpt those lumps of carbon into pieces of art that would amaze and dazzle. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Visit the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, and you'll
see three samples of his work from the 1950s and '60s. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Sparkling under the lights at the museum entrance is a mammoth piece that
reminds museum employee Richard Stanislaus of the Materhorn mountain peak in
the Swiss Alps. It weighs 1,230 pounds. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The museum is also home to a bust of George Washington. Patience gave the
first president extra broad shoulders, to symbolize that the foundation of the
nation rested on him. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 And when the artist wanted a break from hurrying to finish commissioned
pieces- such as the replica of a vacuum cleaner that went to the Hoover
archive building in Ohio or the statue of a bulldog that went to Mack Truck
headquarters in Allentown- he'd relax by taking his time carving a miniature
coal town. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The longer you look at the tiny village, which also is housed at the
Scranton museum, the more details you notice. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Earlier this week, curator Chester Kulesa and Stanislaus, his assistant,
inspected the coal town with delight. Though they'd both admired it many times
before, they discovered nuances they'd previously overlooked. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 They saw images of miners, smaller than a thumb nail, plying tiny shovels
and axes. A row of patch houses and a steepled church were more readily
visible, along with a breaker, drag line and bucket. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "They're almost like little jewels he laid in there," Stanislaus said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 No one knows how many more buildings, people or symbols the 65-year-old
Patience would have added to the piece. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 He died from complications of pneumonia in 1972, leaving that as his only
unfinished project. Family members say the coal dust he inhaled while
sculpting- even though he wore a surgical mask- had weakened the artist's
respiratory system and given him anthracosis, which is also known as black
lung disease. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 But Patience lived long enough to enjoy local, national and international
recognition. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 In the Wyoming Valley, Patience explained his work to visitors at the Fine
Arts Fiesta and priests celebrated Mass on a coal altar he had fashioned for
the King's College chapel. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Readers across the country learned about his expertise in the March 1970
issue of Ebony magazine. The article was titled, "Coal Black Art: Sculptor
creates masterpieces from penny-a-pound anthracite." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Former Congressman Dan Flood purchased some of his work as gifts to
American presidents. Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division commissioned a
piece they presented to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands in 1969, on the 25th
anniversary of the liberation of Holland from Nazi occupation. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Along with the soldiers, congressman and queen who admired his work,
Patience's widow, Alice, said "I think I was one of his greatest fans." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Cradling a paperweight in her palm, she marveled at the intricate details
her husband could add to a piece of anthracite. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The scene shows three figures, wearing togas, posing by a tree. You can see
the folds in their clothing and the leaves on the tree. Each figure is about
half an inch tall. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Alice Patience, a retired manager from Blue Cross and Blue Shield, didn't
appreciate the coal dust that somehow always managed to seep from her
husband's studio into the rest of the house. But, she added with a fond smile,
"I've always admired his work, because he could go from the tiniest little
thing to the largest. He could do anything." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Years ago, Alice Patience wrote a brochure to tell the story of her
husband's life and work. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 His grandfather, Crowder Patience, had been a slave who escaped from the
South and fought with the Union Army during the Civil War. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 His father, Harry B. Patience, worked as a breaker boy- picking rock and
slate from coal- in the late 19th century. In his spare time, he whittled
objects from the hard black coal. And when he grew up, he opened a coal
souvenir business in West Pittston. Harry Patience taught his six sons to make
hearts, Bibles and other souvenir items. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Edgar was the only son to stay with the business. But while he continued to
make souvenirs, he became more and more eager to sculpt. While it was a
financial risk to become a full-time artist, he and his wife decided in the
early 1950s that he should try. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "It was a struggle to make ends meet," Alice Patience wrote in the
brochure. But, "as the years passed, Edgar's reputation became established." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Every piece he made was an original; no two were identical. "He is
creative. He does not believe in mass production," Alice Patience wrote. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Describing how she used to watch "a dedicated black man lovingly handle a
piece of coal ... using his fertile imagination and creative hands to turn

Hard Coal Fueled His Dreams Down, Down, Down, C. Edgar Patience Used To Descend Into Gloomy Shafts.