Behind the Story
Tom Hansell—Whitesburg, Kentucky
“Coal Bucket Outlaw”
by Mat Schwarzman
Tom Hansell, the protagonist for our story entitled “Coal Bucket Outlaw” (pp. 43-57) was one of the first artists chosen to be in the guidebook, and like most, was chosen by a national advisors group made up of writers, academics and practitioners in the field.
Tom Hansell |
Our intention was to identify as broad a range of artists to focus upon as possible, in order to communicate the breadth of our field in terms of artistic disciplines, social issues, types of communities, parts of the country, ethnic backgrounds, etc. Each advisor nominated their “Top Ten” and submitted an email form.
(view Sample Nomination Form PDF)
In Tom’s case, it was his group that was chosen. Appalshop www.appalshop.org is a 30+ year old multi-disciplinary arts and education center in the heart of Appalachia producing original films, video, theater, music and spoken-word recordings, radio, photography, multimedia, and books.
Because my New Orleans research team (made up of photographer Mimi Zarsky, research assistant Kimberly Dummons, dog Lundi and myself) was within two days’ drive of Whitesburg, KY, we decided to go by car this time (instead of the usual first class flying, of course). We spent about two days in Whitesburg, meeting with Tom, his colleagues at Appalshop, and folks in the community.
When I returned home, I listened to over 3 hours of audio interviews that I had conducted with Tom and others. I took pages of notes trying to represent and wrangle Tom’s complex experiences as a documentarian into a coherent, linear narrative.
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(27:43) AUDIO: Interview with Tom Hansell |
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 (56 KB) PDF: Mat’s notes from the interviews |
I became fascinated with Tom’s lifelong obsession with the complex system through which we receive electricity. Tom’s feeling for the important, but compromised role played in the system by coal-hauling truckers—”coal bucket outlaws”—permeates his life.
That’s one of the main points that our cartoonist, the amazing Ellen Forney (www.ellenforney.com), tried to communicate in her representation of Tom’s story. Here is a “before” and “after” of one of her earlier sketches, as we grappled with making potentially very dry material interesting and easy to understand.
Before
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After
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Another way we dealt with this issue was to do something unique in the book: following the Tom Hansell story, we added a two-page ‘visual music video’ based on the song “Coal Bucket Outlaw” that inspired Tom’s title. Using the song as her guide, Ellen found some great ways to focus the reader’s attention on the very human side of our coal-hauling, electricity-producing world.
Click here to watch the “Coal Bucket Outlaw” visual music video
