Post Industrial Wonderlands | Jaci Rice

• Technicolor Structure Mini

  Acrylic, Panel, 4 x 4. Miniature study for the larger (Play Structure) piece with brilliant, but muted coloring. Mounted and framed in a wood frame with a sawtooth and twine hanger attached as another hanging option.

• Green Wall Updraft

  Acrylic, Panel, 8 x 8 x 1. Silhouettes of exhaust hatches against the sky, seemingly resting atop a green wall of corrugated metal. Unframed with finished sides and a sawtooth hanger.

• Lime Plant Light Up

  Acrylic, Panel, 8 x 8 x 1. A favorite subject of mine - the lime plant across the river from route 22 when traveling into Ohio. Sits on the water's edge, skim milk white garnished by heavy machinery and barges waiting o…

• Blue Steel

  Acrylic, Panel, 8 x 8 x 1. With a nod to Zoolander, this Cleveland Cliff's cerulean blue facade seems to smolder its look at the passing cars up on the throughway. It's reflection in the puddle below is what did it for…

• Above The Coal

  Acrylic, Panel, 20 x 16. Driving past the coal mines, I look closer and notice that where the black hills were once growing higher with each load, they are now gone or diminished and the standing structures once used fo…

• Before the Fall

  Acrylic, Panel, 16 x 12. Driving on the lifted main road cutting through Weirton, before the felling of the Basic Oxygen Plant (the most iconic building of the mill in the skyline of the town), I looked up through the d…

• GateAvailable

  Acrylic, Paper, 23" x 18". Acrylic painting on primed paper, mounted on wood panel.

• Trio Of Coils 2024

  Acrylic, Panel, 12 x 12. These large coils of tightly wound steel leave the city slowly for their destinations ratcheted tightly down into train cars or onto the low, flatbed trucks. The coils really don't look that hea…

• Riggers Tag

  Acrylic, Panel, 32 x 16. Hearing stories from the locals about the mill were always exciting. Job pride was obvious - a reason, I think, why the closure was so hard to realize for some. The "Riggers" were like the dared…

• Play Structure

  Acrylic, Panel, 36 x 40. The left side of my Main Street Bridge painting created just a few years ago contains this structure. In it, the structure is surrounded and still in use. This moment finds the structure a naked…

• Coalfield Conveyor

  Acrylic, Panel, 26 x 32. Though this was a captured scene from a trip down the east coast, it is reminiscent of the coal fields from back home. They seemed to go on forever into the fuzzy horizon line. The blue is sky i…

• Chutes & Ladders 2024

  Acrylic, Panel, 40 x 36. This was painted alongside what could be its companion piece, Play Structure, and derived its name from the notions of how children might respond to this scene. Parts of it remind me of the popu…

• Cerulean Blue Facade

  Acrylic, Panel, 28 x 30. Gate 5 of the previous Weirton Steel Mill, now a Cleveland Cliffs. Under the new ownership, the faded seafood green with rusty brown highlights were thickly coated in the Cleveland Cliffs cerule…

• Through The Mist

  Acrylic, Panel, 16 x 20. A rainy, foggy day - typical for the area. Overlooking the slippery roofs of the warehouse buildings of the mills. The stacks rising up in succession, stairs curling around them like decorations…

• Miniature Tank

  Acrylic, Panel, 2.5 x 2.5. Miniature painting of a large tank done onsite during a plein air painting session. I enjoyed being able to fit such a huge, hulking structure onto this tiny canvas panel square. It is in a ha…

• Rivesville Humming (Memories from Steve Konya, Photographer)

  Acrylic, Panel, 32 x 34 x 1. Interpreted from photos taken by photographer Steve Konya of West Virginia. His family holds part of their story there and his memories are nuggets of light into Rivesville's history. My fav…

• Revealed

  Acrylic, Panel, 42 x 32 x 1. As the sides were peeled away of the most interesting and iconic mill building, the B.O.P. (Basic Oxygen Plant), the interior structures met the sunlight and revealed were the criss-crossing…

• Salamander Smoke & Tower

  Acrylic, Panel, 10 x 8 x .75. One of the numerous metal towers that hold power and communication lines throughout the mill area. Orange brown smoke rises behind it from where the "salamander", the leftover part at the b…

• Lee Ave Blockade

  Acrylic, Panel, 8" x 10". My husband remembers his mom piling he and his siblings, all in their pjs along with their pillows, into their family car late at night to go wait by this bridge for this dad when he'd get off…

• Roadside Attraction

  Acrylic, Panel, 8" x 10". It looks like a defunct loading dock. But what I see is a stage itching for live music, lawn chairs, food trucks and people hanging out - the river, hills and mill as its backdrop. I've already…

• Acid Plant

  Acrylic, Panel, 30" x 21". The acid plant sat close to the road and railroad crossing. It never caught my attention until they began its demolition. A place where the steel stripping and tempering acid was made and test…

• Coal Lines

  Acrylic, Panel, 20 x 16 x .5. A bit farther south, where the state turns into its namesake of "Wild and Wonderful", the coal mines grow plentiful. Once, while driving down through the Appalachian hills, I crested a turn…

• Main Street Bridge

  Acrylic, Panel, 32 x 28 x 1. Looking up while traveling through the city, you can see the hills climbing on either side of the valley. The river is to the side and parts of the mill and other industrial areas are nestle…

• Village

  Acrylic, Panel, 32 x 24 x 1. Cold day looking out over the concrete barrier towards the Tin Mill section of the steel mill. The clustered and piled structures were reminiscent of a small, intimate village where everythi…