The film explores the life and work of Wharton Esherick (1887-1970) a painter and furniture maker who came of age during the Industrial Revolution. At a time when America was enamored with consumerism and mass industry, Wharton moved to a rural farm outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began making sculptural wood furniture one piece at a time. The Wharton Esherick Museum provided Coal with unparalleled access to its archives. The resulting forty-one-minute documentary, three years in the making, brings together hundreds of photographs with pre-recorded oral histories and interviews with contemporary woodworkers, historians, members of the Esherick Museum staff, Esherick family members, and patrons.
