SYMBOL: A little history

Your staff writer did a poor job of writing the article “Communist Plot — or just art?” unless he was just trying to stir up the public about conspiracies. Did your writer just take certain interviewees’ explanations about the symbolism without research? The writer certainly gave the conspiracy people quite a platform, not necessary for the top of the front page. Should have been inside the section.

The hammer and sickle is a symbol for labor representing the working class involved in the Russian revolution and now symbolizes socialism. The red X on the US side of the so-called art piece has no acknowledged symbolism except for a recently created comic character. Though I see the red x as a negative sign, not a railroad sign. The railroad crossing sign is white and black or yellow and black, not red, and, just as the hammer and sickle, has no direct connection to coal. The most common symbol for coal seems to be a coal car (used to remove coal from a mine), but there appears to be no universal or American sign for coal. This took less than five minutes to research on the internet.

Without a quote from the “artist” as to his intent, this appears to be an article to raise hackles. Frankly from the pictures and the article, the “art piece” went unnoticed for so long because it is just an object that has, at least to me, no artistic value.

The CDA Arts Commission could do a lot better in picking out art. Why a so-called piece of art about coal, which is not even a part of our local history?

MARCELLA LAYTON

Coeur d’Alene