LEWISTON — To a layman, the intricate, hand-drawn, black-and-white mural is a little “Where’s Waldo?” meets “I Spy.”

Emily Simons sees it as something much more important: history, metaphor and grassroots activism, all rolled into one.

It is, she said, “a storytelling tapestry.”

Simons, 29, and Emma Hornback, 28, spoke to more than a dozen attendees of the Great Falls Forum on Thursday about “The True Cost of Coal,” the 8- by 16-foot mural created by six illustrators and four researchers and planners over three years.

The drawing — filled with cute animals tossed together with scary monsters in a fantastical world decimated by coal mining and production — was done by the Beehive Design Collective, a Machias-based group that creates non-copyrighted images to be used in education and community organizing.

“Our mission is to cross-pollinate the grassroots,” Simons said. 

The coal mural required Beehive members to travel to the Appalachian Mountains to learn about coal mining’s effect on the area. Members returned with a basic story outline that included a brief history of the region, the introduction of coal mining and mountaintop removal mining, residents’ struggles, and one possible future for the region.

The mural was designed to be almost completely devoid of words so that everyone could understand it, even people who cannot read well or who do not speak English. It was also designed to include only plants, animals and objects as characters — no people — so viewers don’t stereotype the characters. In “The True Cost of Coal,” a family of frogs works in the mines while a centipede wages a campaign against the mining company and birds try to repair the land.

For viewers who do need words to tie it all together, the group has created a storybook to go along with the mural.

“It’s kind of like a decoder ring,” Simons said.

The group, formed 10 years ago to create educational, stone mosaic murals, now sells and gives away posters of its pen-and-ink murals, including “The True Cost of Coal.” Its goal: to educate as many people as possible about environmental and social issues.

“What we’re doing right now wasn’t what we thought our primary goal would be, but people responded to this form,” Hornback said. “We’re the poster people.”

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