The product of 2022 consists of assemblage in various media.
    Some pieces were of metal.  A few were of the continuing series in the motif of metal men known as cankind.  Another was a portrait of odd pieces.
    Some pieces were composed of layers applied to a mosaic of tetra-pak tiles fastened with brass fasteners.  Applied with various tapes including holographic radiance.  "Aural" was photographed in the natural light of the single source, the sun dazzling the spectrum.  
    Some pieces were of wood.  Two new faces coalesced.  Two other pieces which had been "on the workbench" became.  Another was compoaed of linens of meaning.
    Also with the recent gift of a b&w printer 3 volumes of  poetic material were also assembled and self-published.

  MOTHER and OTHER LINES #2

          “Off the Charts” or  aka “Clump of Trees”

This assemblage, and indeed the series began when someone gifted me with a packet of navigation charts in California in 1989.  We recently had left a “Healing Global Wounds” action at the Nevada Test Site near Mercury, NV.  These charts, were, upon closer inspection very interesting to one who studies maps.  The odd circumstance in this collection of research, fine lithography and detail on archival paper was that there were 4 identical charts along with the others,  On this map was the evidence (no longer on the currently offered chart) that someone thought it was acceptable to dump chemical munitions off the coast of Southern California in the Santa Cruz Basin.

I was stunned at the detailed accuracy of the coastline and the landmarks that guided the sailor off the coast.  There were clumps of trees, yellow cliffs, water towers, and more.  Most of the offshore areas were also designated as a Pacific Missile Range.  These maps had dates of approximately 1960’s(?) and1979 (editions 15 and 22).  These I proceeded to cut, tear, colorize and assemble into a series I called “Mother and Other Lines” as a way of justifying continued storage.  And so, with the materials on hand I colorized fragments and sections that I believed said something about man-made lines and usages upon the natural lines of landforms, waterlines and contours.  That was 1990.  In 1991 I revisited the series and assembled two “first-cut” compositions: “Mother and Other Lines #1” & “#2”.  Both needed further elaboration.  

The fragile assemblage that “Mother and Other Lines #1” was then -- I exhibited anyway in Adler Gallery in 2009.  In 2012 I revisited and took the loose assemblage and mounted it within a frame now bonded with acrylic medium, no longer fragile.    

The most recent revisitation addressed “Mother and Other Lines #2”.  It was 1991 when the elements were placed in proximity and loosely assembled with brass fasteners and dots of rubber cement then rolled up and carried for 30 years.  With some further visualization I recently decided to cut, tear and add to the assemblage with three other pieces in the “Mother and Other Lines” series in order to embellish the underlying lines and forms with colorized lines and forms.

Lush islands float above spiral interactions under the seas at fathoms’ depths.    Central is the proof that of the unthinking and limited foresight of placing chemical munitions buried at sea.  Dangerous substances were dumped in the homes of friendly and edible species off the coast of populated Santa Barbara, California.  

I consider this one site the poster-child of all the continuing placements both governmentally and illegally into the environment because beneath the waves make economic sense to both.  Beneath the surface became unseen, and storage of unwieldy weapons were diluted and awaited rusted releases.  This assemblage is my attempt to create an image that represents all the facilitated disposals of dangerous substances at the behest of authoritative and criminal agencies.  

And so, given the message in the maps I determined to make the point visually.  I cut, cobbled and pasted until I determined and assembled an image that satisfied, that I thought would attract eyes to the beauty or devil in the details.

The double helix is also a cosmic formation.  The cosmic spiral is formed by two interacting filaments each torqued in an electrically charged current and traveling in reverse inclinations.  A spiral can be discerned as a formation in a cross-section of a double-helix also known as a Birkland Current.  And so -- a spiral is what composes, comprises and connects our universe on a micro and macro scale.  

Over the 100+ hours of study, composition, drafts, engineering of presentation, constructing, deconstructing, and final assemblage the piece garnered in my mind several titles.  I chose “Off the Charts,” because most of the “dumpings” were just off this chart.  This is, indeed, one minor dumping ground under water. It reflects the thinking of the day when detrimentally devastating health effects were disregarded in favor of economically beneficial disappearances of irresponsibly created “munitions”.  On land people are still dealing with dumps of radioactive uranium mine tailings.  This is another mess bequeathed to the population to absorb and suffer and monitor and pay for thousands of years and generations of children.  

My second choice of titles is “Clump of Trees” drawing attention to the 1 square inch the piece focuses.  It also contains the phoneme “um”; which is for me, another poem.

Jack Trimper

May, 2017

Baltimore