Gum Tree, Glazed Stoneware, colored porcelain, glaze, wood

Location: Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, 1986.

Blistering hot weather, scowls from the humidity. The drive from our home in Emerson, New

Jersey felt closer to five hours rather than the hour and a half it actually took.

It was the time of Esprit, Benetton, jelly sandals and inaugural pimples. Hordes of

families and thrill seekers would fill this amusement park all summer. To ride the popular attractions like Roaring Rapids, there would be a byzantine passageway in which hundreds of people would wait…. A wanna-be regulatory sign was posted to the right saying, “2 HOURS WAIT FROM THIS POINT.” Footsteps forward were reluctantly sanctioned to us from the staff a mile away, we were occasionally – and mercifully -- under the tentacular arms of trees lining our passageway. They looked at us as if they were prisoners. Victims of unwanted chewing gum impinging onto them by hundreds of people over the years who stood in this same spot. The meeting of international DNA coming together, at this time: an Ellis Island proxy from normal work and scholastic life.

Up until WWII, chewing gum was artefactually made from a latex sap that come from the sapodilla tree. With the help of technology, chemists were able to create artificial gum bases out of rubber. On this line at Great Adventure, people unknowingly returned this sap to the source, although the original trees are from Central America. The rubber hues spanning from jogging suit pinks to faded tans and off whites. Informational gradations deteriorating in the hot New Jersey sun evaporating gases into the atmosphere.

Jennie Jieun Lee

Long Beach, CA 2018