I remember my 5th grade teacher had a rule in her classroom that struck fear into the hearts of children throughout the school. It was simply this – if she caught you in her classroom with chewing gum in your mouth she would have you place it on the tip of your nose for the remainder of the day.
If you were caught passing notes she pulled the students’ desks together so they faced each other and chained the desks together with an oversized bike lock. I don’t think these tactics had a lasting, harmful impact, and I secretly mourn the loss of these creative classroom management techniques. However, I would never want them employed on my children. But I digress … back to chewing gum!
The discovery of chewing gum is credited to the Mayans and Aztecs, although archaeologists recently found 9,000-year-old wads of chewed birch resin in Sweden. The modern version of gum was developed by the American inventor Thomas Adams Sr. and mass marketed by William Wrigley Jr. Today chewing gum is a $19 billion industry producing more than 100,000 tons of gum each year. Chewing gum has always had a storied reputation in our country: loved by some, seen as a vulgar habit by others.
Equating two fruitless and hollow activities, well-known architect Frank Lloyd Wright declared, “Television is chewing gum for the eyes.”
In the early 1990s patrons waiting in front of the Market Theater in downtown Seattle started to stick their ABC (already-been-chewed) gum to the walls of Post Alley. Now considered a collective work of art by some, the evolving, uncurated installation covers an area approximately 50 feet long and 15 feet high; it can also reach several inches thick. Although the smell and unsanitary nature of the wall can be off-putting it still attracts thousands of visitors. The bubble gum wall was used as a backdrop in the 2009 movie Love Happens and countless wedding photos. In 2015 the gum was removed and the wall steam-cleaned. More than 2,300 pounds of gum was removed, and the day the cleanup was completed the collective work began again. I wonder what my 5th grade teacher would have to say about this vernacular work of art..