I began a series of phone conversations with Jack Trimper to talk about his art and life. He was a Baltimore artist, poet, and teacher who died recently at the age of 75. I didn’t know how serious his condition was during this time but I knew he couldn’t talk for five minutes without coughing his head off and cutting short the phone call so he could catch his breath. This continued off and on for a few weeks until his death last month. I wasn’t shocked, only surprised by how quickly his demise arrived. He told me that he was on the way out. At the time I didn’t think much of it because I’m not exactly the picture of good health either.
I met Jack in the early-1980s when life was full of possibilities, exciting ideas and crazy artistic expression. Youth has a way of fooling us. The party never ended while having a lot of living still left to do. Today the clockwork of the dearly departed is winding down faster. I better get in line. When the parties are all over you know it’s time to go.
The following are some excerpts from our phone talks.
Tom DiVenti: How did the Street School start on Hollins Street next to Hollins Market?
Jack Trimper: Let’s see, it was 1981. I was living in a big old Victorian house on Parkin St. in the west end of Baltimore. Things didn’t work out and sadly lost the house along with my marriage. But then that’s another story. I had enough money at the time so I could afford taking a pay cut teaching at the Baltimore Experimental High School as an English instructor. I was teaching English at Northwestern High School for five years prior, so I had the credentials to be part of the alternative education program known as the Experimental High School. Not a traditional school, it was kind of controversial at the time. Also, an opportunity arose back in ‘82 to occupy a storefront building on Hollins St. I began offering workshops for the kids in the West End or Westside neighborhood later known as Sowebo. It was a unique experience working with the students in the areas surrounding Hollins Market to create an artistic vision for a forgotten neighborhood.
TD: I was fortunate to be a small part of that early west side scene. I was hanging out with you and the local kids. I remember drawing on the sidewalk and street with pastel chalk sticks. They really loved to hang out there. It was a recreation center for the artistically gifted. This was long before the Cultured Pearl and the rest of that failed gentrification experiment.
JT: We did a lot of creative stuff there back then. I also had a darkroom in the back of the storefront for photography. Of course, the poetry readings, which you were also a big part of, helped to expand the cultural reach of the arts to a wider audience. Namely young inner-city kids who didn’t have access to the arts like their privileged, affluent neighbors. But it was a good thing for the young kids in the neighborhood and the community. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference in a positive way.
Jack died shortly after this last conversation. Since then three or four others have made the journey to wherever we go when we’re gone. Old acquaintances like Thea Osato and Mary Butler. Sowebo was a cute name for the west end of Baltimore. A city with an inferiority complex and less significant cultural diversity spread thin across the city neighborhoods that sustain it. It ain’t no NYC but it has its eccentric charm. Jack Trimper was a contributor to that wellspring of knowledge and creativity that makes Baltimore unique. I liked Jack's quiet dignity and style. His photographs are sublime. They capture a moment in the city’s ever-changing history. His tin can men sculptures are whimsical with fully articulated functional appendages like the Tin Man from Oz. I think Jack exemplified that because he had a big heart, and it was always growing bigger. His art gallery, also at the Street School, gave local artists a great outlet to showcase their work. His poetry readings were well-attended and exciting. Here’s an anecdote from one of his former students, Matt Nadol.
“I’m mulling over how he was unique among my teachers in our post-experimental high school days. He remained a teacher, though Chris Mason deserves credit for that too, Jack a little more so. The various incidents—I can briefly tell you one thing. I was at a house in Sowebo around late-1987 or early-1988. Seeing him, I’d either gone there with Asha Mulleinor or was drinking with Billy Savage the night before and crashed on the couch. I was excited to see Jack. At one point he asked me if I would go around the corner and pick him up a pack of cigarettes. I said yes, and he handed me the money. I said that I'd buy the cigarettes, and he said, No way, and thrust the money at me. Furthermore, I said that he’d been generous with me in the past for way more than a pack of cigs. He looked at me very insistently and said something to the effect that I could buy him lunch or pick up something else for him from the store. He had an absolute rule: he did NOT let others pay for his cigarettes! It was a code that he lived by. I forget what I bought him, though I bought his cigarettes with his money. I thought that, like many other moments, that was a post-teacher moment. One other is we were both at a rainbow gathering. At one of the camps the kids were gathered; people referred to it as Kiddie City. I said that in front of him, and he said that I shouldn't call it that; the kids preferred that it be called Kid City; they told him that themselves. Three thousand adults, and he was the only one that really listened to the kids.”
That is and was Jack Trimper.