The end of an era. J.J. hauls away the stumps. Photos by Mary Walton

By Charles Layton

Mary and I call it the “stump farm.” Others have called it the “stump yard” and “the telephone pole nursery.” It’s that vast field of wooden pilings in Asbury Park, just across the lake from Ocean Grove’s North End.

After plans fell through for condos there, the stump farm became a display space for spontaneous public art. In particular, a local graffiti artist known as “Stinky Cheese” painted many of the stumps with totem pole-like faces.

This weekend, when we strolled across the foot bridge into Asbury, we found that most of the stumps had been sawed off at ground level and a guy named J.J. was loading them up to be hauled away. He said he worked for the real estate company that owns the property.

He told us the painted stumps “were kind of being pilfered… People were hiding them in the bushes and taking them. It’s kind of crazy.” So now, he said, the stumps will be stored — for what future purpose remains unclear. (It’s also unclear what will eventually become of the vacant lot, except that for now it will get some landscaping.)

We made an effort to locate Stinky Cheese, but failed. He’s one elusive guy. J.J. knows him but doesn’t feel at liberty to divulge much information. He takes his name (pseudonym) from the many paintings of pungent cheese he has left on sidewalks and on the sides of buildings in Asbury — paintings which some self-styled art critics have considered to be defacements. We did find out that Stinky Cheese has been doing graffiti art locally for more than 30 years and that he never paints on new construction, only on buildings in various stages of wreckage or disrepair.

He is said to live in Ocean Grove, but, again, we were unable to pin that down.

He also sometimes goes by the name of “K-So,” apparently a play on the Spanish word for cheese.

We were kind of sorry to see his totem faces being hauled away. They were a bit reminiscent of Easter Island.