Have you ever been worried about losing something that could be quite valuable? Antique furniture, paintings, cutlery, and other items are available.

Put yourself in this guy’s shoes for a moment. My name is Jared Whipple, and I’m a Connecticut mechanic. He came across extremely priceless artworks by an unknown artist that he almost discarded.

The mechanic was looking at an old farmhouse in September of 2017. There was a dumpster beside it with some strange objects in it. They were brightly colored and appeared to be wrapped in an unusual pattern, as if the wrappings had been done with care and precision.

They were works of art, and they appeared to be abstract art. They were discovered in the dumpster, and Jared was told. But why were they merely dumped here in this old dumpster if they weren’t trash?

George Martin, a friend of Jared’s, told him about the discarded artworks. It was surprising to come across so much art that had been left behind. He expressed himself as follows:

‘Seeing what appeared to be a lifetime’s worth of someone’s artwork being put into trash and headed for the landfill was heartbreaking and disturbing for us.’

It was time to try to figure out who the artist was, which could be difficult considering how long the pieces had been abandoned. In the art pieces, there was a distinct, recurrent motif. Specifically, mechanical imagery and plastic paints.

Whipple have to do some research to figure out who created these. Signing one’s work is a common practice among artists, and it proved to be a suitable beginning point.

He discovered an answer while looking through the works for a signature. The majority of the signatures simply said ‘F. Hines,’ which got him somewhere.

It wasn’t until he came across an article from 1961 that he discovered the entire name. ‘Francis Mattson Hines,’ it said. With this new information, Jared moved on to the next step.

He reached out to the artist’s associates and learnt a lot more. The pieces, according to Hollis Taggart, are: ‘I’d never seen work like this before, with real wrappings on the canvases itself and professionally done.’

Hines’ approach of using ‘wrappings’ was not his invention. Before him, Christo and Jeanne-Claude had employed them.

The artist draws inspiration from life and the works of others who have gone before them, as with any other art style. Whipple received permission to keep the artworks, which he intended to use in the future. It was fortunate that they were presently safe and sound.

What happened to Hines, though? Well, the artist had been gone for a while when Whipple discovered his work. The late artist, who died in 2016 at the age of 96, spent the latter years of his life in Connecticut.

His legacy, on the other hand, will live on. Thanks to Whipple and the Hollis Taggart gallery for exhibiting his work and selling some of it.

Many other great artists before Hines left similar legacies, but that’s the beauty of art. It continues to exist.

Who’d have guessed that such a priceless work of art and heritage would end up in a dumpster? Despite the fact that Hines is no longer alive, I’m sure he’d be pleased with what had happened here.