SubscribeFebruary 2012
The fetching appeal of Scottie dogs (0)
2/02/12 •
The silhouette is unmistakable. The long head ending in a square jaw and a plum of a nose, an elongated body wrapped in a black shaggy coat and a quarter-moon tail extended in the air. It is the Scottie dog, and it kept nudging into my presence at practically every auction house I went to. I’ve seen [...]
Antique bread maker leads to black inventor (2)
2/01/12 •
The metal pot with the army green patina looked like a thicker version of an Asian wok there on the auction table. I slid off the lid and saw a jumble of heavy metal parts inside. On the lid were some deeply embossed words that led off with this inscription: ”The ‘General’ Seamless Bread Maker.” It was the strangest-looking [...]
January 2012
Sitting high in a Chun King rickshaw (0)
1/31/12 •
I went searching for the rickshaw as soon as I got to the auction house. I had seen a photo on the website and my auction buddy Janet had also mentioned it to me. I suppose that it struck us both as strange that a rickshaw would be up for auction. They are not a [...]
Chocolate molds turn banker’s head (0)
1/30/12 •
I spotted the nondescript flip-over chalkboard placard first. It resembled so many I had seen outside New York restaurants advertising their menus, and most times, they faded into the sidewalk. This one was a bit different, though, because printed on it was the word “Chocolat.” My friends and I had just left a chocolate café [...]
A different view of artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (0)
1/27/12 •
My friend Valorie pulled me aside as I stood listening to a curator expounding on artist Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting “The Annunciation,” its brilliant light and shadows illuminating not only the painting itself but its message. She led me to an equally impressive painting a few feet away. I have this print, she said, pointing to [...]
A woman’s 1940s nursing photos (0)
1/26/12 •
It was a simple cardboard box, sitting low in front of some computer towers and near some laptops on a side table in a room at the auction house. The box seemed out of place in that spot, overshadowed by all around it, discarded. As I approached it, I saw writing on the side in [...]
A family’s WWII ration books (0)
1/25/12 •
When I came upon the handful of books on the auction table, I wasn’t sure what they were. Then I saw the title: War Ration Book 4. And then I saw Book 3 and several others. They were coupon books issued to U.S citizens during a time when homegrown and imported goods became scarce as [...]
The intricate art of Roland Ayers (2)
1/24/12 •
I wasn’t seated on the sofa long before Sheila Whitelaw Ayers was up and out of her own seat. We had been talking about her artist husband Roland Ayers, who was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. She wanted me to see some of his beautiful works that were hanging on the walls of their [...]
Wanna buy a hot tub? Cheap? (0)
1/23/12 •
The hot tub was literally the elephant in the room. You could not walk from one room in the auction house to another without practically bumping into it. As big as it was, though, I had not noticed it until an auction-regular asked me if I had seen it. The tub was invisible to me as [...]
Those menacing ‘Fallout Shelter’ signs (0)
1/20/12 •
“We got under our desks and covered our heads – like that could stop the radiation,” I overheard the woman say to the two other women with her. They were standing in front of an auction table cramped with tarnished silverware pieces, but her thoughts were sparked by a bright yellow sign just behind them. The [...]
Old dirty and ghostly pay phones (0)
1/19/12 •
The four phones looked like they had not been washed or handled in years. They were grimy with dirt from storage, the weather and a lot of sweaty hands. Sitting there on the floor under a table at the auction house, they were ghostly relics. They were all ATT touch-tone phones that once cost a [...]
Your own electric shock device to relieve pain (0)
1/18/12 •
When I saw the odd-looking device in the box on the auction table, I wasn’t sure what it was. It had the metal handle of a flashlight with a small roller at one end. There was also a protrusion of wires attached to a flat square pad with a sponge on top that resembled a pin [...]
The distinct art of Sarai Sherman (0)
1/17/12 •
Sarai Sherman was about 26 years old when she exhibited a painting called “Hericane Time” in an art show at Philadelphia’s Pyramid Club back in 1948. I found her name and the piece listed in a catalog that I bought about two years ago at auction. The club was formed as an exclusive enclave for [...]
Hemingway’s ‘Old Man’ in 1952 Life magazine (0)
1/16/12 •
As I routinely do at auction, I was flipping through a stack of Life magazines when I came across a face that stared pointedly out at me. It was a man whom I recognized for all the wondrous stories he has written in novels, novellas and short stories. The face on the cover was writer [...]
More poor stuffed animals (0)
1/12/12 •
Somewhere an elephant or rhinoceros is missing a foot, a fox is missing a mate, a piranha is not terrorizing other fish, and a boar is not out scavenging for its supper. What was once alive is no more, because each of these animals and a few others were snuffed out long ago and re-figured at [...]
A stack of paintings by Haitian artists (1)
1/11/12 •
The auction house was cold as usual as I walked through the door despite a heater blasting full force near the front. The auctioneer had threatened a few times to take his auction elsewhere to escape this freezer of a building. As I moved past one table crammed with stuff – albums, new dolls, books and junk – [...]
The heart and soul of old boxing gloves (0)
1/10/12 •
“I coulda been a contender,” the auctioneer joked, quoting the famous Marlon Brando line from the movie “On The Waterfront.” He was reaching behind himself on the glass counter for one of two pairs of old boxing gloves. I’d seen the gloves as I did my walk-through before the auction started. I didn’t just see them, though; I [...]
A new look at ‘Porgy and Bess’ (0)
1/09/12 •
The play “Porgy and Bess” has never been one to will me to see it. I’ve never been curious about this folk opera written, produced and performed during a time when black people were not seen as real but as caricatures. So, I had my own idea of what it must have looked like. The brothers George and Ira [...]
Giving your kitchen a country charm (1)
1/06/12 •
I have a few vintage items in my kitchen, some canned food labels and vegetable seed packets that I had framed and are now hanging on my walls. Some are authentic, others are cardboard reproductions. Vintage mixed in with the contemporary in any décor adds a certain flair and flavor. This juxtaposition has a way [...]
When being a wife was far from funny (0)
1/05/12 •
The paper sign stood out like the proverbial sore thumb there on a middle rack at the auction house. Once, I’m sure, it was a hoot, but it felt like an anachronism now. Its calculations showed the worth of a woman way back when – there was no date on the sign but its appearance [...]
I started going to auctions to fuel my love for African American art – but at a bargain. I love the old masters: Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith. I wanted to find their works and discover other veteran artists whose works may have been hiding in an attic or basement, and forgotten.
