Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Art
It’s not often that I come across paintings or drawings of Native Americans at auction. And when I do, they’re usually images of chiefs and warriors in native dress, romanticized portraits from the nation’s early…
To the naked eye, the planks of wood were just that – slabs of natural wood, two shaped liked a boot, the others with fancy edges. But to the trained eye of an artisan, there stood…
The bid sheet said it all. Back and forth, back and forth, the two women had gone at it, both wanting this loving lithograph of a mother and daughter at the piano. I understood their…
Posted in Art
Something about the child wearing a yellow raincoat in the painting was endearing. I couldn’t put my finger on it, though. Maybe it was the sense of isolation, a solitary child alone in the rain.…
Posted in Art, and collectibles
The man was visibly perturbed. The auctioneer had just ended bidding on the vintage Coke tray at $55 and given it to an absentee bidder. The man was heatedly protesting. He had accepted the final bid, he…
Posted in Art, Black history, collectibles, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
I had noticed the Cream of Wheat ad but had not really noticed it. You know, the way you see something out of the corner of your eye but you move on rather than stopping…
I had gone to the art preview at Freeman’s Auctioneers to see works by African American artists Lois Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden and Ron Adams. Jones, whom I had interviewed in 1993, is one of my…
Posted in Architecture/Buildings, Art, and Home
Some time ago, I bought several vintage door handles not so I could replace the simple glass door knobs that have been in my home since it was built in the early 1920s. I bought them because they…
I was making my way among the tables of beautiful high-grade colored glassware when I decided to check out the equally high-grade furniture at the auction house. This was one of its Modern Design sales,…
Posted in Art
I wish I could draw and paint. I wish I could look at a landscape or a face or into my imagination, and let the images flow through my fingers onto a canvas. And people…
