Paint in the Wind (saying goodbye to my art finds ... sniff)

I’ve been a habitual art collector since 1963, when I opened my own ad agency in Seattle. I hired a lot of very good commercial artists who stepped into a telephone booth (à la Clark Kent) enroute to home nights and weekends and evolved into Da Vinci, Cezanne, Rembrandt, Kandinsky, Monet, Van Faux - uh - Gogh, etc.

They formed The Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters and raised money at an annual auction just before Thanksgiving, which I attended for about 25 years. They all came by my table and whispered in my ear, “Of course you’re going to bid on my painting.” When I moved to Arizona in 1993, I took my 175 paintings along. I put them all on a large floor and told my two daughters to take what they wanted. They had very good taste. I got involved in the art community in Greater Phoenix and bought some wonderful paintings at charity auctions, bankrupt art galleries, high end consignment shops and estate sales. 

After my wife passed away, I leased an empty space in downtown Scottsdale and I opened Eye of the Beholder Art Gallery on Marshall Way.  Mean Eileen Editing Queen temporarily put down her red pen and we ran the Gallery from January through April. We sold a lot of art, but more important, we learned a lot. Our building was sold and we put a substantial amount of art in storage.

Now, we have rented an empty antique store two blocks west of the Phoenix Art Museum to sell a large chunk of my collection, opening Friday, May 3 (for First Friday Art-Walk Night) through Saturday, May 11. I love many of the pieces I did not offer at the gallery last year, but I’m divesting them as I have no more wall space on which to hang, and my daughter drew the line at paintings on the ceiling.  Michaelangelo is frowning somewhere.   

My next chapter is to devote myself to stop adding chapters to the Happy Face manuscript (and the others still on the back burner) and publish the damn thing.  I have my publishing company, The Sourpuss Press LLC, aching for a finished product.

I tell everybody I’m 57 and dyslexic. And they tell me to retire and take up golf again. I say that would negate the authenticity of my Blog, which I named a FLOG because FLOG spells Golf backwards and I had to give up the time-consuming game to write this painful thing. Then Eileen gave me the FLOG access code … www.asternflogging.com. 

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  For now.

The sale is at 133 W. McDowell Rd, about 2 blocks west of the Phoenix Art Museum, on the south side of McDowell Road.  It's a little 1920-era house with red striped awnings ... lots of parking in the back.  Visit www.AzEyeOfTheBeholder.com for more info.

Estate Sale May 3-11     133 W. McDowell Road, Phx 85003
2 blocks west of Phoenix Art Museum