Avoiding temptation is often best

Sometimes you read a sale bill and know instantly that you should — under no circumstances — go to that sale.
It happened again a couple of weeks ago. The sale was in Eaton, Ohio. The items up for auction belonged to the ex-wife of our accountant. For that matter, they used to belong to our accountant, but that’s another story.
Ninety percent of the items were of absolutely no interest.
But then there were the paintings.
There is, I have long suspected, a genetic flaw in the Ronald family when it comes to art. We respond to it. We often covet it. And when we have a little spare change in our pockets, we want to own it.
I’ve wondered for years where this comes from, and like any good son I have decided to blame my parents.
Mom and Dad bought their first painting on their honeymoon. It was a souvenir, something they could hang on the wall of their humble first home on Race Street that would remind them of their trip to Niagara Falls.
(Of course, they went to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. It may actually have been a law in the 1930s that Niagara Falls was the required honeymoon destination.)
The painting, however, had nothing to do with Niagara Falls.
It was of a couple of sailing ships moored at a dock, and I found it moody and kind of depressing. The artist had used a lot of blues and greens, and the entire effect was murky.
But it worked for my parents, if not as a great piece of art then certainly as a souvenir that sparked warm memories
And before long, other pieces started popping up. There was a little watercolor of a bridge in Paris that used to hang in our TV room; my brother Steve has that now. There was a charming painting of a little Navajo girl lying on the ground, playing with some toy animals; my sister Louise may have that one.
And somewhere along the line, my parents moved from souvenirs to collecting, making smarter purchases and trying to learn more about the artists.
It was about then that I met John Nixon.
John was a retired butcher in Centerville, Ind., and he was the most dedicated collector I’ve ever met. His first collection was cigar bands, when he was a kid. But he had a great eye, knew a bargain, and understood the overlooked value of Indiana art, particularly the early 20th century Indiana impressionists such as T.C. Steele and the artists closer to home who were known as “the Richmond School.”
I was probably 11 when Dad took me to visit John Nixon. I have no idea how the two of them met in the first place.
John’s house on the National Road was a mini-museum. All the walls were full. An upstairs bedroom might have 30-plus paintings on its walls.
Most were by Indiana artists: Wayman Adams, John Elwood Bundy, George H. Baker, the Overbeck sisters, William Merritt Chase, Charles Conner, J. Otis Adams, Steele and others.
Landscapes dominated, but there were portraits — particularly by Wayman Adams and Chase — as well.
And in the dining room, there was a nude.
As an 11-year-old boy, I found it fascinating, as you can well imagine.
On that first visit, John caught me staring at it, entranced.
He then proceeded to give me his explanation — as a Centerville butcher and accidental art collector — why the painting was art and not pornography. It was, he explained, because the artist had painted the reclining figure in blue rather than in flesh tones.
As an 11-year-old boy, I wondered if perhaps the model might just have been cold.
At any rate, by then the bug had bitten me.
Today, our walls are full. But we keep squeezing things in. We added an Alan Patrick at the Arts Place auction in November, and we love it.
But the last thing we needed was temptation.
Sometimes you know that you’re better off not going to the sale at all.[[In-content Ad]]