Collector afflicted with art disease

Pssst! Can we talk for a moment — just between us — about genetic conditions?

I think I have one.

It didn’t show up right away. But even as a child I knew something was different at our house: There were paintings on the walls.

Not a lot of them, at first. But they seemed to multiply over the years.

Two of my earliest memories from childhood revolve around those pictures. One was a painting of cows near a stream. The name of the artist is lost to me, if I ever knew it at all. 

These days, if I saw the same painting, I’d be thinking in terms of water pollution. Those cows shouldn’t have been able to access that stream and deposit their “nutrients” — aka manure — where it could create problems downstream.

Then there was a gloomy, greenish painting of some sailboats. I never really liked it, but I remember asking my mother where it came from. Her answer: They had bought it on their honeymoon.

It was simultaneously a piece of art and a memento from that occasion.

And then, as I grew older, more paintings appeared on the walls. Often they were pieces that had been shown in the Hoosier Salon, a juried statewide event. And sometimes — like those gloomy boats — they were acquired as souvenirs.

That’s the background.

But it wasn’t until adulthood that I began to wonder if I had some sort of genetic predisposition when it came to art, specifically art on our walls.

Back in our poverty-stricken days in Indianapolis, for instance, Connie and I still found a way to get to the Indianapolis Museum of Art and soon discovered that the museum had a tiny gallery of works by Hoosier artists for sale.

We had absolutely no money to spare, so our walls were bare. But then we learned we could actually rent a piece from the museum store and have our rental payment count toward an eventual purchase. We were suckers for the concept.  It was sort of an art-on-layaway system, but it worked for us. We acquired two pieces that way.

Neither of them was valuable, but both gave us pleasure.

Our approach as art collectors — genetically flawed on my part — had next to nothing to do with investment. Our focus was on working artists — folks who had had the courage to try to make a living the hard way — and on works that simply made us happy.

And so, over the years, our walls became more crowded: Pieces by Peggy McCarty when she was working at what was then the Jay County Arts Council, works by local art teacher Liz Lawson, pieces we’d pick up on vacation and auction purchases at the Arts Place benefit event.

Add to that the fact that I take photographs — lots of them. And one likes to frame the best of them and put them on the wall somewhere.

And then, ultimately, there were the inherited pieces. Because this is a genetic defect on my part, it only makes sense that we had to deal with some of those honeymoon/sentimental pieces from my folks.

As if that were not enough, my mother-in-law was an art teacher and a talented — prolific — artist in her own right. After her passing, there were even more pieces of art to make room for.

And then there’s the kitchen. 

Its walls have been turned into the vertical equivalent of a photo album: The Haynes brothers, my mother, my grandfather Ronald, Connie’s parents with the twins, nursery school class photos, Sally and Ben’s wedding pictures, Dad holding our niece Susan, my brother-in-law Stephen, a photo of Connie looking at the twins moments after they were born, and grandchildren everywhere. All in one room.

So, maybe it’s not a disease. But some might call it an affliction.

When the walls are full and artwork is stacked in an upstairs closet, there is no way this can be considered normal.

But what the heck. 

When it comes right down to it, isn’t normal overrated?