RED SALES IN THE SUNSET

I have a summer cottage on the west coast of Michigan. One of my favorite excursions with weekend guests is to head down Blue Star Highway to Sunset Junque. This place is not just an out of body experience, it's a time warp! It's owned and operated by a family that has never left the 1970s. They live together communally in a large house on the property.  To my own personal delight, dogs and cats run freely.

Immediately adjacent to this commune is a huge open yard that defies all description. Frankly, it's a bit scary and I personally would not want to be out there alone at night.

Scattered throughout the yard are Eskimo canoes, Catholic confessional booths, Buddhist statues, Amish funeral carriages, corroded gypsy mannequins, rickshaws, warped vintage plastic carnival characters (lodged high up in the tree branches), grave stones, duck boats, Chinese gates....... I could travel the world forever and not see what I have seen at Sunset Junque. So, I never tire of my visits to Sunset Junque. They consistently fill me and any guest I drag along with with true a sense of childlike wonder.

All of the merchandise sits outside until it sells. If it doesn't sell, it remains there forever --  until to dust it does return, as all we mortals do.

More strange collectable curiosities await you inside the small outbuildings and sheds -- vintage Elvis records, African masks, comic books, Barbie dolls, wigs, military costumes, marbles.  Imagine it. You may well find it.



On one of my frequent summer stops at Sunset Junque, I selected a fairly scary but well executed painting, that was beautifully framed. I clearly remember it was labeled "weird painting of a strange chick" and priced at $40. I was intrigued by this painting, but more interested in the frame.I took it home, and temporarily placed it on the fireplace mantle. All weekend, my guests kept turning the painting to the wall because it creeped them out so much!

I held the painting for many years and, as an artist of sorts, considered painting over the eyes of the portrait, but something always held me back. Later, I was driven to investigate this artist further. That search took me to an amazing place.

Nicolas Carone was a major American abstract artist who hung out with Jackson Pollack and other peers of that New York group. How did this major work of an important artist end up at Sunset Junque? This story has a true Antiques Road Show ending.

Who woulda thunk?


 Sally forth!