Occasionally I get a call to look at an estate to help appraise and evaluate stuff. Almost invariably I get severe feelings of depression. Sometimes the estate is from a person who has recently passed away, sometimes they have gone into a care facility. You wander through a person's abandoned home and you are struck by floods of feelings. Usually for me, it is at first one of pure voyeurism, like I am glimpsing a view that is forbidden to me - a snapshot of a traumatic quick exit or a long decline. Some are pack rats like me - collecting scads of objects and books that will have meaning only to the original collector. Much of the artwork is incredibly terrible. We live in an age where every bad period or epoch of taste gets it's 15 minutes of being lionized but lets face it, shit will always have its own unique olfactory brand.
I get saddened when I see a life reduced to strangers rummaging through one's underwear drawers in the hopes of finding lucre. Food is thrown out, much of it spoiled. Sometimes the liquor is poured out or given away. I found a 59' Chateau Margaux once in a Palm Beach estate that I am still waiting to drink or sell.
Oftentimes you will find houses of the pious festooned with plastic religious figures beyond count, sometimes perched on the old family organ, a musical instrument that is incredibly difficult to sell. I wander through macrame dens ornamented with horrible Chinese lamps from the fifties and sixties and I start seriously worrying about the future of the human race.
Or about the propriety of having such a candid look at the innermost sanctum of somebodies private life. My own home is no treasure palace. My wife and I live quietly and do not entertain. We are still living in an antiquated post psychedelic tribal vision that most would not understand. If we lived in an urban environment, we might try to impress.
I hardly ever go to estate sales. It feels like being part of a pack of ravens or vultures. There is little dignity in stripping the carcass. People fall all over each other culling through the detritus. If there is anything that is good, it tends to sell for over market - unless the purveyor or sales person has missed on something. Families are pulling more and more of the decent stuff out and putting it up for auction. In the end a hauling man usually comes and takes what's left to the dump or the thrift shop.
So when I pass through this mortal coil please try to have a little sympathy when you start pawing through my stuff. Or don't you believe in ghosts?
1 comment:
I used to have a macrame owl like that. I'm fairly sure when we pass, our kids will rent a dumpster and just toss everything into it. They are not impressed with my scratched LP albums or stereo equipment. I've told them that if family or friends don't want my artwork to destroy it. If I see them selling at a garage sale or thrift shop I will come back and disturb their sleep.
CR
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