As part of my job here at the StarNews I cover the arts, including, and not as often as I’d like, the visual arts.
In addition to covering the arts I’m also a bit of an art collector, but I don’t think I’ll be selling any of the work in my collection for seven-, six- or even two-figure sums any time in the foreseeable future.
Almost entirely, the drawings and paintings I have hanging in my home hold more of a personal meaning than a monetary one.
Take this framed piece of oblong needlework I’ve got up in a dusty corner of my bedroom. It doesn’t have a title that I know of, but it depicts an old-timey train engine pulling several cars behind it and trailing a cloud of steam or smoke.
For my entire childhood it hung in the living room of my grandparents’ house, I assume because my grandfather worked for the railroad for most of his life. Now, it serves as a daily reminder of my family and my (our) past.
Also in my bedroom is a screen print given to me decades ago by my stepfather, who passed in 2019 but who used to teach at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the 1970s and ’80s. It was given to him (or maybe he bought it) from one of his students. It’s a kind of pop-art interpretation of the USS Enterprise from “Star Trek” hovering over a futuristic city. Its title? “Welcome Home, Old Friend.”
After my stepfather died and we were going through his stuff, my brother found another amazing print by the same artist, Darrell LaSeine Hope, titled “Planet Story.” It’s like an abstract depiction of a lost scene from “Star Trek,” “Star Wars” or maybe “Battlestar Galactica,” but I love that its narrative is very open-ended.
One of the more curious pieces in my collection was given to me by a friend in the late 1990s. It’s a small painting by the North Carolina artist and cartoonist Paul Friedrich that shows a mysterious, pointy-headed little dude holding some circular objects. A speech bubble by his head declares, “I know the mystery of the doughnuts.” I’ve been puzzling over that one for close to three decades now, but I also realize that it’s probably not a mystery that will ever be solved.
Along with Friedrich’s piece, which came from the old NoFo gallery on North Fourth Street in Wilmington, at least two other works in my collection have been in actual art exhibits.
In the early 2000s I bought a drawing that intrigued me from Wilmington artist Rick Mobbs. It shows a smiling boy beneath a smiling paper bag that’s hovering over his head, a representation, perhaps, of the self/face we show to the world and the one we keep hidden. Mobbs died in 2016, and in 2017 a retrospective of his work was held at Acme Art in Wilmington. I gladly lent Mobbs’ piece, titled “Coming Out,” to hang in the show.
Also in the early 2000s, I bought a painting by Wilmington artist and actor Don Baker from a show he had at public radio WHQR, before their art space was called The M.C. Erny Gallery. Titled “From Hwy 133,” it’s a semi-abstract image inspired by the natural, swampy beauty that lines N.C. 133 between Wilmington and Southport.
Most importantly to me, I’ve got at least four different paintings hanging in different parts of my house created by my mom, the artist and teacher Jean T. Case, who passed in 2015. She went through different periods of artistic activity in her life, and would sometimes go for years without painting before coming out of “retirement” to do a couple-dozen pieces in a few months.
My mom loved to go to the beach, and there’s one adorable little painting I treasure called “Sandpipers in the Surf” showing birds along the shoreline and a colorful sky in the background. My mom may not be with us anymore, but having her work around the house, and being able to look at it every day, helps me continue to to feel close to her.
To me, that’s worth more than a million-dollar painting.