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As soon as I walk in the door, I get my bid number and beeline it to the painting my niece, Lauren Van Horenbeeck, did. I donated the piece from my private collection, but I’m determined to buy it back. What the hell? Bidder No. 3 has already offered $10 for it. I quickly double it and head into the lobby where I see Sherry Jiminez, owner-operator of Salon 544.
Sherry cuts my hair, and believe me, she’s a miracle worker who even manages to make me look good. Then I head outside to where the munchkins are doing munchkin-like stuff. There’s Sherry’s husband Mario painting 4 1/2-year-old Devon Crozier’s face.
“That ‘half’ is important at that age,” explains Devon’s mother.
Then I see Sherry and Mario’s daughter Sevryn, a precocious 9-year-old whose mixed media image called Robot features bits of construction paper assembled into a colorful robot-clown.
“That’s awesome, Sevryn. Where’d you get the idea?”
“It was Sherry’s idea … oh, wait, not that one,” recalls Sevryn. “I saw that on the Internet.”
“Did you cut out all those little pieces?”
“Yes, I cut out some shapes and put it together. It looks pretty cool.”
“I’ll say.”
Then I run into Houry Semerdjian, who volunteered to help Sherry with the silent auction.
“I get my hair cut here,” says Houry, “and I had a show here in June. As Sherry and I were hanging it, she told me about her idea about auctioning children’s art. I’m a mom, so I know a bunch of moms. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have their children’s art on display.”
I wander back outside where I see Bill Hale, who runs Ash Management, which in turn runs most of SLO Town’s bars. He’s watching over his kids Devon and Austin, the latter of whom is busy “fixing” his dad’s drawing.
“He’s making a monster truck out of the convertible I drew,” explains Billy.
Then I see a smiling baby in a stroller. The kid looks like he’s having a riot.
“It’s his first art show,” dad Justin Maire explains about 6-month-old Bode. “It’s his first of many. He’s got three older brothers and sisters.”
Then I see my old pal Christopher Gardner, the former New Times photog who left the paper to start SLO City News. His daughter Sophia, 12, made a couple of sweet paintings, so I place a bid on them, make a final check to be sure I’ve still got the highest bid on my niece’s painting, and leave to go have dinner. Lauren will be so excited to see how I framed her painting!
The next day I get a message from Sherry: “We raised $1,100, but sorry, you were outbid on Lauren’s painting.”
“What the hell? By whom?”
It turns out Sherry bought it for Sevryn. Traitors! But I guess that’s the way it goes in the high stakes, thrill-a-minute world of children’s art auctions.
Glen Starkey takes a beating and keeps on bleating. Keep up with him via twitter at twitter.com/glenstarkey, friend him at Myspace.com/glenstarkey, or contact him at [email protected].
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