Art Collector Gets Off to a Hokey Start

Know what you’ll be asking yourself in 10 years? Not what were the major stories of the ‘90s. Not who were The People to Watch in ’99. Not what’s in and what’s out for the new millennium. Not what’s hot and what’s not for the ‘00s.

You’ll be asking yourself: Why didn’t I buy a Wilson? Why, oh why, didn’t I buy an H. Wilson? H. Wilson--you heard it here first.

H. Wilson. It’s a name you’re going to hear a lot about in the year and decade and century and millennium to come. But if you want to get in on the ground floor, you’re going to have to head for Tijuana.

Tijuana, Mexico. The place where you can buy tequila by the liter for $5.99. The place where you can get custom-made leather anythings. The place where you can take a photo on a donkey painted like a zebra. Tijuana, the place where you can find after-Christmas bargains the whole year round. Take an additional 90% off.

I go to Tijuana every year for the ultimate indicator of who’s in and who’s out.

Who is on velvet this year?

It was while checking out the celebrity velvets in an arcade on the Avenida Revolucion that I found my Wilson. I passed the velvet Clint Eastwoods, Charles Bronsons, one Frank Sinatra and a buxom Liza Minnelli. I took note of the ratio of Michael Jacksons to Jesus Christs.

There were, of course, velvet Elvises by the dozens--weeping and dry. But my eye fell on what appeared to be an oil painting of two saguaro cacti at dusk.

“How much for that?” I asked the art dealer.

“How much you wanna pay?” he said.

OK. Let the games begin. “How much you wanna charge?” I said. I know my way around the art world.

“That one is $50,” he said. I shook my head and started to walk away. He yelled, “How much you wanna pay?”

I walked back. “I wanna pay five.”

He looked shocked. Then he took down the painting. He held it a few inches from my face with his left hand, and with his right he produced an enormous bottle of Windex. He blasted the painting with five volleys of Windex.

I coughed.

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing the Windex off with his hand. “You see, it is real canvas. I can’t sell it for five.”

The Windex test. You won’t see that performed at Sotheby’s.

After further haggling, we settled on 10. What a coup! It was only then, when I took possession, that I noticed the painting was signed in the corner: H. Wilson.

“It’s a Wilson!” I said to my husband.

He wanted me to put it in my office or the bathroom. But you don’t hide a Wilson. I put it right across from our bed. Unframed, of course. They say a frame cheapens an H. Wilson.

Now, first thing every morning I say to my husband, “Don’t you just love the way the dawn lights up the Wilson?”

I have several friends who write about the art world. They find some old painter, buy a bunch of his stuff and then write a book about him, increasing the value of their own collection.

So I am at work on “Wild as the Windex: The Art and Times of Hokey Wilson.”

H. Wilson. You heard it here first.