In a city like Aspen — where purchasing art can be extremely expensive — secondhand shopping makes the art world more accessible.
The Aspen Thrift Shop puts together an annual art sale every summer, selling both high-end artwork and little pieces of Aspen history.
Some shoppers arrived at the Red Brick Center for the Arts at 4:30 in the morning. Others arrived later, and a crowd gathered outside the doors waiting to be let in.
As 10 a.m. neared, the crowd buzzed with anticipation.
Finally, a whistle rang out, silencing the group.
Art sale organizer Katherine Sand welcomed the crowd and said a few words before opening the doors. Two rooms were filled to the brim with art, textiles, jewelry and more.
Sand spent the better part of the last year gathering these items, pulling them from donations to the thrift shop. She also travels around the Roaring Fork Valley to pick up goods from donor’s houses.
“I put out the call for stuff, and I had lots and lots of people phone me,” Sand said. “I had about 25 phone calls of people phoning me with ‘I've got some stuff to give away. I'm cleaning out my mum's garage.’”
“You know all kinds of stories,” she added.
Finds of the day
Libby Hogue, a fine art appraiser who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, visits Aspen every summer. She used to have a house in town and has come to the valley since the 1970s. Now, she stays at her husband's family’s home.
Hogue frequents the Aspen Thrift Shop throughout the year, but makes a point to attend the art sale every summer.
“My first stop is art, and then my second is textiles,” she said.
This year, she found a multi-colored skirt. It is long, and goes to Hogue’s toes. She plans on using it for a Día de Muertos celebration hosted by her neighbors in Texas.
The skirt drew attention from sale attendees and volunteers.
“I was looking at it, wondering if at one point it was a theatrical costume, because [of] the crinoline up underneath,” Hogue said.
She plans on trimming it to fit her height, and she may upholster pillows with the extra fabric.
She also bought a colorful beaded necklace, as well as a print of a plant that she will gift to her niece.
“Life is an estate sale waiting to happen,” she said. “So, when people give their treasures away, where's the next story? Where's it go? What's going to be its next life?”
“That's what I like about going to the Aspen Thrift [Shop] all the time,” Hogue added. “It's just like someone must have really loved this thing one time and decided to let it go.”
The art sale’s origin
The sale came about when thrift shop volunteers realized they were receiving interesting objects, but did not have the space to sell them or price them properly.
“It’s special stuff,” she said. “It defies categorization … We have so much stuff.”
Sand said that above all, though, the sale is a community event that gives people a chance to shop for rare, higher-end items they may not usually have access to.
“Aspen has a reputation for being a bit prestigious and all about the rich people, but there's something for everybody here,” she said. “It's very sort of entry level.”
A notable item for her was a Native American squash blossom necklace. She found it at the bottom of a donation pile.
Throughout the year, she keeps her eye out for these items to save for the sale.
“You can own a really beautiful piece of art and something that's very special that we all enjoy for many, many years, and it's not going to break the bank,” Sand said. “I love it when they go home and they're holding things that they bought and they like.”
Michelle Henderson put a bid on the necklace, but she also picked up a bamboo fly fishing rod from the 1930s. Her grandfather and father fished on bamboo, but the rod is for her son, who is a fly fishing guide in Montana.
“He's been looking at bamboo rods,” she said. “Bamboo rods today are between $2,000 and $5,000.”
Henderson got hers for $500, along with some other items she plans on using to decorate her cabin in Montana. Year round she lives in Aspen but she is looking forward to having a piece of her hometown with her when she is away.
“I think that having a piece of Aspen wherever I go is always valuable,” she said.
Taking home a piece of Aspen
Forty-year Carbondale resident Paul Carice and his wife Susan were some of the early risers at Saturday’s sale. They arrived at 5:45 a.m. and were still number six and seven in line.
Carice did not have anything in mind that he wanted, but two portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln stood out to him.
“They're beautifully framed,” he said. “I particularly like the George Washington portrait because it shows him with his age, wrinkles under his eyes, and the strain of being in public life.”
“I think 250 years later we forget,” Carice added.
He said the picture he found has a different framing than the famous Gilbert Stuart painting, where viewers can see Washington’s full body — which Carice said is typical of Washington portraits.
Carice liked the different framing, and the mystery of who created it.
“It's interesting. Here it is at the art sale. There's no information,” he said. “I'm going to have to try and look up who sketched this. Who's the painter, artist?”
A year from now, Carice, a professor of politics and civic thought, is moving to the University of Virginia to help start a civic education initiative there.
“I plan on bringing a portrait of the Virginian, George Washington, to my office at University of Virginia from my hometown in Carbondale, Colorado,” he said.
Carice will keep his home in Carbondale, but he is glad that every time he will glance at the presidential portraits, he will be reminded of the Roaring Fork Valley.
Aspen history
Items that represent Aspen’s history were also at the sale, including old Winterskol pins and Thomas Benton prints.
“We have items that come from Cafe Suzanne, which was a really much loved on-mountain restaurant in Snowmass. We have pictures that hung there,” Sand said.
“So, a lot of it is very attached to the community as well,” she added. “They're things that have been in people's possession for decades.”
There will be a second sale next month to clear out remaining items so the Thrift Shop can start anew, collecting items for next year’s sale.
Proceeds from the sales will go to Roaring Fork Valley nonprofits and scholarships for students.
“It really is a community effort, both on the people that give us their donations, because they're a huge part of that kind of beautiful circle of giving, and the people who purchase it,” Sand said.
“Everything goes back to the community.”
Support for this Nonprofit Spotlight series comes from the Aspen Community Foundation.
