Charlie

Charlie’s been in training to be a collector his whole life.

He was an only child and spent lots of time with his grandmother and he loved it. He told me she never threw anything away and recalled her buying things brand new and hiding them in the house. He particularly remembered her buying a blue Ertle toy tractor. She showed it to him, but told him he couldn’t play with it and quickly hid it away.

After she passed, his uncle moved onto the farm. He didn’t want all the stuff she had collected so Charlie packed up all of her treasures and moved them to his house in town. He picked out what he wanted to keep and held a garage sale to sell the rest. An antique storeowner happened to come to the sale and invited him to an auction. Charlie loved the auction and this got him into buying and selling himself.

Not long after he’d packed everything up and moved it off his grandparent’s farm, Charlie’s uncle died unexpectedly. The farm was now his so he re-packed what was left of his grandmothers’ things and moved out to the farm.

Charlie began to notice that his grandmother had stashed things away in odd places throughout the house. One day while exploring unfinished attic space he spotted something behind an unused heating grate. He removed the grate to find a metal box filled with sewing supplies, not exciting, but under that box was the blue Ertle toy tractor his grandmother had purchased and hidden all those years ago.
That toy tractor appears in this painting along with the door to that attic space.

Oil on cradled wood panel