Sylvia Engelman (left) talks with artist Jacqueline Ehlis in Ehlis' St. Johns studio. Engelman, who's well-known to local artists and gallery owners, has about 300 pieces of art and adds to her collection regularly.

The accidental collector

A contemporary art lover puts her money where her heart is

By JOSEPH GALLIVAN     Issue date: Tue, Jun 21, 2005

The Tribune

Portland’s art scene apparently has it all: galleries springing up like mushrooms (the Portland Art Center, Disjecta, Wonder Ballroom), tireless promoters (Jeff Jahn) and all the news that’s fit to blog (N.W. Drizzle, Port).
   But who’s buying this stuff?
   Asked for the names of serious contemporary art collectors, a spokeswoman for the Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Art Council offered only two, one of which she retracted a few hours later because the man didn’t want the publicity.
   The other collector was Sylvia Engelman, who moved from Vancouver, Wash., to Flint, Mich., in 2003, but who comes back to Portland every few months, as she says, “for art, for people and for crab cakes at Jake’s Grill.”
   Engelman estimates that she owns 300 pieces of art, counting jewelry made by artists, spending anywhere from $20 to $3,000 per piece, although the high three figures is more her range.
   Engelman and her husband, Ben, keep a 400-square-foot condo in Portland, with maybe 15 pieces in it. On the wall above the kitchen sink is a footlong wooden stick. The rough white paint bears the faint imprint of a hinge. On the top edge is a thin line of fluorescent orange paint, which, if you look carefully, glows on the white wall behind.
   “This is by Michael Oman-Reagan,” Engelman says. She sums up the work’s appeal: “It’s part of the quietness of fluorescence.” There’s another in the main hallway of her home.
   “People would walk by it and walk by it and all of a sudden notice it, probably because of the way the light was shining — it would glow a little bit. And once you notice it you never could walk by that wall without seeing that stick. That to me is fascinating, the impact it has.”
   She tells how Oman-Reagan and Muriel Bartol got a similar effect by painting the underside of the collars of white dress shirts with fluorescent paint. They took a photo of themselves wearing the shirts and presented it to Engelman when they visited her in Vancouver.
   
   Openings aren’t for her
   
   As for finding art, Engelman skips First Thursday openings, preferring quieter times when she can linger over the work. Staff members at the dozen Portland Art Dealers Association galleries know her. She can buy in one gallery, and people in another will know about it by the time she’s walked across town.
   Engelman took a few classes in art appreciation in college, but she fell into collecting in 1994 when she and Ben became empty nesters.
   “The first place I went to was Laura Russo’s gallery, and she was really helpful,” Engelman says. “We talked about looking at art and spending time with it.”
   Russo sent the Engelmans to the old Gango Gallery, but they became customers of Russo’s, too.
   Engelman’s conversation is peppered with names big and small: Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Dan Christensen, Matthew Dennison, Molly Vidor, Jesse Durost, Amy Ruppel.
   Artists are adept at selling, and they often e-mail her images. She shows off a photo of “In the Garden,” an oil on burlap on board painting by Lisa DeJohn. Despite what she says is a terrible sense of direction, Engelman found her way to the Homestar coffeeshop on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard to make the purchase.
   
   ‘Sounds like a drug habit’
   
   The Engelmans are comfortable, not rich. Sylvia Engelman earmarks the money she earns as a part-time speech therapist for her art hobby.
   “It is like an addiction,” she says, laughing. “You see a work and think about it while driving to work, and think some more, then you get it — sounds like a drug habit, right? But it’s healthy, not illegal and we aren’t broke over it. ”
   She compares it to Ben’s hobby. He works for the Social Security Administration, but on the side he teaches aerobics and spends the money speculating on penny stocks, for the pleasure of it.
   His wife is definitely in it for the aesthetic pleasure. To hear her wax lyrical about a dot of paint, or a texture, is quite seductive.
   “Sylvia as a collector is really smart and very engaged,” says Bruce Guenther, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Portland Art Museum. “She doesn’t think about whether it will go over the couch, because that space was long ago filled.” (It’s true, and Engelman admits she would hang as much art in her home as the walls can hold.) “I meet people here all the time who buy cars and watches with that passion,” Guenther says.
   He wishes there were more Portlanders who would take the time to learn about local art and then put their hands in their pocket and buy some: “With art prices going for a few hundred to thousands, you can be a ribbon clerk at Meier & Frank or president of Nike and find art to buy in Portland.”
   Guenther distinguishes between collectors and speculators, almost spitting out the latter word.
   “A collector accumulates out of passion and curiosity; a speculator follows their ear to what they hope will grow in value,” he says. “They don’t even take off the packaging.”
   Engelman admires famous collectors such as Dorothy and Herbert Vogel and critic Clement Greenberg, who filled their apartments with abstract and minimalist work first and foremost for their own enjoyment. Artists like to see Engelman’s collection to know their work is going to a good home, but also because at a certain point a collector acquires critical momentum.
   “Often at shows I’m definitely the oldest person standing there, everyone else is maybe 20, maybe 20, but they’re really nice, and they like to talk about their art, and they like to share it,” Engelman says.
   
   A friend indeed
   
   Artists need Engelman not just for her money, but for her approval. And also for her friendship.
   One day in May the collector makes a visit to the home studio of Ellen George, who lives in Vancouver. George, who makes miniature forms out of colored Primo Sculpey clay, greets her warmly at the door. They chat about family and laugh about how artists compete to be the first person to greet her.
   “Jeff (Jahn) called me on my cell and said, ‘Welcome to Portland,’ ” Engelman says. “I said, ‘You’re a bit early — I’m still in Detroit airport!’ ”
   Engelman and George go to art shows together, having met three years ago when George spent a day installing one of her works, “Jubilee,” in Engelman’s home. Engelman had bought it on sight from the window of PDX Contemporary Art.
   In St. Johns, the welcome from Jacqueline Ehlis is just as warm. Ehlis has the coffee on, the floor swept, her hands clean. She’s proud to show off her new work (which is showing at Savage Art Resources, 1430 S.E. Third Ave., until July 9). She chats about her time at art school in Las Vegas and how she loves the neon lights — and the transformative culture — of the Strip.
   Ehlis’ paintings have fluorescent beveled edges that shine on the walls, and the two women are soon talking about how the light “hits the work and pops off the edge.”
   “I’d never heard of Jacqueline and didn’t want to buy, but I saw one of her pieces and it kept popping up in my mind,” Engelman says. “I bought it, and it felt really good afterward.”
   It’s a kind of impulse shopping that has never let her down — she’s never had any regrets. “It’s always an emotional decision. When I buy art, it’s for me, not to impress people.”
   
© 2005 THE PORTLAND TRIBUNE