Slotin Folk Art Auction

Slotin Folk Art Auction

For about 15 years now, Steve Slotin and his wife, Amy, have gathered and sold folk art. Their semiannual auctions have established the couple's 6,000-square-foot converted grocery store in downtown Buford as perhaps the country's most watched spot by folk art collectors.

For about 15 years now, Steve Slotin and his wife, Amy, have gathered and sold folk art. Their semiannual auctions have established the couple's 6,000-square-foot converted grocery store in downtown Buford as perhaps the country's most watched spot by folk art collectors.

Slotin moves a Marilyn Monroe cutout by Howard Finster at his auction hall in Buford. He was selling Cliffs Notes all over the Southeast when he encountered a face jug by Lanier Meaders in 1992. "So instead of selling books that day, I went to visit Lanier Meaders," Slotin said of meeting the legendary North Georgia potter.

"I thought I knew everything about North Georgia," Slotin said. "And here was [Meaders] making the greatest representation of the state's visual culture and I'd never heard of him. I thought, 'What else is out there?' "

Slotin hangs Jerry Coker masks in the auction hall. Most of the auction pieces are hung on pegboard walls; others set on tables left over from the original grocery store.

A Slotin auction moves more than 900 lots. The quality is as wide-ranging as the prices, which can run from $10 to $100,000. There's rarely a minimum, and total sales have topped $1 million.

A Richard Burnside piece goes on the wall. Buyers and sellers at the auctions include some of the field's most respected collectors, including Europeans and some Hollywood big money, such as directors Jonathan Demme ("Silence of the Lambs") and Penny Marshall ("A League of Their Own").

Fred Webster's "Snake Handling Church" was at Folk Fest in 2007. Aside from the auctions, the Slotins run the annual summer festival, where art is sold by dealers.

The Slotins, now in their early 40s, have their critics. Some say Steve will auction almost anything to make a buck, others that he sometimes slaps a "masterpiece" label on inferior work. Steve doesn't seem to mind. "We're the Hosea Williams of folk art," he said. "We're taking the message to the people." Work by R.A. Miller.

"Black Horse" by Bill Traylor was auctioned in 2006. Even for critics, the Slotins are an unavoidable presence in a rambling genre created by untrained, often uneducated, sometimes wildy eccentric artists.

"I can't think of a collector we have who doesn't at least look at the [Slotin auction] catalog. People get excited when it comes in," said Shari Cavin, co-owner of the Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York, which has sold outsider art for more than two decades. Work by the Rev. W.C. Rice.

A pastel on paper by Tim Chess called "Green Portraits" was up for auction in 2005. The auctions usually begin with quirky, lesser pieces, then move to the best work around lunchtime, when food and drinks are served. The crowd, loaded with regulars, some from as far away as London, often whoops after spirited bidding.

"It hardly could be further from the dressed-up, buttoned-up atmosphere of Christie's and Sotheby's," said the High's Crawley, who attends regularly. "I've never been to a tobacco auction, but I think it must be closer to that." Sculpture by S.L. Jones.

Things weren't always so easy. In the early years, Steve often traveled to buy from the artists at their remote rural homes. He'd camp out overnight to get the first piece from a potter's kiln, drag Amy to South Georgia to visit a one-armed carver. By its seventh year, the auction barely made a profit. Painting by Mose Toliver.

Then things clicked: The Slotins liquidated a collection for the Smithsonian and works from pioneering collectors Chuck and Jan Rosenak. "If you stay in the business long enough, you are the business," Steve said. Artwork: "Noah's Ark" by Bill and Phyllis Duffy.

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For about 15 years now, Steve Slotin and his wife, Amy, have gathered and sold folk art. Their semiannual auctions have established the couple's 6,000-square-foot converted grocery store in downtown Buford as perhaps the country's most watched spot by folk art collectors.

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