Bob Winquist Estate Sale

I'm on the email list for an estate sale company. I occasionally get emails for an interesting home and I love treasure hunting. Last week I got an email notice for the estate of Bob Winquist. It caught my eye, The Bob Winquist? I looked up obits in the LA times, and sure enough my CalArts teacher and mentor had died in early September. CalArts will be having a memorial service for him on Jan 31st 2009
http://blackwingdiaries.blogspot.com/2008/11/save-date-for-bob-winquist.html

So I went to the sale yesterday in Simi Valley. It was icy and the grass was still frozen at 8am. I went as a reminder of him, and to see what he had amassed after all these years. He was the director of CalArts for almost 20 years, was the Character Animation Department head for 6, and had worked on movie sets and as the lead partner in a design studio (clothes, women's shoes, cars, brochures, print ads, packaging, etc) for many years.

I've been to a lot of estate sales, and this was the first one where the house and things smelled like a house. Not like old people, rotted books, urine, 80 years of cheap powdery rosewater perfume and mustiness. I didn't have to solarize and scrub everything to get the grime off it, it was all well kept, clean and not moth eaten.

It was fascinating going to Bob's house. The family took most of the everyday items, but the house was still stuffed to the gills with fun, interesting stuff.

Huge collection of asian boxes, vases and figurines, kimonos, boxes of asian robes, hats, bolts of fabric, a large perfume bottle collection, 17th century french chairs and other furniture, a garage full of books and design mags, a whole coat rack of furs and stoles, and years of print layouts for ads he worked on. I had to wander into every corner of the house.


I saw things he talked about in design class, so it was sad and full of memories, but it gave me a sense of closure too. I didn't realize he was almost 70 when he was teaching us, he died at 85. I wish I'd kept in some sort of contact with him, his design class altered the way I see everything that has had a human hand in it.

I got a few spoons, a handful of hats (ones I even remember him wearing), a bolt of beautiful drapery fabric, and other bits n' bobs. I was really happy about the hats, they all fit me, are in great condition, and remind me of him. I posted some here http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonarium/