Maine Antique Digest May 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, May 2015 9-A
Trade and retail, layaway, credit card payment, packing and shipping are all available.
(including color images of each of my Maine Antique Digest display advertisement objects).
Oveda Rutledge owner
P.O. Box 1024, Ross, CA 94957
Telephone 415-999-5590 E-mail:
A pair of brass
camphene lamps
in excellent
condition. They
measure 10" tall
including burners,
circa 1850, $650.
Oveda Maurer Folk Art Antiques
Select American folk art objects, antique furniture, and paintings
by Don Johnson
When state legislators passed
the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act (RFRA) in
Indiana, the immediate firestorm
of outcry burned all the way down
to the antiques industry. Promoter
Jon Jenkins felt the heat.
Among other shows, Jenkins
manages the monthly Indie Arts
& Vintage Marketplace in Indi-
anapolis. Because of RFRA, he
immediately lost a dealer from
Ohio. “He just said, ‘Look, I’m
gay. I just have a real difficult
time coming to a place that po-
tentially treats me like this,’”
Jenkins said, recalling his con-
versation with the dealer.
RFRAwas designed to give le-
gal protection to individuals and
companies who faced a substan-
tial burden in their exercise of
religion. However, critics com-
plained it would allow business-
es to discriminate against gays
and lesbians.
“Whether it was the intent or
not, it has been interpreted as
something that is detrimental to
the gay community,” Jenkins said.
The potential harm in Indiana
was about much more than just
losing buyers or sellers at an
antiques market. And it didn’t
come without warning. CEOs
from major Indiana corporations,
including Eli Lilly and Anthem,
were against the legislation from
the start. It didn’t matter.
RFRA easily cleared both
chambers and was signed into
law by Governor Michael
“Mike” Pence on March 26.
Then the reaction began in ear-
nest. Indianapolis, which has
worked for decades to establish
itself as a prime location for
conventions and major sporting
events, began to lose business.
Organizations canceled conven-
tions. Angie’s List announced it
would forgo a $40 million expan-
sion that would have added 1000
jobs in Indianapolis. Musicians
scrapped tour stops on Hoosier
soil. Political leaders outside In-
diana banned travel to the state if
it involved taxpayer funds. Dis-
approval of RFRA filtered down
to businessmen such as Jenkins.
He wasn’t alone.
Jennifer Sabin, who promotes
the Heartland Antique Show in
Richmond, located in east-central
Indiana, said she didn’t hear from
any of her dealers or customers,
but someone took an interest in
her show. “I did receive an e-mail
encouraging me to move my busi-
ness out of the state of Indiana,”
she said. She did not know the
writer. “It was a very sensible let-
ter,” she recalled. “It was not in-
flammatory.”
The e-mail, sent through Face-
book, read: “I urge you to relo-
cate your Heartland Show from
Indiana to another location later
this year. The antiques business
is filled with dealers and collec-
tors affected by today’s bigoted
bill signed by the governor. Only
when the state of Indiana feels
the financial effect of bigotry will
they sit up and listen. There are
so many great venues outside of
Indiana to hold your great show.
I hope you’ll do the right thing!”
Heartland will remain in Rich-
mond, Sabin noted. She talked to
the manager of the Wayne Coun-
ty Fairgrounds, where the show
is held, and was assured she
needn’t worry. “They said they
do not discriminate.”
Other promoters have heard
nothing negative from their deal-
ers and customers. Bruce Weir,
who owns the Indy Antique Ad-
vertising Show, held twice a year
on the Indiana State Fairgrounds,
noted, “All the scuttlebutt seems
to be on the news.” He did not
expect RFRA to affect his show.
“I don’t know that it’s going to
be a game-changer in our world.
We’ll continue to be business as
usual and welcome everybody as
we always have,” said Weir. “We
do several shows across the na-
tion, and there are different types
of people doing all those shows
and shopping those shows, and
it’s business as usual.”
It was also business as usual
for Marti Korba, who runs the
Pure and Simple Antique Show
in Kokomo, north of Indianapo-
lis. “As far as I know, everybody
is still coming,” she said of her
show, held each May. “I haven’t
heard anybody backing out be-
cause of that.”
Nonetheless, Korba was
among the Indiana residents who
expressed dismay over the legis-
lation, saying state officials “dug
themselves into a big hole.” She
wasn’t the only one to question
the law.
Dennis Jackson, senior auc-
tioneer of Jacksons Auction &
Real Estate Company in Indian-
apolis, hadn’t held any auctions
since RFRA was passed, thus
limiting his exposure to clients.
Even so, he had some thoughts
regarding the law. “Right now in
Indiana, it seems to me the best
thing that could happen would be
to repeal the bill and not try to
rewrite it, as I understand it, but
I’m not a real politically inclined
person,” said Jackson. “Howev-
er, from what I understand, that
might be the best approach for
the state of Indiana at this time.”
In the end, state legislators
chose to adjust the law with a
wrench rather than a wrecking
ball. On April 2, legislators cre-
ated a fix designed to protect
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender) customers,
employees, and tenants. As up-
dated, RFRA supposedly cannot
be used to discriminate based on
sexual orientation and gender
identity. Governor Pence signed
the revision the same afternoon.
Questions immediately rose
as to whether the revision was
enough. An article in the Indian-
apolis Star noted, “The changes
to the state’s embattled ‘religious
freedom’ bill would only offer
anti-discrimination protections
for gays and lesbians in 11 In-
diana communities where such
protections already exist, legal
experts say.”
Even before the revision, plen-
ty of damage had been done for
people such as Jenkins, a lifelong
resident of the state. “I’ve trav-
eled a lot, and when I travel I re-
alize this is a pretty good place,”
he said. “To let this piece of leg-
islation become the world’s view
of where we live, it’s troubling as
a person who has lived here all
my life, it’s troubling as a busi-
ness owner, and it’s troubling as
a person who is trying to attract
people to visit here.”
Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act
Metro Show Canceled for 2016
by Lita Solis-Cohen
For the last four years, on the first weekend of Americana
Week in New York City in January, the Art Fair Company has
promoted the Metro Show (renamed this year Metro Curates) at
the Metropolitan Pavilion at 125 West 18th Street in Chelsea. In a
letter to exhibitors in mid-March, president Mark Lyman and show
manager Caroline Kerrigan Lerch announced that they have not
renewed the lease for a 2016 January show.
They said, “All of our costs have continued to go up, and in par-
ticular rent for the Metropolitan Pavilion has increased significant-
ly since we began four years ago. It has become just too difficult to
continue producing the fair under these circumstances. In addition,
we require the assurance, well in advance, that enough dealers will
return next year before making a contractual commitment with the
building.” They told the dealers that they are exploring other ven-
ues and hope to bring the show back in 2017.
“There are just not enough affordable venues in New York that
are the right size for fairs,” said Caroline Kerrigan Lerch.
“I am disappointed to hear the news; Metro has always been a
successful show for me,” said Amy Finkel, a Philadelphia special-
ist in schoolgirl needlework who also sold furniture and accesso-
ries at the Metro shows. “It seems that art dealers want to show
at an art show and antiques dealers want to show at an antiques
show.”
The Metro Show was the successor to The American Antiques
Show, a benefit for the American Folk Art Museum, but it failed
to keep a number of Americana dealers when it combined art and
antiques of all periods and mediums with a modern focus.
The Metro Show was received enthusiastically by the public and
the press, although serious collectors of Americana complained
that there were not enough antiques to lure them to Chelsea. Others
loved the variety, and significant sales were made, but apparently
not enough dealers found the show profitable.
Connecticut show promoter Karen DiSaia, who has had success
with Americana shows in Washington, D.C.; Hartford, Connecti-
cut; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Deerfield, Massachusetts;
and with the Antique Garden Furniture Fair at the New York Bo-
tanical Garden in the Bronx, said she would love to take the Met-
ropolitan Pavilion lease for an American antiques show. “Last year
when I heard Metro was shaky, I put in my bid for the lease should
the space become available, but when I called this year I was too
late. Andrew Edlin had reserved the date for the Outsider [Art]
Fair, so I am second on the list.”
Acknowledging that his much-praised venue for the last two
years, Center548 on West 22nd Street, was no longer available,
Edlin said he was not ready to announce that the Outsider Art Fair
will move up its dates and go head-to-head with the first weekend
of the Winter Antiques Show.
So it appears that there will be a show at the Metropolitan Pa-
vilion in January 2016. Stay tuned.
Xiao Ju Guan, aka “Tony Guan,” 39, of
Richmond, British Columbia, was sentenced
on March 25 in United States federal court to 30
months in prison for smuggling rhinoceros horns,
elephant ivory, and coral from the United States
to Canada. In addition to the prison term, U.S.
District Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered Guan to
forfeit wildlife items found during a search of his
Canadian antiques business.
Calling it “a very serious offense,” Judge Swain
said that Guan “helped to feed a hot market for
these goods” and further stated that the defendant’s
conduct “feeds demand for the slaughter of rare
and already endangered species.”
Guan was arrested in March 2014 as part of “Op-
eration Crash,” a nationwide crackdown on the il-
legal trafficking in rhinoceros horns, for his role in
smuggling and attempting to smuggle rhinoceros
horns and items carved from elephant ivory and
coral from auction houses throughout the United
States to Canada.
Guan, the president and owner of Bao Antiques
in Richmond, British Columbia, was arrested after
flying from Vancouver, British Columbia, to New
York City and purchasing two endangered black
rhinoceros horns from undercover special agents
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at a storage
facility in the Bronx, New York. After purchasing
the horns, Guan had the undercover agents drive
him and a female accomplice acting as his inter-
preter to a nearby express mail store where he
mailed the horns to an address in Point Roberts,
Washington, less than a mile from the Canadian
border and 17 miles from his business. Guan false-
ly labeled the box of black rhinoceros horns as con-
taining “handicrafts.” Guan indicated that he had
people who could drive the horns across the border
and that he had done so many times before.
At the same time Guan was arrested in the Unit-
ed States, Canadian authorities executed a search
warrant at his antiques business in Richmond. Ca-
nadian law enforcement seized various wildlife ob-
jects from the business, nine of which have been
positively identified as wildlife objects purchased
in the United States via a New York City-based
Internet auction business. These items, made from
elephant ivory and coral, were smuggled out of the
Unites States and into Canada without the required
declaration or Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES) permits. Some were shipped directly to
Canada, and others were sent, at Guan’s direction,
to addresses near the U.S./Canadian border in Point
Roberts. Guan also recruited college-age fami-
ly members and acquaintances to assist him with
smuggling the wildlife items.
In addition, during the search of Guan’s business,
Canadian law enforcement also discovered illegal nar-
cotics, including approximately 50,000 ecstasy pills.
All species of rhinoceros are protected under
U.S. and international law. Since 1976, trade in
rhinoceros horn has been regulated under CITES,
a treaty signed by over 170 countries around the
world to protect fish, wildlife, and plants that are or
may become imperiled because of the demands of
international markets. Rhinoceros are also protect-
ed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which
further regulates trade and transport.
Canadian Dealer Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for
Smuggling Rhino Horns, Ivory, and Coral