Collectible Cars — All Wheels Art Event
Sharing space with paintings and sculpture, the collectible cars of the All Wheels Art Event creative a festival air at the gallery.
It’s amazing how much you can do when you’re persistent.
Take amassing a collection, for example, whether that collection is stamps, or art, or tea cups, or, in this case, collectible cars. At first you start with one or two, develop an interest, start looking around for more, and pick up a new piece the next time you’re where they’re sold. When you do this regularly through the years, you eventually find yourself with a collection well worth seeing, enjoying, and sharing.
Most people couldn’t afford the full-size version of this collectible car — but it’s very much reachable as a collectible.
So it was for Ed Harri, the late co-owner of Wenaha Gallery. In addition to a lifelong passion for art, one that led to his opening and running, along with his wife, the gallery in downtown Dayton, WA, Harri was fascinated by collectible cars. Like many people with this fascination, he started by looking for the cars of his youth — the very first car owned, the most memorable car, the first new car, the favorite car. From there, he expanded his horizons, and over a period spanning more than 40 years, developed a collection that includes everything from a 1928 Mercedes Benz to a 1990 Lamborghini Diablo. There are Mustangs, Corvettes, Pontiacs, and Cadillacs. Convertibles, family sedans, coupes, James Bond vehicles, and delivery trucks. Cool cars and nostalgic ones. Foreign and domestic. Red, blue, black, white, metallic green. Hundreds of cars.
“Ed took great joy in creating his car collection,” Pat says. “And now, I take great joy in sharing that collection with people, through showcasing it at Wenaha Gallery.
All Wheels Weekend with Collectible Cars
“It is fitting to do so in June, around Father’s Day, when Dayton traditionally holds its All Wheels Weekend Event. While, sadly, the town will not be holding that event this year, we’ve created a mini-car show in the gallery. We laid it out in such a way that visitors walk the aisles as if they were on Main Street.”
Gallery associate Savonnah Henderson, who has spent the last two months inventorying the collection, is impressed by the depth and scope of Harri’s selections.
Hoods up. Seeing the detail is part of an All Wheels Weekend show, whether the cars are full sized or collectible.
“He chose collectible cars with the same discerning eye he used for purchasing art,” she says.
As a celebration of Ed’s interest in cars, Pat is making the collection available to both online collectors and people who visit the gallery. Henderson says that the gallery has sold many cars already to buyers on e-Bay, as well as to gallery visitors who, like Ed, discover treasures from their past and present.
Stories behind the Cars
“I love to hear the stories that people tell when they find just the right car,” Henderson says. “It brings about a special memory of a certain time in their lives. Often, a particular car was part of that memory.”
After arranging a selection of the collection throughout the gallery, Henderson says she loves to walk the aisles and admire.
“It really is like a mini All Wheels Weekend, just without people sitting in the lawn chairs,” she says. “These collectible cars are their own form of art. They represent creativity of design and engineering.”
The All Wheels Art Event is featured at Wenaha Gallery from June 15 through July 11, 2020.
Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.
