PORT TOWNSEND — The owners of Sideshow Variety and Max Grover Gallery, a popular novelty shop and gallery combination that closed last month, are holding a giant rummage sale this weekend to clean out their closets and sell some of their collectibles.
“It was time for me to do something else,” said noted Port Townsend artist Max Grover, who has shared space at 630 Water St. with Sideshow Variety since 2011.
“This was a rewarding experience, but it took away from my painting time, and it didn’t make sense to operate a gallery when I didn’t have anything to put on the walls.”
Grover has cleaned out his closets and storage lockers to present the “Big Ass Sale of the Century” from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. today (Saturday). The sale began Friday.
Grover recently finished an exhibition at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art that displayed paintings of his collections of memorabilia as well as the collections themselves to show a connection between the art and its subject.
After closing the show, he decided to divest himself of the collections, which include religious objects, model airplanes, masks and a large set of antique plastic dinnerware.
“This is all stuff that I’ve had fun collecting,” he said.
“People might not find anything that’s useful, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Aside from the dinnerware, which is sold as a lot for $150, everything else is below $25.
Although many garage sale merchants will haggle, Grover’s prices are firm “because they are so reasonable to begin with,” he said.
And where else could you ever find a bigger-than-life papier-mâché bust of New York Yankees outfielder Ichiro for $10?
“Garage sales are part of the culture, especially here in Port Townsend,” Grover said.
“It’s almost a religion here,” he said.
“Somebody might come in here and recognize something and say, ‘Max bought that from me five years ago.’ These items have a circular nature.”
Grover doesn’t expect to make much money on the sale, just enough to buy soup during an upcoming trip to Vietnam.
“If I wasn’t an artist, I’d be a junk dealer,” Grover said.
“There is very little I can’t get rid of. I’m not a hoarder.”
The only regrets Grover has about closing the gallery are that he will lose instructional space for his art classes and emerging artists will lose exhibition space.
The sale is in conjunction with Sideshow Variety, which closed its doors, along with the gallery, at the end of last month.
Most of the store’s inventory is gone.
The items for sale include the things that gave the store its atmosphere, such as a kitchen display and a group of creepy clowns that were in the restroom.
“A lot of things that people wanted to buy that weren’t for sale are now available,” said Holly Verah, the store’s former manager, adding that the giant Elvis Presley lamp that graced the counter is not for sale.
Another Sideshow attraction, the antique photo booth, already has been moved to the Cellar Door nightclub, 940 Water St., where it will be operational in a few weeks, Verah said.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
