Trash and Treasure

It was a cloudy November day in Warrenton, Oregon. I was working at the recycling company and was just told I was about to be laid of for couple of weeks after my shift was over. I went to work and began sorting a box of demolition debris from a remodeled house. I spotted something in the debris that I recognized as a technical drawing. I picked it up and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I found another drawing and another. Then I found some notebooks with more art. I opened one and imediately recognized the art it contained. It was a Dodge Ram logo. There were a bunch of workups of the logo design. I looked through the debris more carefully kept finding artwork and technical drawings. All and all I saved out a few hundred concept drawings, technical drawings, and other interesting artifacts. I found some information on the guy who done the artowrk. There were a number of person effects from the artist who had apparently passed on a few years back. The house was being remodeled by a family member. The artist was none other than Carl Allen Cameron. Carl was a concept designer who had designed the 66 Dodge Charger.

I found some biographical information on the artist and decided I should get an appraisal on the artwork. It was pretty hard to find anyone who could tell me anything about it. Seems design art doesn't make it to auction houses and most of it end up in the trash or saved by the artists themselves. Some pieces are sold person to person. Design art can be fairly rare.

It took me a while to track down a collector of design art. He had a nice gallery of concept car art. There was a nice Hemi Charger pic by CAM in his gallery. I recognized the signature on the art piece and said cool. Maybe this guy knows something about Carl Cameron. I used the contact form on the guy's website and send him a message and didn't hear back. I talked to a few other people and didn't really get any good information. I called looked the guy up again and sent him an email. He called me and we talked about design art. He is an experience collector and had a lot of information. It was good to talk to someone who actually knew something about the type or art and the specific designer I was looking into.

I decided I would sell the art and maybe write a calaborate with some people on a more comprehensive biography on Carl Cameron. There's an article on Wikipedia about the 66 Dodge Charger but no bio on Cameron.

Relevant links:
Dodge Challenger
Dodge Charger
Dodge Dart