. I really enjoyed reading your biography, as you are a true Renaissance Man. Tell us about your early introduction and interest in the worlds of art.
Art has been around me for as long as I remember. As a child, my mother was constantly painting ... canvas or bas relief works were on her easel as my sister and I drew pictures and surrounded her station. We were strongly encouraged to have drawing books and my mother, Martha Slaymaker, would tutor us on drawing and painting techniques as young children.
Once as a young boy, I drank a quart of turpentine when my mother wasn't looking, and I ended up in the hospital having my stomach pumped. This episode might explain my unusual behavior even today.
During my late mother's life, she had 150 one-person shows, and sold 40,000 works. It seemed that she was always preparing for an exhibit, so art was a consistent activity that dominated much of our collective lives. Her art is in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide. As we became older, my mother showed us how to use her intaglio collagraph press for relief prints and etchings. At some point, my sister and I would help her in the process, although, at the time, I was much more interested in athletics and other things young boys in Indiana found amusing, besides art.
I did have to deal with my sister because she was allowed only to draw girls, and I was allowed to draw boys. However, my sister, Jill, betrayed me at 12 years old because she also started drawing boys. This was my first art deal gone bad, and it forced me to become suspicious of the art business.
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Q. Tell us about your world travels and how that has affected your outlook on business?
When I began selling art, I couldn't believe that I was getting paid for traveling. The excitement of going to new cities and countries seemed too good to be true.
Over the past 27 years, I have worked every state in the Union, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Ireland, England, Jamaica, all of Europe, Hong Kong, Tibet, New Zealand, P.R. of China, Japan and probably a few countries I have forgotten about.
Selling in non-Western countries is quite different than selling in the west. Negotiations and haggling are important parts of making the sale. Trying to "cut through the chase" will only make one's customer feel that they haven't honed into the best deal possible, so it is necessary to play the game.
Business manners range dramatically from nation to nation as well. One's best preparation is to present oneself in a traditional manner. Never discuss politics, religion and sex, even when people try to drag you into the discussions. Always be respectful of their customs. It is important to be polite and not to offend. It is also important to remember that the overseas accounts are usually making a great effort to use your art, and the value of their currency usually makes this more difficult than dealing with an account from the United States.
Q. You have a very talented wife, parents and family ... and why do you call yourselves "The Indiana Jones Family?"
When we were small children growing up in Indiana, our parents would pull us out of school early and bring us back late as we all journeyed by vehicle to central Mexico and Central America. My parents were passionate about archaeology and we would travel around excavating various Mayan, Toltec, Aztec and Incan excavation sites. We were a part of many famous digs. To this day, I have unusual artifacts acquired from that time. Some of the Mayan artifacts still have the original paint on them.
Towards the end of my life, I may donate them back to the governments from where they came. There is an entirely different political view today on our activity than there was in the 1950s and early 1960s, which I partially subscribe to.
Q. You have a friend who is in the Guinness Book of World Records. What was his qualifications?
In 1977, I was a foreign exchange student from Indiana University and attended La Universidad de Ibero Americana in Mexico City. As I was a piano major studying composition, I was placed in the home of Senor Jacobo Puentis, who had made a living writing Mexican commercial music and jingles.
When I met him, he had no legs and was on a respirator with emphysema, but he could speak well when it was removed. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having been legally declared dead 17 times. He had been declared dead eight times before he was 12 years old. He not only shared music and composition with me, but his philosophical outlook was amazing.
Religious leaders from around the world came to see him occasionally to gather his experiences of death before he came back to life. He said that his will to live was just so strong that he kept "bouncing back." He was a fascinating person, and I learned a tremendous amount of philosophy from him.
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