Best Fine Art Sale returns to Bend

Thirteen artists from Tumalo Art Company’s past and present will participate in the Best Fine Art Sale, which returns from dormancy every couple of years, often popping up in a new spot.

Those are the ingredients of an exciting event, said painter Susan Luckey Higdon, who will have several of her large landscape paintings on display at this year’s sale, happening from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Grace First Lutheran Church, 2265 NW Shevlin Park Road, in Bend.

“It’s a really energetic, fast sale,” Higdon said. “I do the cashiering with a couple other people. And it’s just hot and heavy for it’s only a 5-hour sale. People are usually lined up in the door ready to go and they run in and look for their art. And you never know what’s going to happen. It’s like giving a party, you know, ‘Is anyone going to come?’”

Based on past iterations of the Best Fine Art Sale, the answer is likely a “Yes.”

“In the past, we’ve gotten tremendous turnout,” Higdon said. “It’s very highly anticipated by our followers, and our people.”

You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out that 13 artists from Tumalo Art Company selling a few dozen pieces each for up to 50% off equals a good deal for collectors. Some artists will have even more art available than that. Painter and printmaker Tracy Leagjeld, well known in Bend but now living in Portland, will bring 100 plein air paintings that she’s “practically giving away,” plus larger newer ones that will be on discount.

In Higdon’s case, “I paint large pieces that are fairly expensive for the normal person, and I’m going to have five or six large pieces that are 50% off, which doesn’t mean they’re inexpensive for the normal joe, yet, but they’re 50% off my normal price,” she said. “Others with smaller pieces, they might not discount them that much.”

Given the number of artists, a number of mediums will be represented in the sale: glass, ceramics and jewelry, paintings and original hand-pulled prints, landscapes and abstracts.

“It is a studio sale, i.e., these are artworks that artists have,” Higdon said. “In my case, and I think most of the artist’s cases, it’s good work, it’s just, you can only show your work so much over a period of time, and then you’ve got new works coming up, and you need to show those. And so the ones that haven’t sold go in the closet or are stored. They just, over time, mount up and you want to get some room back in your studio. So that’s kind of what’s behind it.”

It’s the 11th year of the sale, which was held yearly until the pandemic forced them to take a couple of years off. Since its return, Higdon said, the sale has been held every couple of years rather than annually.

“The artist inventory fluctuates and sometimes people have enough work, and we’ve gotten to where, you know, we’ve done the sales and sold a bunch of work at one time, usually, at incredibly good prices. And you know, so over the years, if you do it every year or just going, hey, I don’t have that much work to have a sale with. So two years is kind of the way it’s going right now.”

The rule of thumb: Anyone who’s currently or has ever been associated with the Old Mill gallery can participate. And that’s getting to be a lot of people, she said, noting that the gallery will turn 25 next year.

Higdon said the sale is a win for all involved, from the artists making sales to the public getting deals.

“This is a little woo woo, but in a way, it’s (how) we give back to the Bend community because it’s a win for us,” she said. “We started doing it in the spring years ago because spring is a slow sale time, and it’s a good time to move some art. And then also for the Bend community that loves art that needs something that they can afford. So we feel like it’s a win-win that way.

“And so it’s a real feel good event, you know, by the end, the artists feel good. The people feel good. People have their treasures that they’re clasping to their breast, and they’re very excited about it. So it just feels really good. That energy is really nice and uplifts everybody.”