Pickin' & Grinnin'

If you want a deal it's a good idea to get to the weekend antique and flea markets in Chelsea early, but 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning seemed a bit much. I'm there to meet local antique guru, savant and artist Robert Loughlin and his partner, actor Gary Carlson, while they shop at the bazaar.

Robert and Gary have been fixtures here for the last 20 years. They pick, deal, trade and bilk the ignorant out of their 20th century artifacts, then sell their finds to the hottest upscale design stores in the city, completing the cycle of commerce that is New York decorating. They are high-end pickers, a term antiques dealers use for someone who picks through the junk for diamonds in the rough.

You know Robert's artwork-a distinctive, chiseled portrait of a man smoking a cigarette that has appeared on buildings, parking lot walls, lamp posts, old pieces of furniture, mirrors, linoleum flooring and the used canvases of other artists. It is unknown whether an Eames chair with Robert's paintings on it is worth more before or after he has wielded his brush, but Robert has numerous admirers including art dealers, celebrities, club owners, lawyers and many other antique dealers.

In the pitch black, I see a flashlight flickering and a figure standing in the middle of the main flea market lot, and I hear Roberts's unmistakable voice, a mixture between Spicoli and Yosemite Sam. I say hello while Robert takes a quick look around the lot for any new trucks arriving, and he then walks me over to his 1985 Ford Ranger to show me his latest work. He shines his flashlight into the cab to show me two round paintings he has done the night before.

From behind us two young dealers stick their noses in to inquire about the work. Robert quotes them an insider price and they look more closely, holding the large circular painting up to the light and resting it on the wall in front of a drugstore.

Robert's work looks at home on the street, where he started as sort of a figurative graffiti artist. The painting in question was done on a disassembled table base and has three holes where the original glass top was attached. Robert gives one of the dealers a1950s hard cover on German fiction whose cover he has tagged up with the familiar face of his partner Gary as an incentive to buy the painting.

"I use this juicy marker. It's a toilet wall marker," he tells me, pulling out a Pilot Super Color.

Robert always paints the same face. Over the years it has evolved. At one time it was a cross between himself and Gary, with blood running out an ear or a bullet headed toward the skull and some sort of text to emphasize the work, like the word "war" or a celebrity's name. Over the years the face evolved solely into Gary's and it now faithfully depicts his boyfriend's chiseled G.I. look in an almost Cro-Magnon way.

"It's something to do," Robert says about the art as he hangs a fishing net off the back window of the Ranger's cab. "This is so no one can see us while we're talking." I tell him he looks like Katherine Hepburn on acid. "African Queens baby. There are a lot of those around here," he replies.

Robert and Gary have been together since 1980, when they met at Boots and Saddles, the classic Village bar. Gary was attracted to the guy Robert was with, not Robert, and he actually had his cargo-loading job transferred to Miami to get away from the obsessed Loughlin. Robert eventually tracked him down and climbed through Gary's bedroom window one night. Love at second sight.

One of the couple's many claims to fame came when Robert, while merching, bought a rolled up canvas at the big Salvation Army in Manhattan. It turned out to be a Salvador Dali portrait of Mary Rockefeller's husband. When he and Gary tried to sell it, a huge legal battle ensued with the Rockefeller estate as to the provenance of the painting. Because it had been in the Salvation Army for so long, the historical continuance had been broken. Eventually, the painting was auctioned off at Sotheby's for an undisclosed amount, but not before a two-year dispute with the Rockefellers, Sotheby's and their lawyers.

"That's what we're here for. To get high," Robert tells me as we smoke a joint with our coffee. "No, really. There's a couple of dealers we come here early for. They're just dumbasses that get good shit. They get great merch but they don't know what it is."

We notice some dealers running to a white truck that has just pulled in the lot. Robert walks casually over as the young dealers smoke and gather around the closed lift gate. In their dark vintage clothes, camouflage hats and down vests, they float from lot to lot, waiting for arriving trucks and watching Robert for their next cue.

"Gotta really make some money today. Gotta pay for this tooth." Robert smiles and shows me the missing teeth which account for his accent. "And we gotta put money in the bank. The paintings, that's just fun money."

The owner of the white truck opens the back. Young dealers swarm around it and flashlights pepper the contents. Robert points his light on a grey Knoll sofa and makes a guttural sound.

"How much on that sofa?" Robert blurts out.

"Three hundred fifty," the owner replies. Robert holds in his astonishment, but the dealers sense it. This is a buy. He turns around and whispers to some guys behind him, "Two Knoll sofas, two Knoll sofas." They try to get in on it but it's too late-someone already has his cash out.

"The exact words out of my mouth were, 'I need a sofa,'" one of the dealers says to Robert wistfully.

"It's petrified," Robert says pointing at the hard foam cushions. "He's doing that hotel, the Maritime," he whispers to me. "That's brutal. See the reaction to the sofa? They're wrecked. They just want to make money. It's one sofa for Christ's sake. That's how rare shit is. That's a two thousand dollar couch. It's the only thing you can put in one of those hotels and it won't compete visually."

Robert approaches the new owner of the couch.

"Do I get a finders fee?" he asks. The man looks at Robert like he's crazy. "Well, do I? That's how I work." The man demurs.

Robert says smoking the pot made him want to drink, so I head to the deli to buy him some Budweiser. He asks me to go because he doesn't want anyone to see him buying beer.

I ask Robert why he never had a store to sell all his stuff.

"It's too much work," he says. "The rent, the hassles. I would love one just to show what I could do with it. I used to decorate people's stores all the time till they started looking up my nose to see if I was doing coke."

In front of his truck Robert finds a twelve-step book on the ground.

"It's probably Gary's. You know today is his thirteenth straight year?"

The windows of the truck are steamed up, so I assume Gary must be in there. Gary is an actor/director and has appeared as a principal in music videos for Stevie Winwood and C+C Music Factory, among others, but he is also well known as Robert's model. I look in the front windshield and see his face through the steamed glass; it strikes me how much it looks like Roberts's paintings all blurred from the condensation. The only thing missing is the cigarette.

The two men live in North Bergen. "No one has taste in that town. I could have the most fab fifties chaise in the yard and no one cares. I live in a trailer park and I tell the people there, 'That's worth twelve grand in a shop in New York' and they say, 'Yeah, sure'. They think I'm out of my mind so I leave it out and no one steals it."

Robert is drinking a beer and setting up some of his paintings on the sidewalk. A young Asian kid stops in front of them and looks at Robert in awe.

"Is that your stuff? I have big metal thing with that face on it, and a chair with that face on it. No wonder! I could feel it was you. I love your work."

"I have a lot of his stuff," the kid tells me. "I can't leave it when I see it in the market. I have a chair and a vase he a painted on. He rarely paints on canvas. I like it because it looks like a sensible man. He looks really strong but at the same time he's kind of sad and sensitive."

The sun is almost completely up and Robert asks me to get him another six-pack of Bud and some gum. When I return he says, "Thanks. Now everyone thinks you're an alcoholic."

I ask him what the big deal is about him buying beer.

"There's times out here when I've been unbelievably messy. When I'm not drinking people say, 'Oh, Robert, you're behaving yourself.' And I say, 'Not for long. It's still early.' If they see this they say, 'He's a mess again.'"

Another dealer comes by and asks Robert what the best piece of Lucite he ever saw was. "Halston's dildo." He replies and shrugs off the question.

Robert takes his painting and turns it over, writing "Nirvana" on the back and signing it. He tries to off it on the way up the street.

"One hundred bucks," he says to an older dealer. "That's a good deal. That's reasonable. Christ. Can't beat that. It's latex enamel."

This is Robert's territory. He seems comfortable in this space in the back of the Grand Bazaar. There are bits of his art all around. He has a piece painted on an old photo drying rack. He's taken a long piece of yellow paper and has drawn one of his signature faces along with the words "The Smiths suck" on one side and "Pixies" and "Cure" on the other. The mirror on a vanity has been tagged with a face and he's got his own public urination spot next to the adjacent church.

A man in a suit walks by with his shoelace untied. It drags through Roberts's pee. The man bends down and ties it next to the puddle. Robert and Gary look at each other and laugh like little kids.