Trash to treasure: Art show’s finds come from thrift shops and swap meets, even Dumpsters

Mark Bloom and Steve Purdy deal in art, not the kind that top collectors are willing to pay big bucks for or that makes even the unschooled gaze in awe.

The art in their collection is more likely to elicit stares of disbelief or win prizes for being “the ugliest” — although the two would argue that their finds are beautiful in their own way, in their own weird way.

A portrait of a confused-looking baby with an unusually large and disproportionate head. A clown with a monkey for a brain. A young girl who resembles “Mona Lisa” but with a squished face and pig-like nose.

Bloom and Purdy travel with their odd collections in an show called “Tales from the Trash,” and that is pretty much where they acquire their paintings. Actually they frequent thrift stores and swap meets, but trash bins aren’t off-limits.

No matter. The two men, both from Tucson, Ariz., consider their finds treasure even if found in the trash.

And they are happy to be sharing at least part of their up-to-350-piece collection — 50 to 200 pieces, or whatever can fit in the room — at Don the Beachcomber, a bar in Huntington Beach, on April 1.

The project started in 2012 when Purdy stumbled upon the ugly baby painting.

“My wife and I were at a Salvation Army in Santa Fe, and she walks up to me with the most hideous painting of a baby,” said Purdy, 68. “It was $2.50. I said, ‘Oh my god. I’m going to buy it.’ The rest of the trip, I became obsessed with looking for these crazy pictures, and I’ve just continued buying them.”

Eventually, Purdy, who travels the country often and visits thrift stores on the road, found enough pieces for an art show.

He said he put on the first show at a friend’s record shop in Tucson in September 2012 and drew a “monstrous” crowd of a few hundred people.

Bloom was one of those people, and he recognized Purdy from the thrift stores that he also frequented to hunt for odd finds.

“It was this nice, little serendipitous thing of meeting randomly and being into the same weird stuff,” said Bloom, 53.

The Huntington Beach show will be the pair’s fifth together, although Purdy is curating this one by himself.

Bloom said the two men purchase the pieces from thrift stores or swap meets for a few bucks to around $20 and often sell the paintings for $5 to $80.

“It’s not thousands of dollars of art,” he said. “We’re not finding thrift store paintings and trying to pass them off as great works of art that cost that much. We like to keep it affordable and easily achievable.”

He said some pieces, like the portrait of a couple he calls “The Fluffers,” are so bizarre that he can’t see parting with them.

The painting shows what Bloom calls a “Midwest-looking husband and wife with slant expressions” and disproportionate eyes.

“They just kind of stare into your soul,” he said of the painting, which hangs over the bed in his guest bedroom. “One of the tests of our friends is if they stay with my wife and I, they stay with the Fluffers. Some people are weirded out, and some are OK with it.”

Purdy said he met one of the artists by chance at a show in Bisbee, Ariz.

He said the man, who claimed to have painted “Faceless Zombies from Outer Space,” was “all smiles” as he stood for pictures in front of his artwork.

Bloom said he and Purdy enjoy giving these otherwise disposable pieces a new chance at entertaining people.

“Once these things were loved by someone who created them, and then they were unloved and given to Goodwill or thrown away,” Bloom said. “Then me and Steve come along and re-love them. To be fair, some of them are pretty bad, but there’s always something in those bad ones that I find pretty interesting.”

Purdy echoed that sentiment.

“Some people took some time to paint these, and I don’t know if they thought they were good or bad, but people seem to like them,” Purdy said. “I’m thrilled to bring these to people who want them. Why should they be thrown away?

“I don’t think people know how much cool stuff is out there, and there’s mountains of it. There’s bad-bad and there’s good-bad, and everything is so different. I’m just so happy to put it out there.”

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IF YOU GO

What: “Tales from the Trash”

When: 7 p.m. April 1

Where: Don the Beachcomber, 16278 Pacific Coast Hwy., Huntington Beach

Cost: $10

Info: talesfromthetrash.com