Nancy Johnson
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be managing for United Voluntary Services the West’s finest Antique Show. Not only is it a Show that is enjoyed by dealers and buyers, the proceeds from Hillsborough support the all volunteer work that UVS does in VA Hospitals across the country.
Show management is in my genes. My father, Walt Johnson, started promoting a show called COLLECTORS EXTRAVAGANZA® back in Des Moines, Iowa in 1969, when I was in high school. Dad, who is now 83, was a coin dealer. Over forty years ago, Shows did not exist as we know them today; there were small size shows for coins and stamps, equally small shows that were primarily glassware and furniture, and VFW halls filled with dolls. Dad felt that if all these types of merchandise were combined into one bigger show, the event would attract an equally bigger audience, and the collecting public would be exposed to new fields of interest. Looking back, we were the first "mega show". I also learned from my Dad that "if we (meaning the dealers and the management) had to cheat someone to make a sale, then we needed to quit". I never forgot that and I have been a consumer activist my entire life. When I was working in 2007 with our Professional Show Managers’ Association and the Federal Trade Commission to get the FTC to take fakes and repros as a major problem in the antiques industry, I realized the genesis of that work. Google ftc-antiques and you can read the web-document written by fellow show manager Dordy Fontinel and me. While the Hillsborough Antique Show is a top quality event with reputable and knowledgeable dealers, even one fake is a problem. I plan to tackle this issue head-on. Misrepresentation of merchandise will not be tolerated, period.
I’ve worked as a full-time show manager since 1975, when I graduated from Drake University, and I presently produce our shows in Colorado and Iowa -- Antiques At Wings at Wings Over The Rockies in Denver and Walt Johnson’s Original, now informally called Antiques At The Fairgrounds at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. Additionally I have a reference book business, with some 75,000 titles pertaining to antiques, art, collectibles, aviation history and the American West. I’ve been a Hillsborough exhibitor with books since 1999, so I know the show well.
My home is in Denver, but I spend about three months each year in the Bay Area, so I’m a local in many regards. A small offering of my books is available through Antiques At Rockaway Beach in Pacifica.
I bring a "common sense creativity", as one dealer phrased it, to Hillsborough. I am direct, up-front and unpretentious, Even the official title Show Director seems a bit over-the-top, and I prefer Show Manager. I do acknowledge that I live in the 21s century, so I have a Twitter account. I’ll post some comments about Hillsborough from time to time. My user name is njohnsonbooks if you want to follow. Better, just e-mail me nancyjohnson@unitedvoluntaryservices.org, if you have any thoughts or concerns. I’m online everyday and will answer your inquries personally.
I am not new to UVS either. The Board of United Voluntary Services approached me in 2007 to develop additional events for them, not necessarily antiques related and in different geographic areas. (Most visitors to Hillsborough do not know that UVS has units in 43 VA hospitals coast to coast.) We’ll have the first of those events, Chocolate For Vets, a family friendly Chocolate Festival, in Denver January 29-31, 2010. Who knows what the future may hold for other UVS events!
Surrounded by antiques all my adult life, what do I collect? Of course I love books and I enjoy any material related to Colorado and northern California, including the national parks, and material specific to Denver and San Francisco, I have watercolors of scenes from the American West, and by contrast to the peaceful pastels of that art on my walls, I also have a very small collection of original Ansel Adams photography. My passion has always been American sports cars. I have a 1970 small block GTO as well as more contemporary vehicles, and although I no longer drive competitively, my favorite way to relax is to take one of the cars on a drive. If you ever see a 1998 Newport Blue Corvette with the license plates WNDWNGS driving along Highway 1,wave and shout "HIllsborough"!
Although my family has always been in the "collectors’ eye" at the shows we have produced, I tend to keep my personal life separate from my career. However, I know that my life is richer because I have my Dad in my life, plus two families, the Hoffstaetters and the Warrens whom I have adopted (and they me). Actress Audrey Hepburn was right when she said that to make a woman beautiful, one need only a child to tell her so. My Dad is a veteran of World War II and Korea, and so it seems very appropriate that I would be working with an organization dedicated to serving veterans. My Mom, whom I lost in 1997, taught me determination, a hard work ethic that a woman need not look through a glass ceiling. There have been four Hillsborough show managers in forty-one years, three men and now one woman.
I look forward to communicating with you between shows and to seeing you at the Show . . . Experience the excellence that is Hillsborough!
