These dog collectibles are hot stuff

Posted on May 16, 2008 By Julia Szabo Comments (2)

As any dog-fancying collectibles hound knows, vintage items that depicts dogs are a must-have. Now, thanks to one antiques hound's dogged persistence, exquisite examples of a dying art form are alive and well - and available to those of us who are fools for vintage dog paraphernalia.  

On her first visit to Kathmandu in Nepal more than 20 years ago, Californian Michelle Page first noticed colorful, one-foot-square metal signboards, hand-painted with images of dogs and the phrase "Beware of Dog." Years later, she noticed the signs started to become an endangered species: they were disappearing in favor of boring, mass-produced plastic signs.

So Page appointed herself the conservator and curator of this folk art form, which she calls "Danger Dogs," scouring shops for fine examples and snapping them up. Today, her business singlehandedly ensures the survival of this art form by commissioning 55 different Nepali artists studios to make the signs, which are then sold at such prestigious places as Los Angeles' Craft and Folk Art Museum shop and the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

"These are original works of art, signed by the artist," says Page, whose slogan is American Dogs, Nepali Jobs. "This really is about the artists."  

One fan of Danger Dogs is John Walsh, Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, who bought six. "Michelle has found a whole subculture of self-taught artists living in dodgy circumstances in Kathmandu and brought their delightful work to the West," Walsh says. "All of the signs have fluent Nepalese warnings and delicious, almost-correct English subtitles. There is a lot of sophistication here."
 

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