Friends waiting for a happy ending to story

Published 12:13 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

NORTH BEND – Michelle Moshay of North Bend thought she had the perfect ending to a story she had been writing for the past seven years.

But that story’s ending is in limbo due to Moshay and her friend’s involvement in an experience marked by, in her words, “art, obsession and greed.”

“I don’t have the imagination to make this up,” she said.

After a stint painting the walls of Jeani’s Sunshine Cafe in North Bend, Peter Teekamp, an artist and friend of Moshay, moved into an apartment in Bremerton. Teekamp had spent the better part of the past four decades traveling the world as an artist. He met Moshay in 1991 and the two eventually decided to work on a book that would bring together Teekamp’s musings on his journeys. The two even had a title picked out for the book, “Pass It On: Art HIStory,” that encompassed Teekamp’s philosophy of passing on good art and good fortune.

Teekamp also decided to settle down and make a home in Washington. He moved to Bremerton and wandered around town one day to find a place he could rely on for atmosphere and coffee. He found Chamarro’s Restaurant.

Hanging on the wall of the restaurant was what looked like a sketch done by Paul Gauguin, a French painter who died in 1903 but gained posthumous fame as an impressionist and a friend of Vincent van Gough. Teekamp, a fan of Gauguin, inspected the work closely and surmised it could be an early sketch of a Gauguin painting called “Tahitian Women.”

If the sketch was an original by Gauguin, it could be worth a lot of money (the painting Gauguin ended up completing is in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris). Teekamp asked the restaurant’s owner, Mel Sablan, about the painting and the owner said it had been in his family (originally from Guam) for generations. The timeline and location of the owner’s family matched up with Gauguin’s and when Teekamp looked closely at the sketch, he saw that the paper was old. Sablan also told him that whenever he handled the sketch, charcoal would rub off onto his hands. Since charcoal would not come off of a fake print, Teekamp was even more convinced the sketch may be an original.

Teekamp told Moshay, another Gauguin fan, about the sketch and they brought in an art book to show Sablan. While the chances were slim the sketch was an original, Teekamp and Moshay advised Sablan to have it authenticated. The process could take months, even years, but they insisted it would be worth it if the sketch was found to be genuine.

According to Teekamp and Moshay, however, Sablan started to get antsy the more he heard about the possibilities of the sketch. He told Teekamp and Moshay that he wanted to get whatever money he could from the sketch right away. Sablan said he could probably get as much as $5,000 for it. Not wanting to see the Gauguin painting immediately sold, Teekamp offered to buy it. Teekamp drew up an agreement that stating that should the sketch be authenticated, profits on its sale would be split evenly between himself and Sablan. Teekamp, who once worked as a financier for Ford Motor Co., said he drew up a contract that protected everyone involved. The agreement was even notarized.

“We never planned on buying it,” Teekamp said. “It just came out of the blue.”

With the owner getting $5,000 in time for Christmas, and Teekamp with a possible Gauguin sketch hanging on his wall, everyone seemed to be happy with what had happened. Moshay fondly remembered all the pictures that were taken of smiling faces, and Teekamp envisioned a mural he would paint on the inside of Chamarro’s for free.

Moreover, Moshay and Teekamp thought they had an ending to a remarkable story. Moshay ended the book on Dec. 31 with a passage describing the uncertainty and excitement she and Teekamp felt waiting to hear about the sketch, and invited readers to wait for a sequel to find out what happened next.

“We just wanted to be a part of it and then we ended up as an owner of it out of the blue,” Moshay said. “It was so beautiful. We thought we were going to be friends for life.”

That ended last month when a man came to Teekamp’s apartment and started banging on the door. The man turned out to be a lawyer for Sablan, who was there to serve Teekamp with a court order that demanded he disclose the whereabouts of the sketch and who said Sablan was strong-armed into the deal by Teekamp and Moshay. The two were shocked and crushed.

“They were using words like ‘manipulate,’ ‘fraud’ and ‘coercion,'” Moshay said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

After a lot of back and forth in court dates and by e-mail, Sablan’s attorney presented two offers. The first was that Sablan buy back the sketch for $6,000. The other was a new ownership contract. Teekamp and Moshay rejected both since they believed the original sale was legitimate and that the new contract was unacceptable because it split the ownership of the sketch between Sablan and Teekamp. The agreement also would have allowed Sablan to become the sole owner of the sketch if Teekamp didn’t show up within a certain amount of time after being notified of the sketch being taken out of protective custody.

With no agreement reached, a Kitsap County judge ordered Teekamp to give up the sketch, which was then locked away in a county building. Teekamp and Moshay were also ordered not to leave the country, a crushing restriction for Teekamp who had a sister recovering from a surgery for cancer in the Netherlands.

One of the judge’s provisions, however, was that Sablan come up with a $5,000 bond for the sketch until the rightful owner could be determined. Two court dates passed, however, with no bond posted and a Kitsap County judge lifted the restraining order and gave the sketch to Teekamp the week before last.

Now, with the “possible” Gauguin sketch back in their possession, Teekamp and Moshay just want to be done with it. Teekamp said he doesn’t need it around and could draw it from memory if he wanted to. He also can’t help but think how differently things would have been if he’d just kept his mouth shut.

“I’m not going to tear my life apart because of some loose cannon,” Teekamp said. “Having something that has upset her [Moshay’s] life and my life is not worth it.”

Teekamp and Moshay sent a final offer to Sablan and his lawyer last week that said they would call off their countersuits if Sablan and his lawyer left them alone. Teekamp posted the sketch for sale on eBay and told Sablan that if he wanted it, he could buy it back. If someone else buys the sketch, Teekamp offered to still split the profits with Sablan after he took out what he’d lost in business and housing expenses over the past month. The sketch still has not been authenticated.

Meanwhile, Moshay and Teekamp are hoping for what they were trying to come up with back in December when Teekamp first walked into Chamarro’s.

A happy ending to a long story.

Sablan’s attorney, Michael Tomkins, did not wish to comment for this story.

Ben Cape can be reached at (425) 888-2311 or by e-mail at ben.cape@valleyrecord.com.