I was walking from my darkened living room into my dining room when I glanced at Ed Loper’s painting on a wall between the two. A bright light from the kitchen was shining through the dining-room pass-through. It had settled on the painting, turning white streaks of paint into slivers of light.

The image stopped me instantly. I saw what Loper had meant for me to see.

The woman in the painting was standing on a fire escape on a moonlit night. I had never seen the magic in this painting before. It was mesmerizing. Without the light, it was just a flat painting of a woman on a metal fire escape.

The streaks of light from the moon were so real that I felt as if I could reach in and touch them.

This oil-on-canvas painting by Edward L. Loper Sr. was one of my best auction finds. I bought it soon after I began my twice-weekly trips to mom-and-pop auction houses in the Philadelphia region.

That was years before the internet made it easy to research artwork and its value with a cell phone, and I had to rely on my instincts.

This was one of my first visits to an auction house. I was nervous. I didn’t know anyone, and people were not unfriendly, just unsure of who I was. There weren’t many women or Black folks there – I would find that more men than women were dealers who sold what they bought.

The regulars were a niche group that did not easily embrace newcomers; I was both an outsider and competitor, and they weren’t sure who among them I’d be bidding against. There are no friends at auction, the saying goes, but I was to learn that that was a farce.

After I kept showing up at auctions, I became one of the regulars. I developed a presence: I meticulously stalked the tables. I only bid on particular items, such as artwork, which I kept, and cameras and dolls, which I sold. I was a fearless bidder. I engaged them in small talk.

But on this day, I had not yet entered that compatriot zone. I took a seat in the audience and watched as the auctioneer held up the painting of the woman on the fire escape. Then I listened as he identified the painter as an African American artist from Delaware.

That description fit exactly into where my head was. I was on the hunt for works by veteran African American artists. Loper was one of them, but I didn’t know that at the time. As soon as I heard his identity, I sat up and took notice.

The decision to go after his painting was easy, but the bidding that ensued was a test of my resolve.