26 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {punchline} grown to over 100 pieces, each and every one steeped in stories and memories. Although their collection has no specific theme or parameters (post-war American art, for example), the couple has stuck to one important requirement: they both have to like whatever they acquire. How do two people always agree on something as subjective as art? Sue admits, “There is usually someone who sparks first.” She offers the example of a watercolor that she fell in love with, Sentinels of the Goldfields by artist Judy Holding. John admits, “I was not completely sold on it at first,” adding that watercolor has never been his favorite medium. Upon further consideration, he realized that the landscape of the Australian Outback would be a good reminder of their travels. “We think of those wonderful trips every time we pass it in the hallway,” says Sue. This is the glue, the foundation, John and Sue Diekman did not set out to be art collectors. As young newlyweds, they took a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, where they happened upon a gallery and saw a painting titled Sonora Confluence by James Conaway. As Sue describes it, “We didn’t know anything about art, but we loved the color and the movement in this painting.” They purchased it for their first home in Palo Alto and, as John says with a smile, “We felt real grown up.” John and Sue still have that painting and proudly show it off to anyone visiting their mid-Peninsula home. That initial purchase led to a lifetime of acquiring the art collection that now fills the rooms of their home. The idea of sequestering their art in storage has never appealed to the couple, so they display their whole collection around their residences and John’s San Francisco office. The collection has
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