David Vincent Mills always appreciated his father’s artwork and wished more people could as well. Now, he’s getting that opportunity while making a few bucks in the process.

Last December, a friend of Mills and his wife, Jen Valencia, said they saw a flier from the Sedona Chamber of Commerce that the long-running TV show “American Pickers” was looking for potential picks in the area.

The History Channel show debuted in early 2010 and features Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, a pair of Iowa-based antiques pickers. They travel the country bartering with people on a variety of collectible items — which they refer to as “rusty gold.” They in turn resell the items at their two stores and online.

Mills, a local musician, was urged to contact the show, and after doing so gave a brief overview of his father’s work. To his surprise, the next day a representative from the show did a quick interview over the phone. A week later they contacted Mills again and one of the show’s producers came out to verify what Mills had shared with them. The whirlwind continued in February with Mills being one of a handful of stops the show made while filming in Arizona.

“I was somewhat shocked and very excited,” Mills said. “I had high hopes that it would be interesting enough that they’d want to come and check it out. I’m kind of familiar with the show and watched it enough to know they like going to places with large barns or storage areas that have been there for a while. They enjoy crawling around and discovering what they can find. On that note, I was a bit of an unusual pick.”

The episode Mills appears in will air on the History Channel on Monday, Aug. 3.

Mills’ father, John Mills, who died in 1989, was a trumpet player in the Korean War and struggling musician before becoming an artist. In fact, there’s a large painting in Mills’ home of the time his father and fellow bandmates met Marilyn Monroe during a USO tour. He took a photo of her and later used that photo to paint her picture talking with the others in the band.

The younger Mills knew that Fritz was a big fan of Marilyn Monroe. He thought if nothing else, the painting and his father’s original slides from that day might be enough of a hook to pique the show’s interest. That proved to be unnecessary. As a result of a back surgery around the time the crew was in Arizona, Fritz did not make the trip and was replaced by Wolfe’s brother, Rob.

In terms of producing art professionally, John Mills got his start in the late 1950s in Detroit, home to many car manufactures at the time. Back then the catalog for a company’s line of vehicles featured paintings, only to be replaced later with photographs. Mills drew renderings for several of the top companies like Chevy and GM, not only for their catalogs but also advertisements for billboards and magazines, including Life.

“He was told that if he could paint the chrome on a car, he could paint anything because that’s one of the hardest thing you can do,” Mills said, pointing to the reflection of the chrome on the cars in his father’s work.

In the 1960s, with television becoming more and more popular, Mills said his father’s talent was needed less as car manufacturers began cutting their artistic budget in lieu of television advertising. That’s right around when photography became the norm for the car catalogs and ads, at a reduced cost.

For the next decade, John Mills worked as a freelance illustrator for food manufacturing companies and in the 1970s branched out to do more in the way of fine art. Many of his pieces now adorn the walls of the younger Mills’ Sedona home.

“He did a lot of landscapes but the last few years he focused on jazz portraits,” he said. “His work appeared in some galleries in San Francisco and New York but when he passed, that was preinternet so there’s not a lot of presence of his work online.”

In terms of why he felt now was a good time to sell some of his father’s artwork, Mills said, “I realize I’m biased but I think my dad was a talented artist and I feel the world should see his work. I have 40 to 50 of his paintings and hundreds of his sketches. I can’t keep it all and it deserves to be seen and enjoyed by others. So it’s not a monetary thing but it’s more so that his work gets exposure and he’s recognized for the talented artist he was.”

To help with that, Mills has created a website to showcase his father’s work at johnmillsartwork.com.

It was John Mills’ artwork for the auto manufacturers that caught the attention of the Wolfe brothers. Mills has several of the original pieces his dad painted for the catalogs and ads. Mike Wolfe ended up buying seven pieces of the automobile artwork, while Rob Wolfe purchased his dad’s 1948 Ford pickup. As to how much they paid — well — you’ll have to tune in to see.

“I found some work of his contemporaries to get an idea of how much I wanted to ask for his work,” Mills said. “There is a market for advertising art so I had a price point ahead of time. And they do their own homework ahead of time as well. They were very fair with their offers. In fact, I got more than I was expecting.”

When the “American Pickers” crew showed up, they brought with them about 10 people and ended up being there for nearly 12 hours of filming. The average pick airs on the show for about 15 to 20 minutes.

“By the end of the day they did an interview with me and after 12 hours I was fried,” Mills said. “For one, it was emotional talking about my dad’s work while doing my best to pay homage to him. But it was a really good day. They could not have been nicer or more professional.”