My Rob Ryan Plates & Collection

I have a little collection of Rob Ryan work. None of it original, original - unless you count my signed lazar cut. (which is signed!)

This was my first purchase.

Rob Ryan is an artist, based in England and is quite well known for his intricate paper-cuts. He was really one of the first well known and established paper-cut artists, before paper-cutting became incredibly popular.

He lives and works in Spitalfields, London, where you can visit him in his shop named Ryantown.  Two years ago on my trip to England, I missed an exhibition of his and contemporary British craft artists. I was literally a day late and was kicking myself to the point of bruising! I even went to Spitalfields to find his shop later and got distracted by a huge street market.

 One day I hope to own an original but it is out of my price range at the moment )-:

My 3rd Acquisition ... his little story book.

Well I did manage to visit a gallery/shop that represented him and managed to buy some lazar cut cards. You can check out Castor & Pollux here. It's a really cool little shop...

My camera died before I could photograph them for you!

Today I purchased his plates. YAY!

Oh, to eat off of them or hang them on the wall - decisions, decisions!

A Visit to Aberfoyle

If you are in the Southern Ontario area, you probably know of Aberfoyle, Ontario. If not, let me fill you in. Aberfoyle is located just outside of Guelph and is home to one of the largest and oldest antique markets. The market is held every Sunday (yes, that's right, only Sunday). And what better way to spend the day then to jumble sail! or is it jumble sale? That's what the Brits call it anyway.

This is one of the "streets" at Aberfoyle, named so you don't get lost.

The market sprawls in and out of trees and into gravel clearings.
Some sellers have little booths, while others are literally set up out of their car!

I feel for the sellers in this area: poor suckers have no shade.

So what can you find at Aberfoyle? Really anything. I went with four items in mind: stereoscope cards (which I used to collect, but have neglected), coins for my friend at Coin Coin Designs & Co. , pie birds, and those Mario Batali antique string holder heads that I desperately want for my kitchen!!! (and which I have previously blogged about here).

I managed to actually find a String Head (is that what you would call them?!) But I didn't like it at all.

Is it a dog or a cat? It's $45, that's all I know.

I noticed some really obvious collecting trends. First: old Crown mason jars were everywhere and ranged in price from $3 to over $12. Another was old carved duck decoys! You should have heard this fellow give the history of this duck from the 1920's. The fact that you can even tell the date of when something like that is carved is amazing. Typewriters and rotary phones were everywhere. The average price for a rotary phone was about $45! Wild!

There were excellent prices on old cameras. Lots of paint by number (ever see Drew Barrymore's collection? It rocks). And all the toys that boys played with in the 80's are suddenly worth something.

Some really neat costume jewelry, military pins and watches...

Where I could have gone crazy but didn't was here: (I am so proud of my restraint!)

WHOA! This is the best selection of antique typefaces yet!!!

Need more information on Aberfoyle? Check out their website.