Latest News Articles by Joan Porter
Urban Art Fair in Brixton – "a gold mine of creativity"
11 September 2017Tim Sutton organises the successful annual two-day Urban Art Fair in Brixton in July, where this year around 15,400 visitors spent nearly £15,000 buying works from 200 artists. Art was strung out along the railings and on stalls in Josephine Avenue.
Lamps made from 1920s shotguns among upcycled creations of an Essex dealer
11 September 2017Five years ago I wrote a piece about Essex dealer Guy Chevenix-Trench of Antiques by Design who was standing at the 'Salvo' fair.
Fair fires the imagination
11 September 2017Launched in March in the characterful setting of the former fire engine workshops of the London Fire Brigade, the monthly Vintage Vauxhall Market is building dealer numbers and public interest.
Postcards reveal everyday life on London streets
04 September 2017This Edwardian postcard, showing a hot-chestnut seller in the City of London, was issued by the Rotary Photographic Company in its London Life series.
Braderie is the real Deal
04 September 2017This bronze statue 'Embracing the Sea' by Jon Buck, created in 1998, sits by the entrance to the pier in the Kent coastal town of Deal, a three-metre tall monument to the town’s boatbuilding and fishing history.
Events bring Norfolk broad smiles
04 September 2017Organiser delighted by the response to her antiques and militaria fairs held in East Anglia...
Castle Cary put on hold
04 September 2017The launch on September 10 of a vintage market outside the 19th century Market House in the picturesque town of Castle Cary in Somerset has been postponed until next spring.
Book fairs are buzzing, says dealer
04 September 2017An early 19th century card game in its original wooden box but lacking some of the mostly bright cards – there are 24 top, 24 middle and 28 bottom sections in the box – is for sale from Michael Moon’s Bookshop in Whitehaven in Cumbria for £595 at the York book fair.
Vic is among big-name ticks
28 August 2017The Vauxhall Art Car Boot will hit the south-east Kent coastal town of Folkestone on the opening day of the Folkestone Triennial.
Folkestone triennial – a tower of strength
28 August 2017Possibly the most memorable press exposure the Folkestone Triennial has had was at its first event in 2008 when Tracey Emin left a trail of bronzed baby clothes and booties across the town to highlight the numbers of teenage pregnancies across the south-east.
British Horological Institute launches a clocks and watches fair at its Nottinghamshire headquarters
28 August 2017A horological story rarely makes the national news, but the announcement that Big Ben is falling silent until 2021 as major conservation work begins rang loud and clear in headlines.
Mid-century gives musician much to chew on
28 August 2017This is the story of how James Watkins went from being half of the electro-pop duo Chew Lips, performing at music festivals across Europe including Glastonbury – “we were the sort of late afternoon band you don’t really listen to” – to running an online business selling mid-century design, particularly furniture.
Kimonos are a stand-out style
28 August 2017The great flowering of the kimono was in the Edo period (1615-1868) when the merchant and artisan classes, or chōnin, could not use their new-found wealth to improve their social status, so rigid was the shogun military hierarchy.
Pick up a bucket (or two) in Somerset
26 August 2017The Giant Flea and Collectors’ Market at the Royal Bath & West Showground in Shepton Mallet is almost fully booked inside with 200 stallholders.
High praise given to palace Deco delight
21 August 2017So enamoured was Deco dealer Bill Jones of Style 1900 with the biannual Art Deco fairs held in the Great Hall at Eltham Palace in south London that he started his own: in Norfolk and East Sussex.
Fundraiser brews for malthouse
21 August 2017The popular annual Antiques in the Street event held in the market town of Ashbourne is being revived and will support restoration of an 18th century building.
Artist shows his love of Aldeburgh musical magic
21 August 2017Cavendish Morton became prominent as a landscape artist after the Second World War, focusing on pastoral and maritime themes, particularly in East Anglia, where he moved with his family in 1946.
Italian magnet for art and antiques
21 August 2017The ancient Tuscan city of Arezzo, with its Roman ruins, medieval walls, Renaissance architecture and murals by Piero della Francesca, has long been a magnet for art lovers.
Family flies into Hemswell
14 August 2017With a thriving antiques and retro trade business, Mike and Vicky Mills of Antique Interiors in the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough are also one of the UK’s largest dealers in stained-glass windows.
Do you feel lucky, steampunk?
14 August 2017Steampunk is described in earnest tones on Wikipedia as “a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th century industrial-power machinery”.