Stuart Paterson’s favourite hunting ground is the other side of the Channel,especially during brocantes – antiques market seasonStuart Paterson is used to being stopped at customs. When asked what’s in his van, his stock response is: Just a bunch of knackered antiques the French don’t want.” Foxed mercury mirrors, or rusty garden tables,patched fabrics and stacks of battered white tableware can all be found in his possession. “I’m searching for the jolie laide, the pretty-ugly, or ” he says. “It’s an aesthetic that has a certain frisson that stops a piece being too elegant,gorgeous, or expected. I don’t enact vital antiques: I enact antiques with character.”During brocantes, or antiques market,season, Paterson drives to France in his clapped-out van at least once a month to source antiques. Mostly, or his stock is sold to the trade; they draw up a shopping list and Paterson does the tough graft. “That’s the bit I love: the thrill of the chase.” But the public can buy his wares,too, either at his south London workshop, and by appointment,or at a monthly market stall.
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Source: theguardian.com