Category: Art

Con Haul

  • August 25, 2026

This post details what we bought at the con, and the majority of these items came from artist’s alley. It was a bit of an effort to fit all this into our suitcases for the trip home 🙂

I bought a few dozen postcards, some of which are shown above. These are rarely sold as ‘postcards’ and usually called ‘mini prints’. Frustratingly a lot of creators print them on flimsy card or with glossy backs, both of which I avoid. But I had no trouble finding many great ones anyway!

Kristin purchased these stuffed animals. The top left is a ‘sea bunny’ and the bottom left a jellyfish. The guinea pig has a magnet in his mouth so he can ‘eat’ the strawberry!

A couple of magnets.

A pencil case. This is very high quality, and the seller had several different designs that were all great.

I was very surprised to see rubber stamps, and astonished to see the set on the left which uses three stamps to make a coloured impression. I used it on a few postcards and it’s a bit tricky to get it looking perfect, but I’ll get better with practice!

We bought more stickers than anything else, and this is only a selection of them. From what I’ve learned on YouTube videos, stickers are the best-sellers at most booths, and the selection is usually massive.

These are metal pins, and the three at the top are blind-boxed (and not yet opened). Pins also sell very well for the artists, and as with stickers there is an enormous variety. Some can get very big, and equally expensive!

Another surprise this year were the indie trading cards. I bought four different packs, and they all have a few cards inside drawn from a set of several dozen. The cards are very fancy with foil and etching, but I’ll let these packs ‘age’ a while before opening. I saw 8 different sets of trading card packs for sale, and the ones I skipped were indie TCGs inspired by Pokemon.

The orange card in the middle is a Magic The Gathering proxy token using a character from an anime series (DanDaDan). Several artists sold MtG proxies, which is something I don’t recall seeing last year.

This was purchased from the same guy who hand carved the rubber stamps (that I mentioned in the previous entry). As a secondary hobby he hand-makes paper cut-out art of anime characters. All the black parts in the photo were carefully cut away using an exacto knife, and since this is a fairly small piece of paper (about 6 inches on the long side) the detail here is astounding. I’ll put a vibrant colour behind and frame this one!

Kristin purchased six prints, all of which we’ll also frame and display. The first was this cat.

This watercolour (print) shows cute rabbits in the clouds. Almost every print sold by this artist was exceptional, and choosing just one was difficult.

And lastly we have this set of four seasonal prints showing a cat in a windowsill. These are about two feet tall and it will be a challenge framing them and finding somewhere to display them!

This isn’t everything we got. I bought a lot of manga, an anime figure, four t-shirts and a few future gifts I obviously won’t spoil here. Our wallets got a workout, and it was only the available space in our suitcases that prevented us from buying more!

Ten+ Things I Saw At The Fair

  • August 18, 2026

I went to the 2026 Altamont Fair today. This is our local fair and I hadn’t been in years, and since we didn’t go to any fair last year this was my first fair in two years. Today was the opening day so my ticket was only $10. Here’s some of what I saw…

As usual there were a lot of animals being exhibited. I liked this goat’s ears, but only after I photographed him (her?) did I realize that he was eerily motionless. No movement at all, not even blinking. Maybe he was asleep? It was a little creepy so I fled.

This sheep was the opposite: full of vim and character. He was sitting, resting his head on his friend’s back, and became very interested in my camera. Many of the sheep were shorn and I assume he would be eventually. I’m sure he was looking forward to it since it’s hot today.

In fact it was very hot! My phone said 86F/30C, and I’m sure I got a little sunburned as I walked around. I had plans to catch the circus but the advertised show wasn’t happening since they were still setting up the tent! That was disappointing 🙁

I believe this hen’s name is ‘Draco Malfoy’ (after the Harry Potter character). And yes she’s a hen since they made that clear under the name tag! Many of the birds were named after characters from games or movies including one who seemed to be called ‘Bugs Bunny’ which could potentially be confusing.

Speaking of rabbits there were hardly any on display and those that were had a fence around them so you couldn’t get closer than about six feet. Maybe there’s a rabbit disease going around?

I was feeling light-headed and needed sugar so I bought a single donut. It was dry and got caught in my throat but seemed to do the trick and give me some energy. At $2 though, it was a ripoff.

The food in general was outrageously priced. $9 for a lemonade, $15 for a funnel cake, $15 for fries and $20 for two slices of pizza and a drink? This is madness. I noticed very few of the food stands even displayed prices, which is a sure sign they’re too high. Taking a family to the fair and eating is prohibitively expensive now.

Speaking of food, how about a cup of Dr Pepper with a big pickle inside it? I wonder how much this cost?

The vendor booths have sunk to new lows. All the usual stuff is still there: hucksters selling knives or Tupperware or blankets, but many of them now also include tables of Chinese trash like squishies, bootleg K-Pop demon hunters items or bootleg Pokemon cards (all insanely overpriced of course). Given you can buy this stuff at any mall for less, who would buy it at the fair?

I also saw a table with two – admittedly impressive – life sized statues of Superman and Spiderman and a guy was beckoning kids over for photos. It was a bit… weird so I lurked and watched as a family stopped and a boy stood next to Superman while his dad took a photo. Then the guy at the booth asked the child about Jesus!!! It was an evangelical bait-and-switch booth! Somehow I controlled myself and walked away.

Let’s discuss the art contests. Above we have the first and third place winners of the annual scarecrow contest. Can you guess who these are? I’ll give the answers at the end of this post.

The photo and painting contest entries by kids were ok, but the adult categories raised my blood temperature a bit. Not only were some blatantly AI art, but I’m not too proud to say I’ve taken many photos this past year better than any of the real ones. Perhaps I should actually enter the contest next year?

Anecdote time. Back in the supermarket days I used to work with a girl who supposed herself the creative type and once asked if she could take photos of me ‘in the forest’ and enter them into a state fair photography contest! It never happened, but I once let her cut my hair since somehow she obtained haircutting tools and a bunch of us allowed her to use them on us. She was a true character, but I don’t even remember her name…

The rides were impressive. They had a gigantic wheel, a large rollercoaster, a colorfully painted Zipper and all the usual favourites. The only ‘new’ thing I saw was this one called ‘Artificial Intelligence’ which was a big wheel that spun on an arm that also rotated. Unfortunately I didn’t see many of the rides running since the midway didn’t open at the scheduled time. I stayed half an hour longer and the lines to ride the rides had become quite long but even then nothing had started.

Returning to the prices, tickets to ride were $1.50 each, or you could get them for $1.20 if you spent $50. Rides cost 4 to 7 tickets each, so (at minimum) $4.80 to $8.40 for a single ride. Imagine again a family attending this event. The parents have somehow gotten over the sticker shock of dinner and now they’re regretting ever coming to the fair when they notice the ride ticket pricing! I could easily see a family paying $50 per person to go to this fair if they ate and rode a couple of rides each.

Infinite ride wristbands do exist, but you could only buy them online and sales ended before the fair even opened! They had special lines on each ride for people with wristbands and I saw noone in any of those lines.

Back in my day – only forty years ago – I’m sure we had hours and hours of fun at The Newcastle Show for $20 or less. Those days are gone forever, I should just let them go.

At least some of the rides – like this kiddy walkthrough fun house – still have beautiful artwork. Not all though, since the specter of AI art has absolutely made its way onto amusement rides. Here for instance is the art on the side of the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ ride:

The carnies are as scary as ever. After taking the above photo I turned and spied one eyeing me with a murderous glint in his eye. I lowered the brim of my fashionable hat and hurried away.

I’ll end with this effigy to a nameless god I discovered in the circus museum. Many of the ‘attractions’ at the fair are hopelessly dated, with the circus/farm/tool/car museum displays not having received updates since the 20th century.

That leaves the animals, circus, food, rides and vendors to draw a repeat crowd. Animals are always great but there were fewer than ever this year. The circus wasn’t even ready today, food and rides were criminally overpriced, and the vendors either sold garbage or were creepers.

Maybe it would have looked different to a child (with rich parents), but to me this fair seem like it’s only living on yesterday’s memories.

(Scarecrows: ‘Phoebe from Friends’ and ‘Kramer from Seinfeld’)

Ten Things We Didn’t Buy From The Antique Warehouse (And A Few Things We Did)

  • July 7, 2026

On the way back home from Rochester this past weekend we stopped at what claims to be the biggest antique warehouse in the state. With over 1000 vendors I’m inclined to believe them, and even though we only had a ‘quick focused look’ through the vast complex we still were there over two hours.

Here’s ten items we didn’t buy:

I’d never heard of this intriguing nearly 50-year-old boardgame and I’ll admit I was tempted. But I found a few reviews online that say it has poorly written rules and gameplay is boring so I left it in the case. Had it been less expensive I probably would have got it for the art alone.

$60 for a 37-year-old yo-yo? There’s surely a Freddy Kreuger fan out there for which this item is a grail, but for me it’s just something fun to see.

This is a resin frieze of John and Robert Kennedy created in 1968 by an artist named Joseph Zutz. These were originally sold unpainted – a dull grey colour – but this one has obviously been coloured. There were a lot of JFK items in the warehouse; I knew he was a popular president but I thought idolatry of politicians was a recent phenomenon.

This reminds me a lot of a similar Darth Maul bust I own, the exception of course being that this Ferengi (from Star Trek) is absolutely hideous. I probably should have bought this one and flipped it to Bernard for a tidy profit.

A 56-year-old Mountain Dew bottle?!? This is my favourite drink, and of all the things I’m showing here this is the only one I regret not buying. If you look closely at this photo you can also see a vast selection of View-Master slides on the next shelf down.

This would be a cool find for the deep-pocketed Battlestar Galactica fan that has everything. There wouldn’t be too many copies of this over 40-year-old game still existing, and of those I imagine a minuscule amount have unpunched game pieces. Like many of these formulaic licensed games from the 1980s, I bet the gameplay is dull.

I don’t have much to say about this one, except that I love it still exists in such good condition, and that the basic design of it reminds me of a lunchbox I owned around the same time (1977). What was mine? I no longer remember…

From the same year we have this doll. In remarkable condition considering it’s a half-century old and virtually encourages you to destroy the box to free the ‘photo on back’! This item reminded me of a John Travolta postcard book I purchased – also at an antique shop – about a decade ago and have yet to use.

Bernard’s a big fan of both Elvis and M&M’s but I didn’t buy him these because he probably already has them in his collection. Possibly that was a poor choice since if he didn’t I could have flipped them to him for a king’s ransom.

These taxidermy dioramas are called ‘whimsies’. A whole case was full of these, with the animals all posed anthropomorphically or interacting with props. The toad is creepy with his fake eyes, but a stingray (!) was even creepier!

So if we left all these fine things in cases (and this is just a portion of the interesting items we spotted) then what did we buy? Here’s the list:

I pulled these comics from dollar boxes where almost every comic seemed to be a different series. I told the cashier there were 25 but she counted 23 so I got them for only $0.92 each. I’ll read all these and then pass them on to students.

This is about fifty postcards, most of which I’ll use for Postcrossing. They averaged about $0.50 each which is a good price for unused vintage cards, and I’ll never grow tired of buying such things. The pile includes ten identical copies of the same card, which I will send to Sue long after she’s forgotten about this blog post 🙂

Printed glasses from the 1980s are somewhat common in antique shops these days, but there was a remarkable abundance of them at this particular warehouse. This was the only video game related one I saw, and it’s a glass with an intriguing origin. From what I can determine, this was made by Bally in 1982 for sale in stores. However they also made very slightly different versions for game arcades, cinemas and even for the burger chain Arby’s. It seems this was a very common glass in its day!

And lastly how could I resist this set of kid’s party supplies from 1978? Obviously inspired by Star Wars, these paper plates, cups and napkins are unused, still sealed and even have original price tags ($0.25 and $0.50) on them.

Antique stores continue to get better and better as we age and the stuff from our youth is now ‘antique’. I’ve already located another big warehouse about an hours drive away that I’ll probably check out later this summer!

  • Posted in Art
  • Robert