John Rankine probably won’t have much competition this weekend.
Most yard sale shoppers
aren’t looking for “big plastic Santas from the ’60s, ceramic rabbits, hideous ceramic angels and unicorns.”
But then, most yard sale shoppers aren’t found-object artists. Rankine is - and he’s working on an autumn installation he’s titled “Fairy Tales, Myths and Other Lies We Tell Our Children.” Thus the unicorns.
He’d be at Yards & Yards of Yard Sales anyway, he says.
Not only does he live in Eureka Springs - and the annual event is as much a community reunion as anything - but he also owns Sweet Spring Antiques across from the downtown post office.
“I just like the unusual,” Rankine says in obvious understatement, “and really, because of my found-object assemblage artwork, I’ve always been on the lookout for things that shout at me ‘pick me up, pick me up,’ because I know I’ll use them in a piece of art.”
The shop carries “a wide collection from classic antiques to art pottery to some of the crazy things I find,” he explains.
“I recently found this New Kids on the Block sleeping bag from the 1980s, which is fun and crazy and people kind of respond to it. I like having it in the store because it’s a conversation piece. I also have an old (baby) incubator I kind of turned into a bar in my store. It gets people talking.”
When Rankine hits the yard sales, which start today all over Eureka Springs, he’s working.
“When you do it professionally, time is everything,” he says.
“So you develop through the years the skill to be able to scan a place very quickly and see ifthere’s anything you’re remotely interested in.
“There are certain things I know I can resell all the time,” he explains. “Anything midcentury is very, very popular right now, and I know that any sort of lamp, old ashtray or something elaborate from the 1950s will sell. I’ll pick it up if the price is good.
“And anything with Elvis on it, I will pick it up, it doesn’t matter what it is. I’ve always sold everything with Elvis on it - cards, records, wastepaper baskets.”
Tommie Mooney from Lutherville in Johnson County planned to be on her way to Eureka Springs “at the crack of dawn” today, shopping just for fun. It’s an annual pilgrimage.
“The folks are nice and friendly, and their prices are very reasonable - good bargains,” she says. “I love antiques and will buy a lot of different things if (they’re) in good condition.”
Mooney got started collecting when she and her late husband worked flea markets as vegetable vendors in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
“Produce is something that you have to move or you throw it out to the pigs,” she explains.
“So in order to keep our produce fresh and to make money on it too, we started going to the flea markets. On weekends we worked the flea markets in Texas - Canton, Dallas-Fort Worth, McKinney. We would sell out on Sunday, and then Monday morning would find us at the Dallas market buying and loading up to bring back to our market in Clarksville.
“My husband had to have heart surgery - five bypasses - which disabled him,” Mooneysays. “He always went with me, though, and he started collecting bottles to have something to do and to keep his mind occupied.
He got really good at trading and selling things.
“Yard sales and flea markets can be an addiction for some folks - and I may be one of them.”
Now, Mooney builds her collections around the creamand-green wood cook stove she had installed in the home she built after her husband’s death.
“Forks, graters, pans ... I am looking for an enameled table of the same color to match,”she says. “My true love of collecting, though, is cast iron cookware. My favorite piece is a Griswold square cornbread pan, perfectly seasoned to make the most delicious cornbread. I use it on my wood cook stove during the winter months.”
Rankine admits there’s “not really any kind of logic” in collecting.
“Somehow the old and discarded and abandoned seems to attract me,” he says.
“Of course, my dream is to find that thing that’s a quarter that you can sell for 25 bucks.”
Whats Up, Pages 12 on 08/03/2012