Traditional plantation shutters displayed at Rye Fine Art, East Sussex

Rye Fine Art is a traditional gallery located in ‘the mint’ district of Rye, East Sussex. Rye is synonymous with culture and creative activity and hosts an annual arts festival including concerts, literary events and art exhibitions to celebrate Rye’s history. The ‘Rock of Rye’ as it was known in medieval times was literally built on a stony outcrop. With Rye being a perfect backdrop for an Arts Festival which has being running since 1972, it‘s little wonder that David Ridgway and his family were drawn there back in 2004.

David recalls “we moved here from London (an area with traditional Victorian housing and numerous plantation shutters installations) via a brief period in Camber. Why Rye, well I can't recall now, other than my wife had some friends living here and it seemed an attractive place to bring up our kids, with a pace of life more acceptable than that of living in London. Rye Fine Art was already an established art gallery and had been so for a number of years and I thought that it was a good opportunity to work and exhibit my own work in one place, particularly as getting work shown in galleries can be an arduous and somewhat dispiriting experience, with often no return. Since we moved here I have managed to paint more and, although I don't trade as a shop, I often have an open door for the public to view my work and the process of its creation”.

Shutterly Fabulous are delighted to be working with David again, we initially fitted traditional window shutters in his home and now have the privilege of showcasing these biscuit coloured shutters to his East Sussex visitors.

Rye Fine Art is run as an open studio for the majority of weekends of the year and with the occasional early weekday evenings. David explains “I am now in the process of creating a new web site where I can exhibit to a wider audience and, through selling prints of my work, get some financial return from years of labour and creativity. The only work on view is mine; not because I am egotistical but more a case of not having the room to exhibit other artist's work, particularly as some of my work is rather large”.

Due to the traditional style of the houses in Rye, the windows naturally lend themselves to plantation shutters and we subsequently are often in the area measuring and installing our traditional shutters for windows. We recently completed another traditional wooden shutters installation at a converted railway station also in Sussex. These walnut shutters are in sharp contrast to the painted Biscuit coloured shutters David opted to have fitted in his gallery but they do allow you to appreciate the beautiful hand finish of this increasingly popular window covering.