Trip to the Art Store

One of the essential part of being an artist is the trip to the art store and there is nothing more exciting than finding a good art store.

When I lived in a little rural town in Virginia, I drove 1-1.5 hours to get to a small art store in downtown Charlottesville. It was really tiny. But to the extent that the audience is regional, and prefers certain color range, it was more than sufficient.

So I usually go to stores with a composed list and really, really know for sure what colors I want.

If you love colors as much as I do, or if you have painted before, you know that the color tones are one of the most important choices an artist makes. So upon entering the store, I have this certain color in mind, and I get to the store and voila, poof, the color I intended on buying costs $60 for a little tube or worse yet, I can't remember what color I wanted because I fell in love with a different color. And I go over the internal dialogue that so many artists go through--the dialogue of what process brings the best work, the process of going with the flow and emotional-driven art? i.e. I Looovvve this color! or the process of disciplined intention, sticking to a narrow range of tones, sticking to the list or rules so to speak.

So I drive home happily with the new color and think about how it's going to change the content of the work and before I get home I think about another connotation that the particular color could invoke in whoever looks at art and I think about my audience and I'm muttering under my breath and the internal dialogue resumes about sticking to original intentions vs. going with the flow....blah blah blah.

I bet some men go through this with their choices in women! And vice versa! which is better, going with intention of getting a particular girl or falling in love with someone else....

Okay, I digress.....

But one thing cannot be debated. Going inside a good art store for me feels like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. One such particular art store, that I took forgranted while living in New York, is a four-storied art store in Chinatown.

I returned there today.

One room is lined by little shelves of various colors and tones within that particular color range. And there are 20 or so color brand, which differs slightly from other brands. These colors are so much better than the colors you can find in all the palette of Adobe photoshop. These are only base colors! I guess it's true that within photoshop you can adjust opacity, but that's it! you cannot create your own color, tone, shade or hue from mixing several colors at once. Give me an organic palette any day!

Finally, one wall that gives me shivers of pleasure is a long wall lined by brushes of all different sizes, shapes and textures. And when I have time, and hiding under a baseballcap and dark glasses, sometimes I just play with the brush and feel how soft the bristles are and imagine the type of strokes it can deliver based on the pressure of my wrist. Oh so hard and strong and will deliver calculated lines and this one is so sweet and soft and caresses a rosy pink creating a blush on the cheeks ;)

So. Yes. Weird. But before you judge an artist, just you think about how you respond to something you love--like maybe your tie collection, your golf club collection, or your shoe collection or your make-up kit or your food or your wine or your clothes or your house or your car or your, ahem, baby

ok. maybe I go too far.