Art Supplies: The Sorting
Once upon a time, during my years at KSU, I fancied myself to be a "Art Major". Yes, the quoties around "Art Major" are important, because by this I mean all things that go with art majorship, with the exception of smoking. I attempted to look cool, hang out at coffee shops, talk about philosophy like I knew what I was saying, and pretended to understand the deeper meaning in paintings and poetry. I was 19. We all make mistakes, and then we out grow them.
Of the things from this primative stage in my evolution that stayed were my love for coffee shops, learning to actually READ the philosophy books I was quoting, and actually starting to understand the meaning of paintings. Poetry... well I'll take it or leave it. I also now have this gi-normous set of art supplies.
First I wanted to draw. In came the conte crayons, the pencils, the woodless pencils, the 90 billion sharpeners and erasers, the graphite sticks, the charchoal, the willow, and the chamois.
Then came the sculpture and design stage. In comes the balsa and bass wood, the dremel tools, the old computer parts, the mini torch, the sodering iorn, the clay, the spounges, the clay tools, the kiln, the wire and a whole lot more crap.
Then painting graced my pallett. I bought brushes, brushes, and more brushes. Whole sets upon SETS of watercolors, acrylics and all kinds of mixed media accessories. No oils. Haven't gotten there yet. Tons of canvases in all shapes and sizes... I really need to learn to stretch my own. It would be so much cheaper. Water color tape, white artsits tape. Q-Tips EVERYWHERE.
Then came printmaking. One of my bigger artistic loves. Linocut supplies, linoleum block, mounted and un mounted. Inks, Inks, Inks, Copper plates, etching supplies, Lithography supplies, Mono Print supplies. More inks, inks, inks. Grease crayons, brayers, barons, random pieces of Lexan.
Pastels. Tried the cheap ones, didn't like them. Invested in some Sennilier Pastels (soft) which were hand crafted by art gods because they made even my work look decent. Then came the Oil pastels, mostly a recent acquistion, again in the Sennilier brand. These are amazingly wonderful. I only have a small palette of them, and yet they still do great work.
On top of all of these things I also amassed a HUGE collection of what I like to call "random Arty thingies". These are things that I think would come in handy at some point in the future. Old books, pieces of drift wood, sand... you get the picture.
I'm a packrat and not ashamed to admit it... mostly.
Then I moved. I packed up my "studio space" which had also become my "arts and crafts area" rather haphazardly into al these boxes and treked it all with me out to Seattle, where I began unpacking and quickly became discouraged when I realized that now, I must sort it all and put it all away in my new art desk, which I love because it's an amazing desk, and which I hate, because it means I must put things away. I'm not good at putting things away.
The worst part of all though, is the fact that I have been, up to this point, keeping most of my supplies in random tackle boxes, so to now have a desk to store them all in means that I will need to rid myself of about 12 differnt storage containers. I AM keeping my big art bag, because I use that for when I go do stage design work, but I think pretty much, all else is going to find a new home or goodwill. This somewhat saddens me. I've been amassing this collection of storage containers for 10 years now. Hell, I've had one tackle box longer than I've ever kept a boyfriend. Now that's staying power.
Well, short of it is, life changes and we move on. If any of my Seattle friends out here would like some storage containers for art stuff... or fishing stuff.... lemme know. I'd offer it to my KS friends, but I'm so not paying shipping.
Of the things from this primative stage in my evolution that stayed were my love for coffee shops, learning to actually READ the philosophy books I was quoting, and actually starting to understand the meaning of paintings. Poetry... well I'll take it or leave it. I also now have this gi-normous set of art supplies.
First I wanted to draw. In came the conte crayons, the pencils, the woodless pencils, the 90 billion sharpeners and erasers, the graphite sticks, the charchoal, the willow, and the chamois.
Then came the sculpture and design stage. In comes the balsa and bass wood, the dremel tools, the old computer parts, the mini torch, the sodering iorn, the clay, the spounges, the clay tools, the kiln, the wire and a whole lot more crap.
Then painting graced my pallett. I bought brushes, brushes, and more brushes. Whole sets upon SETS of watercolors, acrylics and all kinds of mixed media accessories. No oils. Haven't gotten there yet. Tons of canvases in all shapes and sizes... I really need to learn to stretch my own. It would be so much cheaper. Water color tape, white artsits tape. Q-Tips EVERYWHERE.
Then came printmaking. One of my bigger artistic loves. Linocut supplies, linoleum block, mounted and un mounted. Inks, Inks, Inks, Copper plates, etching supplies, Lithography supplies, Mono Print supplies. More inks, inks, inks. Grease crayons, brayers, barons, random pieces of Lexan.
Pastels. Tried the cheap ones, didn't like them. Invested in some Sennilier Pastels (soft) which were hand crafted by art gods because they made even my work look decent. Then came the Oil pastels, mostly a recent acquistion, again in the Sennilier brand. These are amazingly wonderful. I only have a small palette of them, and yet they still do great work.
On top of all of these things I also amassed a HUGE collection of what I like to call "random Arty thingies". These are things that I think would come in handy at some point in the future. Old books, pieces of drift wood, sand... you get the picture.
I'm a packrat and not ashamed to admit it... mostly.
Then I moved. I packed up my "studio space" which had also become my "arts and crafts area" rather haphazardly into al these boxes and treked it all with me out to Seattle, where I began unpacking and quickly became discouraged when I realized that now, I must sort it all and put it all away in my new art desk, which I love because it's an amazing desk, and which I hate, because it means I must put things away. I'm not good at putting things away.
The worst part of all though, is the fact that I have been, up to this point, keeping most of my supplies in random tackle boxes, so to now have a desk to store them all in means that I will need to rid myself of about 12 differnt storage containers. I AM keeping my big art bag, because I use that for when I go do stage design work, but I think pretty much, all else is going to find a new home or goodwill. This somewhat saddens me. I've been amassing this collection of storage containers for 10 years now. Hell, I've had one tackle box longer than I've ever kept a boyfriend. Now that's staying power.
Well, short of it is, life changes and we move on. If any of my Seattle friends out here would like some storage containers for art stuff... or fishing stuff.... lemme know. I'd offer it to my KS friends, but I'm so not paying shipping.