Oh Pearl, where have you gone? I long for the days you lived on South Street and I would give my mother a heart attack walking past stores like The Condom Kingdom and The Erogenous Zone to get to you. The people who worked there also had, at very least, a basic knowledge of art & the products they sold. They comprehended words like nib, caliper, rapidograph, Arches, Canson, Reaves, hot pressed, cold pressed, gesso, Turpenoid and Prismacolour.
Now, I am forced to shop at stores (which will remain nameless, but I'm sure you know which two I'm probably talking about) where most of their supplies are for crafting. The selection of canvases is at best reduced to 11x14, 16X20 and 18x24. Forget any unusual sizes. Brushes are often incorrectly stocked (in fact, there is an associate at one anonymous store who loves to stock the brushes in their bins bristle side down. I cringe at the atrocity committed against these poor, defenseless brushes.) Oil & watercolour paints are reduced to a tiny selection, and usually only one brand. Acrylics mostly come in the cheap, plastic tubes for .50-.99 cents depending on their quality, and gouache...what is this gouache business? Isn't that some Hungarian noodle dish? And when you buy paper, they love to fold, bend and coil it into the oblivion. (Again, I cringe.) Other than that, it's aisles and aisles of cheap "do it yourself" stuff, picture frames, home decor and floral arrangements.
Sigh.
Is it too much to ask for an art store that actually sells art supplies?
Anyway, I digress...
Also, they didn't make fun of you if you mispronounced gouache or gesso. (Hey, we may be artists, but we weren't born knowing how to pronounce this stuff.)
ReplyDeleteI so miss Pearl. I was shocked when it closed down because you figure you've got Tyler, U of Arts, Moore, Drexel & U Penn (OK so Drexel & U Penn aren't art schools, but they have engineering programs & Pearl sold drafting tools, calipers, etc.) all right in the general area. There was also one out in Garden City, Long Island by my grandparents. I wonder if that one is still there.
ReplyDeleteBut with what you're saying, yes, they always helped you out in Pearl, and they knew how to help you out. Whereas, with the other two big name craft stores, they don't. I'm not harping on them. I shop in them. I just wish they'd hire people who are a little more knowledgeable about the products they sell. Hell, I was in one of the two earlier today & I had to explain to a girl how to make her own black oil paint because her professor won't let them use black straight out of the tube. (I had a teacher in high school who did that to us) I stood there for a good 10 minutes telling her what to mix if she wants a warm black and what to mix if she wants a cool black. The woman who worked there stood there looking at me like I might as well have been speaking an other language.