All the Little Things Said

I supppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the world of hand-made and decorative papers is governed by the same capitalist rules that come to bear on everything else. I kind of was, though. If a certain design or color proves to be popular, the company continues to produce it. And vice versa. What all this means is that my supply of a particular paper is finite, and when I run out, well…that’s it. Oh, I might get lucky and find a sheet of my favorite color buried in some dark and dusty corner of a forgotten back-street stationery shop, but that’s a bit unlikely. And, sadly it seems that I like the less popular papers. Go figure.

One of my art teachers used to tell us a story about a watercolour artist who used one specific type of paper exclusively. When the paper company stopped making any more, he would travel hundreds of miles to procure more. He finally hit a jackpot, and tracked down the last large cache, about 10 years worth. Hopefully that gave him enough time to find a suitable replacement. I sometimes wonder if I’ll be like that in a few years.