Saving Supplies for a “Special” Project
I’m Doing it Again
This morning I shared to Medium a personal essay I wrote in 2014, just following the traumatic loss of my grandparents. In the essay, I vow to “use the nice dishes” more often, emphasizing the importance of marking every day as a “special occasion.”
Friends, I have not lived up to my own expectations, and even worse, I’m doing it again. I am saving things to use for a special occasion. This time, however, it isn’t teacups. It’s art supplies.
I recently ordered my next-level watercolor painting supplies: 100% cotton paper, professional Schmincke half-pans, some tubes of Daniel Smith PrimaTek paints, and some new brushes and palettes. My beginner supplies are still awesome and will still do the job, but I’m ready to feel the difference between student-grade and professional-level watercolor paint and paper. I have been painting acrylics for 25 years and with watercolor consistently for just over a year, so I know it isn’t just one of my quick fads, quick to try and quick to abandon. (“Quick to abandon” examples include needle punch, hand embroidery, cross-stitch, and rug hooking, by the way.)
My supplies have arrived, and I have used them some, but I’m being a little . . . precious. I’ve done it before, as I said, with teacups, and in the past with jewelry, new journals, pens, books, clothes, even garden tools, and drumsticks. I’m saving them for a special occasion. Their bright, shiny newness and expense make me want to hoard them like a supply dragon, doling out the happiness I get from using them just an itty-bity bit at a time.
Why do I do this?
I’m sure it has something to do with spending the majority of my life living paycheck to paycheck (or less), and something to do with knowing that once I find something I love it often later gets discontinued (I’m looking at you, 100% cotton Wrangler jeans for women and Jeep Liberty). Most assuredly I am doing it because I know they are special supplies, and I want to do them justice with a special project, and then the pressure of coming up with a special project gives me decision paralysis, so I grab my ol’ standby paper with the mildew stains on it and fight with my ol’ standby bent-bristle brush and use up all the bits of paint leftover in my mixing palette and paint something not-so-special. “Waste not want not,” right?
But “waste not want not” can be a big bummer sometimes, like eating leftover green beans from a can every day for lunch because someone gave me one of those really big cafeteria cans of green beans.
Art supplies are not green beans.
What am I going to do about it?
First, I am going to finish typing and posting. Second, I am going to go drink something out of one of my great-grandmother’s teacups. Third, I am going to go paint something with my new supplies, even if what’s special about it is that it’s painted with my new supplies.
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The BEST job I ever had was as a bookkeeper and merchandiser in an independently owned art supply store in Athens, Georgia. My favorite task was to put together supply kits for new artists and art classes. That said, I’ve made a list! Interested in seeing my grown-up watercolor shopping list? The underlined text is an affiliate link to my Amazon Idea list for watercolor supplies. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
