We went on a quest for art supplies today and felt the powerful dissonance between a corporate store and an independently-owned one. To save some time driving into the big city, we stopped at a smaller town's Michael's. I used to work near it and was there often but haven't worked nearby since 2018. Let me tell you--that place has really gone to shit. No more than 2 employees staffed that I saw, shelves messy, prices insanely high for trash products. Incorrect prices, if priced at all. The locked cabinets were only bendable plexiglass. They don't even have clerks behind the counter anymore--it's touch-screens and self-checkout only, with one nervous, underpaid young employee rehearsing customer service phrases over your shoulder. I left Michael's feeling like I'd aged a month in half an hour.
So, since we still had stuff on our list, we decided to zip over to the city anyway and hit up Artist & Craftsman. If you haven't heard of this business, it's an employee-owned chain that has very decent prices and a great array of high-quality art supplies. They host lessons, demos, and gatherings, the company makes a point to buy historic buildings and refurbish them instead of maintaining a unified look across stores, and the staff wear name tags but not uniforms. When you walk into the brightly-painted store, there are handmade signs and little drawings by the staff on every surface.
I crouched by their Posca display, working down my list, and one of the she/theys behind the counter said, "We really like your newest piece!" (Most of the staff there knows who I am and follow me online.)
"Oh," I replied, "the ferret on the resin?"
"Yeah yeah, that was awesome, what a great idea. And you can do so much with resin."
"Absolutely!" And I went on to talk about the collaboration aspects and materials. They mentioned some local places like a secondhand craft store that would be a great place to source objects.
Echo and I grabbed most of our list and a new addition: crackle paste. The cashier and I had a great conversation exchanging ideas on how to use it in our respective projects (for me, mixed media paintings, and in their case, dioramas). I left the store feeling at ease and excited about our new supplies.
On the drive home, I tried to imagine a life in which I only shopped at Michael's and never A&C. The accumulation of repeated psychic damage from suffering that store would wear me down. I would feel disgusted to drop $200 on Posca pens at Michael's. But I was thrilled to give A&C the same amount for the same product. Because of the material conditions of each store, my consciousness shifted, and that shift dictated my willingness to shop there. It's that easy.
