Rant & A Thank You

Today, my friend Kris and I went down to Nashville to do a little shopping and walk around. It was a lovely day. We stopped by Wishful Thinking, which is the store I do some teaching and design team work for to pick up some stuff for a project I'm doing for Marlene (my boss) and then wandered over to another paper/stamping/scrapbooking store in town. Now, let me say up-front that while theses stores both sell art supplies, the gestalt of them is very different. It's like apples and oranges. They are so different, in fact, that they've both managed to stay in business in a very small town. Well the owner of the store kicked my friend and I out because she recognized me as someone who teaches for Wishful Thinking.
I am not kidding.
What confuses me is what did she really think I was going to do?
I'll tell you what I was planning on doing--buying something. (Oh! The Horror!)
I could not believe it.
And what struck me the most about it is how very contrary it is to the philosophy of so many mixed-media artists out there. It got me thinking about how very generous so many of the folks are with their techniques, their time and their posts. Just off the top of my head I can think of 10 artists that regularly post how-to's on their website, who are never to busy to answer questions or emails, and who generously share what they know. I'm not just talking about people who do this for fun, I'm talking about some biggies, like Tim Holtz, Marry-Jo McGraw, and Michelle Ward.
So, I wanted to officially say thank you to all you wonderful folks, big and small, who so generously share your art and yourself with us.
And for the store owner, I have to say, I feel sorry for you. I really do. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a world where there is only room for you.
OK, here ends my rant.
Tomorrow I will be back with art.

Crush

The theme for this week's challenge over on the GPP site is crushes and I have to confess that as soon as I saw the posting, I knew what I wanted to do. (I just couldn't quite get off my lazy duff and post it. ugh)
So here it is, the object of my affection:


Yep, pens. This photo is of what I think of as my "bare necessity" pens collection. It's the collection of pens that have to be on my work table, at all times while I'm working because I honestly cannot create without them. I know it doesn't look very impressive in the photo, but there are actually 36 pens in the photo, I just piled them on top of each other. And then I have my shapries and my Bic permanent pens and my good brush pens and a of box of experimental gel-pens...you get the idea. I love pens. My current passion is the Sakura gel pen which never clogs up and will write on any surface. I cannot see these in the store without buying them. I keep them EVERYWHERE: in my purse, on my bedside table, I even found one in the bathroom the other day (I think I'd stuck in my ponytail and forgot to take it out until I hopped in the shower.)
For as long as I can remember I've been obsessed with pens. How the ink flows, the color, the way it looks. To me, there is nothing worse than one of those plain-blue bic pens with it's pedestrian design and shoddy ink flow. Ugh.
So that's my crush. Silly as it may be to crush on an inanimate object. Oh well, we all have our quirks. At least I haven't gotten so nuts as to start naming them....