the man at the hardware store who explained watercolor to me like I'd never held a brush
I was buying a new palette at this little art supply shop downtown, one I've been going to for years, and this guy maybe 60s just watching me pick out colors finally goes "you know, with watercolor, you have to work light to dark." Like I had wandered in off the street and picked up a brush for the first time that morning. And I laughed it off because I'm bad at confrontation but then I spent the whole walk home fuming at myself for not saying anything. I've been painting daily for like a decade. I have a BFA. I taught a workshop last month. But sure, random man at the art store, please explain the most basic principle of my entire medium to me like I'm five.
Honestly the thing that gets me is I KNOW he wouldn't have done that to a guy holding an oil palette. Watercolor is "dainty" or "hobbyist" or whatever until you try to actually control it and realize it's the most unforgiving medium there is. One wrong wash and you're done. But okay. Work light to dark. Got it. Thank you so much.
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Ah sure look, you'll be fuming about it all evening and then you'll wake up tomorrow and have thought of seventeen perfect things you could've said. That's the way it always goes.
There's a lad runs a tool shop out near the Claddagh, known him years, and I went in once looking for a new chisel, just a basic Pfeil I've used a hundred times, and he spent twenty minutes explaining to me what a linocut was. Twenty minutes. I'm standing there covered in ink, I've got a stall at the market every Saturday, and he's showing me a YouTube video on his phone of someone carving a lino block. I just stood there nodding. Went home and told the wife and she said "why didn't you say something?" and I hadn't a notion.
I think there's something about being in a shop, you're on their ground, and before you know it you're the customer again, not the person who's been doing the thing half their life. And maybe that fella in the art shop was just lonely or trying to be helpful in his own ham-fisted way, but sure that doesn't make it any less maddening when you're walking home.
oh my GOD the YouTube video is sending me 😭 like he needed visual aids. standing there covered in ink and he's pulling up a tutorial. I would've just stood there in disbelief like you did though I think that's worse somehow, when you're too stunned to even react so you just let it happen to you. twenty minutes!!! did you ever go back in or do you circle the block now before committing