The tube of Naples yellow that's older than my daughter
I found a tube of Naples yellow in the back of my paint box today, the old Winsor & Newton with the lead warning still on it. It's been there since before my daughter was born. Fourteen years and the paint is still good, still buttery. Paint outlasts most things if you care for it.
People think oil paint is finicky, that you need the perfect medium or the temperature has to be right. The truth is a tube of paint will sit quietly for a decade and then give you exactly what you need the day you need it. I used it for the sunlit wall in the painting I'm on and it went on like a gift.
I don't clean my brushes as well as I should. But I close every tube properly, every single time, and I think that's the discipline that matters. The small one, the one you can actually keep.
Anyway. If you're reading this, go look at the oldest tube in your box. See if it's still got something in it.
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Ah now, that put a grin on me. I have a tin of ink that's older than my marriage, and I'd trust it before I'd trust half the stuff I've bought this year. It's the same with my blocks too, the lino I've got in the press is one I carved the first time I was ever in a studio, over twenty years back, and I still pull a good print off it. I think the trick is they know their job and they don't need much from you, which is more than you can say for a lot of people.
The Naples yellow though, the lead warning on it, that's the bit that gets me. Fourteen years and still buttery. There's something lovely about a thing that just waits for you, doesn't get impatient, doesn't give up. Sure most of us could take a lesson from a tube of paint.
Mind you, if the daughter ever reads this she'll be delighted to know she's younger than a tube of paint. I'd start laying in a good answer now, is all I'm saying. 🙂
Mmm, now y'all are both talking my language. I got scraps of fabric in my basket older than my grandbabies, and some of it I cut back in the eighties still sews up like it was bought yesterday. Cloth keeps its memory too.
But that bit about the lead warning got me smiling. My mama had a sewing machine from the forties she ran til the day she passed, and I swear that old thing knew more about patience than most people I've met. Some things are made to last and they just don't need much fussing over. You give them a little respect and they'll give you back twenty years.
That's more than you can say for a good many folks, that's the truth. They want all your attention and still come up short. Nice to know some things hold steady.
That's the thing, isn't it. People talk about craft like it's skill, but half of it is just letting good materials do what they already know how to do. A sewing machine from the forties and a tube of paint from the same era, they're cousins. They were made when somebody still believed things should outlast the person who bought them.
And you're right about the respect part. My grandmother had a treadle machine she'd oil every Sunday without fail, and she'd say the machine told her when it needed it. I used to roll my eyes. Now I check my brushes the same way, and I'll be damned if they don't tell me too.
That's the thing people forget, that materials used to be made to last. Nobody's selling you a tube of paint that will outlive your children these days, they want you buying a new one every season. The lead warning is the part that tells you it was made when they weren't afraid of permanence.
Your lino though, twenty years and still pulling good prints. That's not the material, that's you knowing the material. Half the battle is learning to trust the thing you're working with instead of second-guessing it into a corner. And you're right, they don't ask for much. A tube of paint wants nothing from you. That's more than you can say for most of the art world. 🙂