Sometimes it's easy to forget that the world is a constant mass of writhing organisms, constantly changing and evolving into different forms. I suppose it's what people mean when they say "back in my day", as their 'day' felt a lot different to the now. Of course there are tangible changes being made at all times, but I had the pleasure this week of experiencing a more ethereal form of nostalgia.
Before the internet and digital distribution of information, there were many shops that sold limited items. The business would be good enough to warrant niche boutiques, which are all but obsolete now. I can't remember the last time I went into a retail store that didn't stock more than a few key items.
One store I used to frequent with my friends when I was in school, was a music shop in the city. We'd go and spend half the time playing all the expensive guitars and fiddle with effect pedals we'd never seen before. The other half of the time would be spent downstairs in the shop's basement that was full of sheet music.
My friends and I all played guitar, so we'd browse through all the latest tablature notations and pick books to spend our hard earned money on. Each book would contain an album's worth of sheet music along with its tablature equivalents. Before too long we each had a decent collection of music that we shared and traded for years to come.
These days you just need to do a quick search online to find music notation, but those books were golden troves of hidden secrets. One of the first books I bought was Nirvana's album 'Bleach' (my favourite of theirs), and those songs are some of the only ones I can still remember how to play.
I know it's a bit naffy and needlessly sentimental, but there's something about dog-eared books that have worn out and been damaged by years of use, that an internet document can't reproduce. Aside from the fact that lots of reading on a screen makes my eyes hurt, I wonder if the experience of sitting around with my friends between classes and fawning over how different riffs and solos were played would be the same if we had a bunch of ipads instead.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the old way was better, as there are many important benefits to modern technology. Of course there's the ease of access and the sharing of knowledge, but it also seems a bit more environmentally friendly than printing pages was. I'd still like to see the numbers on that though, as I'm sure there's a few power plants and server farms impacting the earth in significant ways that printing on paper never produced.
Getting back to the present though. Last week I went down to my favourite art supplies store and did a bit of shopping. It had been a while since I last set foot in the store, as I've been ordering online for a while. However, this time I needed a stack of canvas for a big project I'm working on, so figured it would be easier to talk to someone in person.
Within moments I was reminded that bricks and mortar can offer a lot of things that the convenience of online alternatives can't. Perhaps it's the simple fact that being surrounded by the tools of creation is a great way to get motivated and inspired. I touched brand new brushes, priced felt tipped pens, and slowly took in the wall of different canvas varieties on offer.
The latter part is what stuck with me most after leaving, as looking for canvas online has no sense of weight and possibility. A typical online store has a bunch of small pictures showing each product, no matter how big or small they are in real life. I'm here to tell you that standing before a canvas that's taller and wider than your own physical self, is invigorating.
I love large canvases, simply because they feel like a physical challenge and a large space of potential. Even the box full of small canvases I ended up buying while I was at the store, beings a weight of quantity in its physical form. Seeing something take up space and exist within a real position can be breathtaking at times.
The sad thing is that digital experiences can never mimic the textural experience of real space and dimensions. It's not to say that digital experiences have nothing to offer, as they are full of unique merits, but we mustn't discount the way things used to be.
I guess I consider it to be a reminder that just because something is popular and even objectively better, it doesn't mean the alternative is any worse. It's kind of how I feel about vinyl recordings, which are objectively lower quality than other versions, but they're still popular to this day. Sure I'd rather listen to something with a much higher dynamic range, but who am I to say that listening to records is a bad idea. I wouldn't say that anyway, but you get the point.
Perhaps it's why I like mixing up these doodles with pen drawings and digital sketches. Each kind has something to offer, but neither out performs the other. There's a tangent here about how difference doesn't equal a measure of quality, but let's leave that for another time.