Time Taken: May 2012
I’ve been a bit mopey this week. I discovered that the awesome art store down in Laurel (the town south of here), the appropriately named Laurel Art Center, has closed. According to the internet, it was a combination of aging owners and dwindling profits. It might reopen in some artistic form at some point, but it won’t be the store I grew up with, where I went to get my art supplies all through high school.
If you’ve never been to a dedicated art store, you’re missing out. I’m not talking about Jo-Ann’s, Hobby Lobby or any of the big box stores that could count as “art” stores, but the small, hole in the wall places. I’ve been in a goodly number and all of them, even the chain ones like Utrecht feel rather similar. The aisles are narrow, the shelves are full, and you can find the most unusual things there. Even if you do start wondering why or how anyone would use that odd shaped palette, or what the difference is between those two nearly identical paints that causes one to cost twice as much. But then, that’s part of the joy.
I wonder if there will be any of those stores left before long.
Well, I’m sure some will stay. There is a certain something about them that will attract artists. They are places that speak of the joy of art with every shelf. But I suspect a lot of them will fade away. And there aren’t too many of them out there now.
Why? The internet, of course.
When I was reading that article I linked to above on why the Laurel Art Center was closing, I realized I hadn’t been there in months. It closed in February, you see. It’s got to be at least 8 months since I last visited there. I just haven’t needed to, since I’m ordering my art supplies online these days. Mostly because I’ve started working with very specific materials that the Art Center didn’t stock, but partly because it’s easier to just click a few buttons than it is to drive down to Laurel, battle Laurel traffic, and then find parking on Main Street (parallel parking only, on a busy road). Even if it’s only 3 miles away. When I’ve needed more common art supplies, I’ve been tending to go to the Hobby Lobby that opened in Columbia (the town to the north) instead, because it’s close to places I visit fairly often. There’s little reason for me to visit Laurel these days, since all of the specialty shops and tasty little restaurants I used to visit didn’t survive this economic downturn, and all of the big box stores I could visit there are also in Columbia. Add in the awful traffic (I usually see two stupid driving tricks per visit, things that would have gotten them killed if the drivers around here weren’t used to such things), and it’s not worth my time to head south to Laurel.
I’m looking forward to the outcome of the societal changes the internet is bringing. For one thing, I wouldn’t have been able to find a lot of the art supplies I use if I had to rely on local stores alone (though I can get a much larger amount than you’d expect. Hobby Lobby has a rather nice Chinese painting section). But still, I am sad about the casualties along the way, the small specialty stores with more love of the product than profits that all of a sudden have far more competition than they can handle. It’s tough to beat pressing a button, after all.
I might have to head to the Utrecht in Baltimore at some point, though. You can’t get that same all encompassing sense of belonging from a webpage, after all.
