Supplier Trauma

Am in shock and trauma!

For years I have relied on one supplier to provide me with the major ingredients for my emulsions. Lots of my work is designed and worked needing these products. He even delivers it in person to the studio if I need. And he always, always has a bucket available.

So I phone him up yesterday looking forward to our conversation and getting the new bucket and pigments. And he explains that he has none in stock. That he isn't sure the manufacturer is even carrying it anymore.

Whaaaaaaaatttttt????

I panic, plead and cry. I beg him to tell me who he knows who has ordered a big bucket that he knows isn't a seriously producing artist, I offer huge amounts of money. I am two weeks from a show!

I hang up and throw myself around the house in a total panic. I phone my husband who knows customs laws and cross border chemical transportation. Try and figure out a fast border broker and delivery system. Invite him on a weekend across the border where can get 24 hour delivery of a similar product.

El, my supplier, calls me back. He has located a bucket in Montreal! He has ordered it for me and it is now on the road. Has to be land shipped. 10 days. Very expensive.

Oh...what else is left to do but sit down and have a nice cuppa tea. Breath out.

El phones me back and asks how much I have left. That it can be cut twice by water. The man is an angel!

It works. It leaks a little in the screening if I use too much. In some ways the result is even more organic. It works when cut even further for the embellishments. So I will look at my designs and figure out how to create with less density and a more sparing and intermittent printing and painting.

This time less is more! And I hope that truck gets here soon.