Paper nostalgia is that pull and desire to work on a particular type of paper that you haven’t worked on in some time.
I was trying to organize some of my images in my database and came across this one from almost a year ago. I felt an immediate wave of paper nostalgia.
My first thought when I saw this image is that I need to get another of these Old Gutenberg paper journals out and have this much fun again.
Some paper nostalgia can be quickly solved by reaching for a book on the shelf. Other paper nostalgia is without remedy as there is no more of that particular paper—like Turner’s Blue Wove from Barcham Green.
I’m sure someone somewhere has some TBW under their bed in a conservation box, or in a drawer of their flat file.
If you’re reading this, and you do, why don’t you take a sheet of that paper out and sketch and paint on it? Then write to me and let me know how much fun it was. Let’s call it vicarious nostalgia.
Everyone take a sheet of your favorite extant paper out today. Make a sketch and a painting, whatever the paper moves you to do. Enjoy that paper while you have it. Feel some joy.
