Maggie Rants [and Raves]

Everything Old Is New Again ... Eventually

by Maggie Franklin | May 5, 2010 | Bookmark +

The BF and I have been working hard the last few weeks to put all our worldly possessions into boxes and then stack those boxes in the very small living room of the house we have been renting for the last four years. Well, actually, the BF has been renting the very small house for the last eight years, but I've only been storing my stuff there for the last four years. The last update I received was that we still expect to close escrow tomorrow — which will be today by the time you read this.

 

I am utterly convinced something will delay this process. Especially since our plan is to have the keys to the rental house back in the hands of the property manager by the time we board the plane to Pennsylvania next week.

 

This weekend, while trying to fit my treasures into boxes, I ran across my airbrush. My airbrush — a Vega Nailair that I actually won as a door prize at an art supply store open house back in 1993 — all my stencils and masks, and what represented the entire line of paints from Too Much Fun when I bought them in ... ummm ... 1997 maybe?

 

Do you think they're still good?

 

They've been in this box since I put away my airbrush in 1999. Once the epidemic of cheap, fast, walk-in nail salons extended to lil ol' Visalia, airbrushing developed a negative connotation. All those less-than-exemplary nail salons offered airbrushing — airbrushed white tips — and airbrushing suffered a traumatic loss of respect from consumers who associated it with "cheap" and "fast" and never got the chance to be exposed to the fantastic art form that it is capable of being. No matter how beautiful a design I could show them, client after client after client refused to be airbrushed, saying, "Why would I want spray paint when you can do real nail art?"

 

Well it doesn't really matter if I agreed with them or not; ultimately my airbrush was just a superfluous piece of yesteryear taking up space and collecting dust on the edge of my desk — and you know how much dust anything in a nail salon can collect! So one day I lovingly packed it, all the paints, the stencils, the masks, the extra needles and nozzles and the two old cloth diapers that I used as lint-free cloths for cleaning (yes, they were my diapers) into this plastic shoebox that I have kept in my "some day I'll use this again" pile along with my banana clips and Jelly shoes.

 

Well I don't know if the time is right to unwrap it and set it back up. For one thing, I never enjoyed cleaning the darn thing. I have known several airbrush artists over the years — masters who worked in media from nails to T-shirts to automotive detailing to cake — and they all seem to effortlessly clean their guns between colors with a shot of Windex (or whatever the cake artists use; I doubt it's Windex — I hope it's not Windex!) and then run a little degreaser through it before putting it away. I, on the other hand, always have to take the infernal contraption apart piece by piece at least once a day to wrestle dried-up clots of paint from the infinitesimal aperture of the nozzle. It's entirely unfair and I'm convinced that I must have done something to anger the airbrush gods in a previous life. I just don't miss it yet.

 

But I sure did enjoy the art that can be created with it.

 

Maybe I'll be the one to bring it back ...

 

I wonder if those paints are still good?

 

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