Studio Shop Almost Ready

Things are coming along here in the studio shop. These updates on the studio shop all sound the same: slowly getting there, but nothing actual to update.

The photo above is now a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been fun to see the evolution of the place—or perhaps the fact that there has been any evolution at all is its own miracle to celebrate—recycling moving from one table to another to another, inventory examined and considered, shop cats scooted out from underfoot. Lots of special edition items have been unearthed, rip van winkle reawakened out of the dust, the world of stationery special editions have moved on but I still have a bottle of Lamy Bronze, a box of an old Blackwing Volumes. A few customers have discovered an occasional treasure amid the piles, which is a thrill since I’m usually apologizing over myself for the state of the place.  

I’ve been having lots of lovely conversations with customers, even through masks. I had this idea that it would be painful and difficult but actually it’s not. It has become normal (something painful and difficult to contemplate, the normalcy of it), and you make do. You wave your arms around a bit.

Our studio shop hours are yet to be determined. It is likely going to be only a couple of hours on a couple of days a week, as we’re not quite ready to commit to staffing it, so it’s just me all the time, and things come up, unpleasant dentist appointments, something going on at the main shop, the internet is down. When people call here I usually try and convince them to go to the main shop, where all the pens are, where all the people who know what they’re doing are, where there are regular hours and you’re not going to find the door locked because the pen clerk is off in the lane way trying to find a cat.