I miss Pearl Paint

Pearl Paint was everything. A labyrinthine library of pastels and clays and canvas you could reach only by ascending the impossibly steep stairs to each floor after floor after floor, where hand written signs drawn with markers by art students would guide you to the goods. Each floor and attendant had its own personality, the color pencil man was always very serious, which meant he must be a very good artist. Nothing was shiny but everything glowed with possibility. There was a beauty to everything it offered, and a beauty too to its limits. The materials were there to be claimed like teddy bears waiting to be loved. It was my first Mecca.