Is there such a term as “cartomania?” If not, I hereby invent it as a means of describing my own condition.
I decided this morning that I would begin a new picture, and determined relatively quickly that this would be done in pastels. This directed me towards particular kinds of paper, as not all papers are equally well-suited to all media. My collection of papers is organised into drawers in a plan-chest, with separate ones for watercolour, pastel and general-purpose cartridge paper. I was actually astonished by what I discovered there.
Let’s face it, I am a sucker for a new kind of paper. I do enjoy experimenting with new surfaces, in order to see how these behave. The number and variety of these that I have accumulated, however, really took me aback. Some of them I recognised as old favourites, and some I can recall buying as the basis for experiments (although not necessarily ever used.) I had no idea that I had accumulated such a collection. It does appear that I have a kind of mania for collecting art papers, and I have coined the term cartomania as a description of this condition. It would be interesting to hear of any other sufferers from it. I wonder if there is a cure for it, and also whether the condition can ever become so serious that a cure might be thought necessary.
I am relieved, I suppose, by the fact that my eventual choice of a paper for my new project was one of those I had bought with a speculative interest in its qualities. Something will be learned from this exercise at least.