When I started playing around with art, in my mid-twenties, I used those bottles of acrylic paint that you buy at a crafts store. I bought the cheapest brushes possible, the kind meant for children, with glittery plastic handles. I bought small canvases, used the school's photocopier to grab great images for collages, and probably used Elmer's Glue to stick things into place. I had no money, so I spent as little money as possible. Looking back, I find this absolutely fascinating. To think - once upon a time, I just made art, and didn't know what the hell I was doing, and was doing everything "wrong," and - oh my god - it didn't matter . Everything I made over ten years ago has held up just fine. The colors are great, the collages have not yellowed. The art itself, well, a bit maudlin, but from an infrastructure point my ignorance of the art world presented zero problems. This is important to remember because in my advanced age, because I have become a gear...