I bought these inkbottles in Albi, France after visiting the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. I was of course familiar with his lithographs of Parisian nightlife but his pen and ink studies were a revelation! He drew a lot of them on what appeared to be brown paper bags. I figured, I’ve got lots of paper bags at home, now all I need is some cool French ink and I’ll be on my way to creating masterpieces too. For some reason when I’m traveling I manage to delude myself with all kinds of crazy thoughts. To think that for even a second I expected to come close to Toulouse’s mastery is laughable. What’s even more laughable (and embarrassing to admit) is that this was no passing thought. It took me a couple of days to find this ink. Needless to say once I got home and unpacked my little bottles, they looked so pretty sitting there under their caps of molten wax, I didn’t have the heart to break the seal. Today they rest in the back of the infamous art closet. Even though I have never used this ink, that trip did inspire me to start painting and while I have yet to create any masterpieces, I have spent many blissful hours on my patio listening to music and unleashing my inner Lautrec.