The Inkconscious

It had to happen. In my local pen shop this afternoon, I rewarded myself for managing to refrain from spending £250 on an amber-checked Parker Duofold (it's so pretty!) with a bottle of Diamine Sepia. When I returned home and went to introduce the new arrival to its many brothers and sisters, however, I realized that I already have an almost-full bottle of this exact colour. Worse still, I bought the first bottle from the very same shop. And yet, when I was browsing this afternoon, trying to decide which brand and colour to buy, I was convinced that I had never owned Diamine Sepia.

In his Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud tells us that we regularly forget things for reasons of which we're not conscious. At one point, describing his own variation of the Ink Quest, in fact, he recalls how he managed to forget to buy blotting paper on four successive days because its German name, Fliesspapier, reminded him of his friend, Fliess, who had caused Freud 'much anxious and painful reflection on the days concerned'. Because thinking of Fliess would have caused unpleasurable feelings, poor Sigmund unconsciously repressed the vague trace of his friend's name that appeared upon the blotting paper. But why, I wonder, did I repress my ownership of Diamine Sepia? Why did I unconsciously want to own two bottles? It's not even my favourite colour...

I've just indulged in some 'free association', and I think that I might have an answer. The owner of the shop from which I bought the ink is perfectly pleasant, but I can't help feeling that he's always thinking 'Here we go... Are you going to buy something this time?' when I walk in. (This, to be fair, is probably because I call in just to look at the inks a couple of times per week, and I tend to ask him for brands and colours that he doesn't stock.) I was particularly conscious of his gaze when I walked in this afternoon, so I wonder if, without consciously knowing it, I purchased something that I had already bought from his shop in an attempt to prove my genuine status as a customer to him. 'Look', I was unconsciously saying, 'I'm such a good customer that I even buy things that I really don't need from your shop'.

Inks in use today: Diamine Sepia (the younger); Omas Grey.

Outdrawn

I have now returned from the Illinois Ink Quest. Sadly, while Chicago is a fantastic city, I could find nowhere that stocked Omas Sepia, the mythical ink that continues to elude me. The wonderful man in Gilbertson Clybourn let me play with all sorts of pens and inks, but he told me that they stopped stocking Omas products several years ago. The journey was not entirely wasted, however, for I managed to obtain some Levenger Cocoa ink, which is - as its name suggests - a lovely, rich, dark brown (not unlike Waterman Havana, in fact). For the return journey, the bottle was neurotically wrapped in several plastic bags and placed upright in my carry-on luggage. Unfortunately, though, the overhead storage locker in the plane was designed in such a way that it made keeping a piece of luggage perfectly level impossible. For nearly eight hours, I sat and anxiously waited for the first few brown drops to drip onto the head of the man sitting in front of me.

Tracking down Edward Hopper's Nighthawks proved to be something of a trial. On my first morning in the city, I waited patiently for the Art Institute to open at 10am, bought my ticket, and headed straight for the relevant room. Turning the corner to greet the picture, though, I was faced with a blank wall and a small sign that read 'Removed for Restoration'. (To make matters worse, it was written in ballpoint and dated the day before my arrival.) I rushed to the information desk to ask when the picture would return. The woman pulled a 'Don't get your hopes up' face, made a few phonecalls, and then announced that the painting would be back on the wall for me by 4pm. That evening, then, I crept back under cover - appropriately enough - of darkness and perched in front of Nighthawks, my back turned to the world. I sat there alone in the gallery for about half an hour, finally face to face with what I had only ever seen in reproduction. Perhaps it was just the jetlag, but I had, for the briefest of moments, a blasphemous inkling that paint had outdrawn ink.

Inks in use today: Levenger Cocoa; Noodler's Walnut.

Off to 'that toddling town'

Everything is set for the Ink Quest pilgrimage to Chicago. Through obsessive scrutiny of maps and even - thanks to the remarkable surveillance website http://maps.a9.com/ - photographs of the Chicago streets and buildings themselves, I've meticulously plotted the route of my Illinois ink quest. There are two main destinations: Gilbertson Clybourn on East Chicago Avenue, and Levenger at Marshall Field's on State Street, 'that great street'. The plan is to stock up on exotic inks at both places (I like the look of the Levenger Cocoa) and possibly to buy a new pen at Gilbertson Clybourn. Is it my fault that they stock Omas (I think) and that the exchange rate is so favourable at the moment? (What if they also carry Omas sepia ink, that great brown whale that has escaped me for so long?)

The walk to State Street will take me past the Art Institute of Chicago, which houses, among many other things, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. I don't remember seeing this piece in the stunning Hopper exhibition at the Tate Modern in London last year, but that might simply be because the other paintings had cast a spell upon me. A lot has been written about the mysterious figure in the diner who sits with his back to the viewer, but I know his secret: if you look closely, you can see that he's just unpacked a bottle of ink.

Inks in use today: Noodler's Walnut; Diamine Prussian Blue; Mont Blanc Burgundy.