[BAS Newsletter] The Squeezed Middle

[Adrian Fowle]

We’ll start with a couple of requests. We need your help – literally!
Your committee lost some members just before the AGM and with the
lockdown we have not been able to do anything about it until now. We
particularly need someone to organise our First Friday meetings for next
year, with some flexibility about arranging them online, face to face or
having to  move them around. There are other jobs though and we would
welcome offers.  Do you have a non-art skill that we could make use of ?

We also need use of a garage or waterproof shed to store our exhibition
screens. Commercial storage is quite expensive when we are not able to
receive any hire fees for them. Can you recommend something?

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Did you know that the “collapsible metal tube for paint” revolutionised
painting? It was invented by  an American artist called John Goffe Rand.
Winsor & Newton bought the patent, improved it and built their company
around it. Without it Impressionism and painting en plein air would have
been impossible, but the tube found many other uses. Not only does it
make transport easy, but the collapsing nature keeps air out of the
paint so that it lasts longer.

I was reminded of this by an advert this week from Jacksons for a “Big
Squeeze” device for squeezing paint. I am a tidy and systematic user of
tools, naturally, but some elf comes along and squeezes all my paint
tubes in the middle when I am not looking, instead of at the end.
Looking at others’ paint kits I see that the elf visits widely.

I got fed up with this a few years ago and tried buying those keys that
wind up tubes. The plastic ones broke, and anyway would only take fairly
narrow tubes. You also have to unwind them when you are done. The metal
versions are a little better, and will slip out when done, but still
don’t work properly. You can’t read the labels easily once it is all
curled up. There is also a sort of tight plastic slit through which you
can push a tube, which was useless for paint and only so-so for the
grandchildren’s toothpaste – the version that looks like a frog was the
most popular.

Then I discovered the Tubewringer which I bought from either Fred Aldous
or Ken Bromley online. The heavy duty one was about £40 then, it’s much
cheaper and more widely available now. Some of the things that look
similar and are sold on Amazon appeared to break easily, but my one has
earned its high price. It works on paint, toothpaste, hand cream, tomato
puree and other tubes. It even works on plastic tubes, although they
don’t stay squeezed, the paint is pushed up with little waste. Paint is
so expensive that you can easily save money by getting more of it out.
It can even repair tubes that have torn where they were folded, if you
can feed enough of the tube into it. Jackson’s latest looks like a
variation on the theme. If you get one that won’t break it is a most
satisfying tool. Just don’t wind it up too hard. The sight of crimson
red paint shooting out of the over-pressurised tube when you remove the
cap is not a good one if there is a carpet ...

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Adrian Fowle
Chairman, Bromley Art Society.

www.bromleyartsociety.org.uk and www.bromleyartsoc.org.uk

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