Flat Files

As a professional person whose drawings are published in books and magazines and sold by a gallery (I'm sorry, but that designation still amazes and astonishes me, let's just take a moment here in the parentheses to go eeeeeee! shall we? Good. That's done.) I realized I finally needed to bite the bullet and invest in flat files for storing my finished pictures. But, damn! Real official artists' flat files are hella expensive. Like thousands of dollars expensive. Um, nope. Instead, thanks to a beautiful Instagram post from Case for Making (where they use these same cabinets to hold the beloved hand-crafted watercolor paints they make and sell) I discovered this beautiful blue parts cabinet from Uline. Meant to hold small parts and hardware -- my friend who works in a machine shop confirms he uses these same cabinets daily -- they turn out to also be a more affordable, extremely sturdy, option for storing works-on-paper as well. The heavy gray plastic cubby inserts lift out and you're left with a lidded drawer that perfectly holds two stacks of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheets side by side. Heavenly.