JAM

Joshua Weibley

 

For many years I favored a variety of green-lined engineering graph paper from a store called Jam’s Stationery.

I never remembered exactly where Jam’s was when I wanted to go there, only the general area I should walk through if I wanted to find it: Manhattan Avenue somewhere between the Nassau and Greenpoint G train stations. As the years passed I periodically felt my way towards the store whenever I needed to replenish my supply of “National Brand Engineering Forms” but one day I couldn’t find it anymore. Jam’s had been closed for over a year at that point and by now it’s been almost 5.

Making drawings makes one more conscious of frames as it can be hard to safely display a piece of paper without one. After the store that sold my favorite paper closed, I became more interested in making frames than I was in making marks on paper. I framed my last full pack of Engineering Forms and have been making my own pieces of paper ever since.Selected moments from this trajectory will be on view at DAAB Oak, an artist-run space at 135 Oak Street June 1-3. Now that I finally know where it was, it turns out Jam’s used to be 3 blocks away.

-Joshua Caleb Weibley