Welcome to Our Pigment Shop

Welcome to YOUR pigment shop.

Although we are a mom-and-pop shop, we began this business after nearly two decades of experience helping you achieve your projects and vision as managers of Kremer Pigments NYC. We will not be surprised by your fantastical, seemingly impossible idea of how you want to manipulate surface and color. Our expertise is in developing paint so it dries and looks the way you want it to on any substrate. Making your own paint will not only save you money, but it is the most precise way to be as picky as you want to be with your paint. If we do not have an answer to your inquiry, there’s a good chance we can point you in the right direction.

After grad school at Bard, I really needed a break from thinking only about painting. My focus was to have fun but limit myself to two hobbies that might teach me something practical, which might help my painting. The sound department inspired me to make sound, but music is advanced math, and it requires too much attention. Instead, I leaned hard into riding and learning about bicycles; the history of the machine, the geometry and materials involved to weld a frame, eventually painting a frame, building two wheels, and a 1983 Trek 620 from a self-serviced 7700 Dura-Ace gruppo. Getting to that point without knowing anything about bikes was difficult because I felt I could not easily go into a bike shop and ask questions. (However, one of these folks pointed me to Sheldon Brown, who taught me everything I know.) There’s a subculture of sorts that requires you to bring a six-pack, chat, know a little about bicycles, or continuously buy tubes for your questions to get answered seriously. This much I learned to be true. I eventually understood that the bike shop margin is thin, and it’s better for business if you just take your bike there to get serviced rather than helping you to understand your bike mechanic hobby. Or perhaps it was my approach, evidently dressed with social anxiety from not knowing much about bicycles. I even tried getting some specific advice from a dear friend—an experienced bike mechanic who used to work at Ben's Cycle before moving on to repairing vintage Italian espresso machines. I just wanted to know how tight to make the cup and cone without compromising the wheel's dish and strength. But giving a simple answer to a fastidious, giddy fanatic like me proved difficult, especially since we were really just trying to hang out, not talk shop.

It was not long after school that I began managing the Kremer Pigments NYC business, and so this experience inspired me to make that pigment shop as accessible to giddy, fanatic pigment enthusiasts as I would have liked when learning about bicycles. I realized that stepping into a specialized art supply store can feel exactly like stepping into that bike shop: intimidating and exclusionary. Now that I have my own pigment shop with my partner and wife, Rachael, we share a passion for brainstorming with you about your projects. Our experience of nearly two decades has helped us to develop patience and a deep understanding of artists’ methods. We look forward to geeking out with you and helping you achieve your desired color. Stop by and feel free to wander and dream of color.