There's something I really want to get off my chest... not an unusual state of affairs with me... When I can afford it, (and I wish I could at the moment), I buy up all the art magazines I can, and read them over a period of months. Most of those available are good in different ways; an international one, if I can call it that, makes a great effort to cover the whole of the world, and is superbly colour-printed. It's also reliably full of "typos", to the extent that I've thought of offering my services as a proof-reader. Another is a pleasing read, but alienated a number of loyal readers when it changed hands and dispensed with a number of regular staff, including its idiosyncratic editor and replaced him with an editor who seems reluctant to offend anyone, and so produces a blander publication. And then there's The Artist, a regular standby of authority and reliability for over 70 years. Which is what gives it its edge over the competition, however good it might be. I doubt that The Artist would have printed unchallenged the views of a painter who assured her readers that she had abandoned Flake White oil paint because "new concerns" over its safety had been reported. New? Flake, Cremnitz and Foundation White are lead-based paint. They are hazardous to make, but we've known for years that lead is a toxic substance. You should wash your hands if you handle these paints, not eat while painting (does anyone?) but beyond that, so long as you don't actually sit down and make a meal of the stuff, or wash in it, its level of hazard to the average user is slight. Not non-existent, but containable. What our painter might more accurately have said is that it's hard to get hold of lead-based oil paint at the moment, at least if you live in the EU. Regulations mean that it can only be sold in child-proof containers (although you can't help wondering how many children have ever been harmed by artists' paint). Another writer in that same magazine reported - actually a few years ago now - that Flake White was no longer obtainable in this country. Well, it's an endangered species, all right: the genuine article is only supplied by Winsor and Newton and Daler Rowney to painters in the US, where rules are less oppressive (on this issue, at least). I understand however that this has more to do with current problems with suppliers of reliably child-proof containers than with anything else. I think, and I certainly hope, that both of these extremely important firms will recommence their sales of their very good paint when those problems have been overcome. But in any case, lead-based whites are still obtainable in this country, from other suppliers - eg, Michael Harding, Jackson's, and Spectrum - which you would only know if you'd troubled to check availability for yourself and didn't take as Gospel things you might read in some magazines. In this particular case, there are two messages I think. One is obviously that if you want completely reliable information, well then go to a completely reliable source. The other is that lead-based paint has been popular for many hundreds of years for good reasons: and if it's in danger of extinction, I think we should fight a rearguard action to save it! I've used Flake White in preference to Titanium for the bulk of my paintings for some time: it's warmer, it dries quicker, it has excellent covering power, and it isn't swimming in oil, which Titanium (and worse, Zinc) so often are. I tend to use Titanium white for thicker highlights, and for those occasions when a really bright, cool white is needed. Is Flake essential? No, probably not - there are substitutes, Flake White Hue being one, and they certainly have their uses. It is quite obviously possible to complete a painting without using the real thing, and many better oil painters than I often do. But then, Viridian isn't essential either; you can use Phthalo Green instead. But Viridian has a particular quality that I value; and so I choose to use it. In an ideal world, we should all be using non-toxic paints, no dangerous solvents, and of course some people just can't use conventional oil paint at all. I believe however that the choice should be left to the individual artist, and we shouldn't be protected too much, provided we take the trouble to learn the basic safety procedures and that the dangers of toxic materials are properly explained by manufacturers. (Mind you, I also believe people should have the right to smoke without the health police descending on them, so perhaps you see where I'm coming from...) So here's the point (at last!): I like my Flake White; it helps me to paint in oil; I haven't poisoned my customers, or myself, by using it; I haven't cunningly inveigled innocent kiddywinks into slurping it from a spoon. Could the authorities just leave me alone to use it responsibly; could Winsor and Newton and Daler Rowney get it back on the market asap; and could those who write about these things take just a little bit more trouble with their research? Because if we're all conditioned into thinking that lead-based paint is an evil villain for which no justifiable use exists, it will disappear as a choice in this safety-obsessed world, and life will get just that bit less interesting. The real cumulative poison doesn't lie in tins and tubes of paint, but in the way we're all being risk-assessed to the brink of the grave....