We passed Ateliers Dubois Antiques in Harlem a number of times in the evening when it was closed, pressing our nose against the window to look in and marvel at…its wallpaper: roughly painted sheets or ordinary 8.5-x-11-inch paper. Last weekend, we found the store open and wandered in to take a closer look. We got lots of ideas.

Djamiba, one of the owners, said that an artist friend had made the paintings. What an idea: their graphic black and white transform the rough, odd images into a graphic pattern that curiously works…

Their mood changes on every wall…

We noticed that even a door had been covered, so you’d barely know it was there were it not for the handle.

We’re not the best at drawing but we could see our scrawling handwriting or homemade cyanotypes…

or even computer or hand-made dots, and lines….or the squiggly ballpoint lines on walls we once saw…one sheet at a time….