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I don't have a dog in this hunt, but as I read through these posts, it occurred to me that no one has ever issued an environmental warning about filling up landfills with linen, on the basis that it will take hundreds of years to break down. That kind of caution is usually attached to polymer products.
I began using Fredrix PolyFlax years ago -- and still do for landscapes and still lifes -- partly as a matter of economy and partly because I didn't have any reason to go with linen. I like it very much. It's a little harder to get a good stretch on than cotton, but not nearly so hard as linen. And when it's stretched, it's stretched -- I've never had a problem with a polyflax painting "sagging" or wrinkling in the extremes of Minnesota's arid-to-humid climate. All but one of the linen pieces I've done over the years show some of this, at least to a critical eye, even though they were absolutely drum tight after stretching. (Interestingly, the one that has remained drum tight is of an unknown brand of primed linen, of uncertain pedigree or process, that I purchased in a tiny art supply store in Taiwan.)
By the way, I do use linen on all commissions, albeit partly just because of the snob factor. I can hold up the unprimed side and sniff its distinctive aroma and get all heavy-lidded and light-headed as if it were the Muse's own scent, come back to me from the mists of a former tryst. Right. I can tell clients that the stuff will last hundreds of years, even though I haven't the faintest idea whether it will, nor does anyone else. I can't quite shake the feeling that a lot -- almost all, likely -- of the two- to four-hundred year old paintings executed on non-polymer substrates didn't make it to our times. Of those that we do have, most have been subjected to the most sophisticated conservation techniques in history. And yet many are in such terrible condition, that I sometimes wish I'd never seen the original of some of them.
And yes, I know this is all anecdotal. As I said, no dog.
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