get item texture without spawning item instance?

[nolanri]

is there a way to get a texture object from a .png file without adding that item to the script/ .txt files?  I sort of thought thats what getTexture() was for but that didnt work for me. 

what i am doing now is just creating an item object, then getting the texture from that object.  but thats messy and means i have to add an item declaration for every texture i want to use even if i wont ever use that item