that schmoozing thing

So I didn't really have any opportunities to get out and visit any shows around Dallas or Fort Worth because of... well, many reasons that I'd rather not bring up. However, I had a couple other neat encounters this semester that led to the spread of my art or just art in general, so I'll share those.

I met an artist at a Taco Bell. She never gave me her name, and I never gave her mine, which makes it seem like a weird dream or something. She had all her paints and canvas panels strewn about a couple of tables, which I thought was kind of weird, but when I approached her to talk about it she was very excited to find that I was also an artist and she showed me a binder full of pictures of her paintings and drawings over the years. It was really cool, she'd been working for decades and created these beautiful representational works that reminded me of concept art for disney- only far more developed- or like paintings one would use for a bestiary of creatures, anywhere from small paper-size to full-scale murals. I showed her a bunch of my paintings as well, and we bonded over our interests in certain animals and oil paint. I left after talking with her for a good half an hour, only realizing once I got home that I didn't exchange any semblance of contact info with her, which I regret. I'd love to see her work again.

I also did a couple of commissions for my aunt (they were like. oil paintings of her dogs), who posted it to her themed instagram and which led to about 7 different people emailing me about more commission work, which I'm always down to clown with. Since commission-based work tends to be one of my primary interests, this worked out really well for me.

Lastly, I had one of my favorite works up in the Lightwell Gallery for the senior Drawing and Painting Invitational, and I was excited to see quite a few people taking pictures of it and talking about it, but about a week ago one of my friends got in contact with me and let me know that her friend was actually writing a paper about it? When I asked for the details, I was told that she liked the piece so much that she picked it to be the subject of a paper she had to write, in which she had to basically guess why I created the works and what they were about. She wasn't able to talk to me directly while writing it, but she's planning on it once it's finished, and she's also going to let me read it and see how on point her guesses were. It may not be getting out and about to network, but just knowing that my paintings had that strong of an effect on someone, even just one person, is one of the best feelings in the world.