One of the things I love, are the unexpected side effects.
 They give me as much of a high as the main aspect of it, even thought they usually turn up out of the blue, not searched for specifically but they happen around me in a delightfully natural way and give me an immense amount of  pleasure in the process. Now, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t happen all the time, if it did it would take part of the fun away. Its the fact that I never know when its going to happen, or who its going to happen with, that makes it so exciting! If I was to analyse it, it would be to say that the sort of people it happens with, are the sort of people I’m going to like anyway. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to feel the same way, not at all. But, yesterday, it was the case, and he did.
We had met briefly before, through a friend of a friend and had smiled politely at each other and moved on. So the fact that he contacted me recently and said how well he had remembered me in that meeting, intrigued me. I remembered him clearly too, but hadn’t got a clear memory of character,  personality, humour or lack of it,  or conversational abilities.
So, when he turned up on my doorstep for the pre-arranged meeting, I wasn’t sure if he would be there for a tense and terse five minutes or longer.
As it was, it was longer. A lot longer.Â
Going on gut reaction, I immediately offered him a hot drink, expecting a refusal due to time commitments, but he said “I’d love one!
I made it, and he looked around him, and commented on the amount of pictures on my walls – well I’m an artist dontchaknow! – and we talked, about art, about my pictures, about his interests, about what inspired me, about his life, and mine, about the creation of artwork, of what determined eroticism and the psychology of art and how to depict it in painting. I was delighted when he accepted another cup of coffee, and the conversation flowed easily on both sides and only came to an end when he said emphatically that he HAD to go, but how much he had enjoyed it! I said I had too, very much! And he said he’d like the opportunity to do it again, and I said I would as well!
He went with what he had come for, a piece of my artwork tucked under his arm. And although I had made a sale, and although he was now a client, a buyer,  or customer, however label you want to call him, I also felt that I had made a new friend as well.
But, there’s no surprise in that, when I look back at some of my strong and close friendships, a lot of them have started in the same way. Its one of the delightful of side effects of me selling my art, and I love it! And those of you reading this now, and I know that you are there, I’ll say how much I value your strong and supporting and much needed friendship and love the ease of exchanging ideas and the depths of what we share.