Gallery Flattery

Today, I dropped off my scratchboard piece, Athena’s Little Owl, at the gallery/framing shop to get it framed for exhibition. While I’m there, an apparently high-placed woman with the gallery commented on the piece, and also commented on how I really MUST be an artist, because I have such an eye for detail.

But that wasn’t the gallery flattery part (I hear that other stuff so much, it barely registers…if I was better, I might actually have believed it).

She asked how long I’d been doing art. I commented on how I’ve been involved in graphic design since high school. So, that would mean it’s been about thirty years. Incredulously, she said that couldn’t be, because I’m twenty-five. I smiled and retorted that no, I’m actually forty-six. I’m not sure she quite bought that, but did back-peddle a bit and said that I really do look twenty-five.

OK. Now I know that I look a little younger than my years. I always have. But over twenty years younger? I don’t think so. Not with all the gray in my beard. Maybe it was the long hair…maybe that threw her. Whatever the case, I know I don’t look no twenty-five. At best, I maybe look thirty-seven…on a good day. Still, despite my obvious rejection of the truth of the flattery, I can’t say that it didn’t offer me a pick-me-up given the fatigue of being in the middle of my life. So, if for no other reason, thumbs up for good timing.