Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

First win: seeing friends face-to-face.

This afternoon I got a phone call from a group of friends (saying "friends I don't see often enough" would be redundant, I'm afraid), asking if I wanted to join them up in Charles Village. I wasn't moving quickly enough to join them at lunch, but I was able to meet up with them at the Baltimore Book Thing.

Second win: Free Books!

Now the Baltimore Book Thing (excuse me, The Book Thing Of Baltimore, Inc. -- just read the stamp) is a non-bookstore. It's open weekends in a basement at the corner of Charles and 27th streets, and the way it works is that you go in, you browse, you trip over the stacks of books that didn't fit on the shelves, you say "excuse me" as you squeeze past the other browsers, you find a bunch of interesting-looking used books, you let them stamp "Not For Resale / This is a Free Book / The Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc. / www.bookthing.org" in them, and you jot down your name and the number of books you took, and then you leave with more free books than you had meant to pick up. Oh, and they'll accept books you want to give them, too. So there we were with a bunch of other people in a way-too-small basement with stacks of books spilling over, with most people giving off some sort of bibliophile-vibe (a vague something that conveyed the impression that "this person thinks books are Really Nifty and important and that free books are especially cool, like I do"), and Tangent remarked that it made him think of Fahrenheit 451: underground meetings of book lovers sneaking around in the dark. (*shudder* I think that was the only movie that ever gave me nightmares -- my parents had me watch it when it came on television when I was a child, and images of piles of books burning troubled my sleep for a while after that. My parents knew how seriously I was into books by then. I was a little nervous about reading the book as an adult because I remembered the nightmares from the movie.)

Free Books! Free Books! Good Day! Free Books! (I've been meaning to go to the Baltimore Book Thing since I heard about it on some weekend-morning radio or television show months ago.)

Someone who overheard me talking about a book I wanted but couldn't remember the author of and wasn't entirely certain of the title of, chimed in with the name of the author, helped me look for a copy in the stacks, then mentioned that he had a few spare copies at home because he gives it to friends, and offered to mail one to me if I paid postage. Almost-free book that I've been looking for! *pock!*[1]

While my friends were loading books into the van they'd arrived in, I grabbed the 8x10 print of the photo I got arrested for in November[2] (well, the detective said I was "merely detained" because I wasn't handcuffed; a lawyer said that I was technically arrested because I wasn't free to leave) out of my car to show them, and then we sat in the van talking about that little adventure, security stuff, cameras, and photography techniques, until somebody suggested that if we were going to continue talking, a coffeeshop would be warmer.

Third win: Showing my photos

We wandered up to Xando, a few blocks further up Charles St. On the way in, I noticed artwork on the walls with the little card next to each piece whose presence said, "work by a local artist and probably for sale," even before one gets close enough to read the writing on the card (which turned out to be title/description and price, as expected). SO I asked our waitress whom I should talk to about showing my portfolio in hope of getting my photos on the walls there, and she said the art director wasn't in, but she'd give him my card. When she brought our coffee, she told me that the art director had come in and was upstairs, so Tangent drove me back to my car so I could grab my portfolio (well, the 8x10 and 8x12 parts of my portfolio, which I'd thrown on the back seat on a hunch when I left the house) while the art director was still there.

Now I'm used to hearing my friends tell me I've got some great photographs, and I'm used to strangers telling me I have good photographs, and people have told me I need to get off my too-damned-shy butt and go talk to art galleries and restaurants about exhibiting my work, but this was the first time I've gotten past the fear of not knowing how to approach such folks and knowing that I was putting my ego on the line in front of someone whose job it is to decide what's really good enough. I tried (and probably failed) to not appear too anxious and puppy-like while the art director looked through my photos. He made the expected noises that sounded to me like "that's okay" and "yeah, that's kind of nice", and then he got to one that changed his body language. But was one gem enough? Fortunately I don't literally chew my fingernails...

He reacted to a few others -- none as visibly as that first one, but a reaction still. And then he told me, "The first available slot I've got is September."

At that point I thought he meant that he'd keep my work in mind and let me know whether I was chosen for September in a while. Uh, no. He was saying that my photos would be hung on the walls in September. Loud *pock!*

#blink#

%BOUNCE%

He asked whether I wanted the whole space or part of it. I'll be using just the downstairs. He said that if I wanted to hold a reception, that'd be cool. And that I had to have my stuff framed, and that he wanted all the spots on the wall where art was currently hanging to be filled.

OhmyGod%bounce%bounce%Ihaveanexhibitionscheduled! My prints will hang downstairs in Xando at the corner of Charles & 31st in September! My first exhibition!

So now I need to figure out which photos to make larger prints of, drive myself crazy deciding which photos are good enough to hang and changing my mind two dozen times, get my photos framed, and figure out how I should price them.

The art director said that the photographer who has nine prints displayed now is selling well. It would be so amazingly cool to make some money from my art-photos (as opposed to wedding photos, portraits, and petraits), and maybe even be able to afford to get some of the 100+ rolls in the freezer developed ... I hope mine sell there. (Even if they don't, getting them exhibited in public is a big step for me.)

Hugs! Talking to friends! Free books! Getting past that first audition and being scheduled for my first photo exhibition! Very Good Day! Now to get some work done so I have a prayer of paying bills in February...

[1] "*pock*", for readers who are not on Elbows or Suspects, is the sound of the pinball game of the universe giving you a free ball. A general sound of unexpected winnitude.

[2] Amusingly, The Homespun Ceilidh Band is scheduled to perform at the top of the building I was detained for allegedly pointing a camera at, on St. Patrick's Day.