Friday 9 July 2010

Opening doors and slamming others

On deciding one warm and sunny night this week that a fresh pizza and glass of chilled wine at the local pub was a good idea, I was surprised as I placed my order when the pizza chef greeted me with a smile and enquired "How's your exhibition going?" I was taken aback, since I've not seen him for a few weeks. "How do you know about THAT?" I asked, intrigued.... "You emailed my wife and she told me!" he said with a grin, and I smiled back in rememberance. Of course I did! Along with everyone else I could think of in the area who might be interested....

So I wasn't so surprised later on that evening, still in the pub, when I saw another guy I'd not seen for a year, and he asked me the same thing! It's nice to know that the message is getting across and people remember.

And even nicer when my cousin from North Yorkshire rang me yesterday to ask the same question. This exhibition is giving people the opportunity to get in touch with me, which is lovely! It makse me feel all warm and smiley!

Infact, now I come to think about it, two women friends have mentioned it too when I bumped into each of them on different days this week. One of them was just coming back from a late lunch in town, and had a male colleague with her. She and I hugged in greeting and she introduced me to him, we shook hands and she mentioned to him that I'd got an exhibition on at the library and that she'd been but I'd not been on duty at that point (its sods law that I can hang around the library for three hours and not see anyone I know, but when I'm not there, they go!!!!). He looked at me with interest and said "So you've got your own crayons have you?" I smiled and said "I've got my own paint brushes as well". He said "But you could use your hands to smear the paint on" and I agreed and said "And I'd probably earn more money that way instead of painting properly with a brush!". He asked me a couple more probing questions about my work and when I said that I'd sold artwork to America, he commented "Well, its easy to sell oil paintings to the Americans!" followed by an aggressive "Gettttttttt a JOB!!!!!!!!!" I replied that I HAD one!!!! My friend decided it was time to get back to work and I said goodbye to her and to him and walked on. She's a really good friend of mine, but I wasn't sure about her colleague - whether he was being deadly serious and sarcastically critical and rude, or whether he thought he was being funny! I'm still not sure. But I'll ask her next time I see her. I found him to be aggresively rude for no apparant reason. Perhaps he speaks to everyone in that way!

2 comments:

Joanna Cake said...

What an unpleasant individual. Just ignore him. Good to hear that you're getting known in the area x

Jackie Adshead said...

Joanna - Yes, after I'd walked off, I felt he was quite unpleasant too!

The exhibition at the library was certainly a good way of getting better known in the area, and an exhibition site I'd gladly use again in the future.