I Can Only Call It What I Think It Is.....

(...The Grace of God.)

I have received a plethora of emails from them over the past few weeks, reminding me as a participant from last year that it is time.....time to submit another piece of work, should I choose, and time to pick up last years' submission. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo sponsors submissions to the jury of their Collector's Gallery once a year; if your submission is accepted by the jury, they will display it in the Collector's Gallery for a full year; businesses can rent your work to have in their offices for a few months at a time , or your work can be sold out-right to an interested party. It is now the time of year where those of us whose work did NOT sell are requested to come to the gallery to pick it up; if we choose to submit something else, there is a later date in May for that.

When I submitted my photo last year, at the urging of a dear artist friend, I figured it was a long-shot; I mean what chance did my one photo have amidst all the other submissions that were accepted and on display in the Collector's Gallery? So many pieces, only so many visitors to the gallery...difficult , as always, to know who is in the market for what kind of art. But it was a good "next step" for me as I began putting my work "out there"; I had success with the photo at our Image City Photography Gallery's first and now annual juried show and from that I was encouraged to continue the building of my latest creative venture as a photographer. I have had success as an actor, a dancer, a writer, a voice artist, and an artist; it was time to move forward with my photographic "captures" of moments in life, and so I did.

NO ONE could have been more surprised than I when I saw the envelope in the mailbox..the envelope that announced through its thin nature that it more than likely held.....A CHECK.

SOMEONE BOUGHT MY PHOTO.
I have sold my first photography.
Someone liked it enough to buy it, to have it as their own.

YAHOOOOOOO!

Here I was, just minding my own business, preparing another image for submission to the Collector's Gallery, actually kind of looking forward to picking last years' submission up on the fifteenth of the month, a reunion with a much-loved image, all matted and framed and beautiful in its presentation...but no....SOMEONE BOUGHT MY PHOTO!!!! Oh, but I already exclaimed about that, didn't I? Heck, YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO again!~ It is, after all, "a first". I mean how many more of those will I get in my life?? (smile)

And there's a copy of the photo: I called it "Watching the Watchers"; I took the photo aboard a whale watching ship in Cape Cod last fall...it is an image of the silhouette of people on the upper deck in the huge white foam created by the ship in the deep blue of the Atlantic. I had been on my way to the side of the deck fearing that I may..well, you know, toss my cookies, but then I saw this image...and the rest is history.....it saved me from feeling sea sick too!

The Grace of God brought me this gift and I am grateful.