Points of Light Mandala - (Healing in Circles series) - © Sue O'Kieffe 2006Thursday morning. Trying to decide what to fix for breakfast (or by this time brunch, since it's around 10 am and all I've had is coffee.) Bbbrrring bbrringg, goes the phone and I decide to answer it instead of letting the machine get it cuz, well, ya just never know.
Older masculine voice on the other end asks, "Is this Sue O'Kieffe?"
"Yes," I reply somewhat warily. Didn't exactly sound like a telemarketer, because they usually bungle the pronunciation of my last name or ask for Mrs. O'Dell or something like that.
"Is this the same Sue O'Kieffe who has a picture of her Points of Light painting in today's newspaper?"
Well, by now I am really turning my attention in his direction. "Who is this?" I ask, because I want to know who my first inspired fan is. "You don't know me, but when I saw your painting I just had to call because I have this thing about dodecahedrons."
Dodeca-whats?
Turns out, unbeknownst to me, that the woman who organized one of the art shows I am in sent a press release to the local newspaper and used my image (because she had kindly printed a larger version of it for me on her wide format printer and still had the file on her hard drive) .
But what I really got was a very pleasant surprise, and a delightful conversation with a man eager to talk about geometry, Buckminster Fuller, geodesic domes, photography, and how we are all connected... just like how we are here on the world wide web. And which is exactly the theme of the mandala printed in the paper.
These are the moments that make doing art worthwhile, and what I dream of in my work: that they will touch the heart, tweek the imagination, inspire the spirit, soothe the mind.
The man on the phone told me he looked like Santa Claus. He has no idea what kind of gift he really brought!
