tford: July 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

ECU

I was recently invited to be a guest artist and presenter at a summer art program held in the Art Dept. at East Central University in Oklahoma, my Alma Mater. It was very cool to walk in to the Art Dept. after all these years. It's been about 12 years since I have been back, but as soon as I walked in, it felt like home. Within microseconds, I was greeted by that familiar smell of all things art. My presentation was actually in the Drawing studio, but I did get a chance to walk through the Painting studio, which was vacant at the time. I was pleased to see the obvious talent present in the paintings of various stages of completion. I thought back to the countless hours I had spent in that room.

Near the end of the day, I had an inquiry about one of my paintings I took as an example. It was the Broken Pieces painting. Unfortunately this painting was for sale on eBay and I wasn't su

re if it had sold or not. Sooo, I went into one of the classrooms with interent access to see if the auction had ended with a sale or not. It had sold on eBay, but we worked out a commission for a similar piece..no big deal. BUT, in that classroom that I had been next door to ALL day was one of my paintings from back in the day. When I graduated in 1996, the E.C.U. Art Department wanted to keep one of my paintings. I was honored and humbled back then, and even more so seeing it hanging after all these years. This painting is 4 feet by 6 feet.