Fact is Stranger than Fiction

I'm tempted to start this post with "Once upon a time.." or "It was a dark and stormy night..." or "I was born a poor sharecropper's child...". This story seems so far-fetched it must be fiction.

 Check out beanforest's shop of cute (and snarky and some inappropriate) buttons here.

Even so, it is not, and I'll begin at the beginning.  

On a normal day last week, I was sitting, minding my own business when a message came across my phone that I'd made a sale on Etsy. (YEA!!)  Making a sale on Etsy is one of my very favorite things.  I do a little happy dance in my head.  If I'm home, I do an actual happy dance outside my head, as well.  Etsy encourages that because the app provides a rather realistic cash register sound when the volume is up on the phone.  That is a very happy sound.  The volume wasn't up this time, which was good because dancing right then would have been highly inappropriate. But the push notification is happy too!

I hastily clicked over to see what had sold.  I didn't even really get to see which piece it was, though, because I didn't make it past the message from the buyer.  I  nearly dropped the phone when I read it.  It looked kind of like this to my eyes:

 ::commence hyperventilation::

::search for paper bag::

Okay. 

Seriously.  

This doesn't happen to me.  

I was pretty sure I was being punked.  But it looked real.  I got the real message from Etsy. The art was actually sold.  The verbiage didn't seem like it could have been written by my son or my husband.  There was a legitimate address and a phone number and THIS PERSON WANTED ME TO CALL HER... ON THE PHONE!!

::puts head between knees and breathes into paper bag::

After some practice introductions with myself, I called the number and spoke to a very nice and very businesslike television art buyer who tried her best to explain it all to me.  She pretended not to notice how it seemed as if English might not have been my first language.  I appreciated that.  

A lot.  

The rest is kind of blurry but included contracts and releases and some kind of tax form to sign, which all got included with the painting in the overnight FedEx delivery the very next day.  Television moves very fast.


After the art was on its way, I ran over to Hulu.com and began a marathon catch up of Nashville, a show I had never seen.  I spent almost the whole time looking over the shoulders of the actors at the art on the walls.  There's a great article in Nashville Arts Magazine here about how art is used on the set.  My art is going to be in Rayna's daughter Daphne's room.  The episode is scheduled to air Wednesday, March 19 at 9 CST.

So that's it.  My art is going to be on television. (Eeek!)  I'm not really sure what that means, though.  It may only show up in super slow-mo or with someone's head in the way or barely visible in the dark.

Here's the thing, though. 

I don't even care.  

Someone I've never met went to Etsy looking for art to decorate a little girl's room. She entered her search terms, which no doubt resulted in hundreds of offerings.  Of those hundreds of thumbnails, something about my painting sparked that person's interest and spoke to her and told her it was made for that little (fictionalized) girl. 

That's it right there.  That's why I make art.  I'm so grateful for that. 

Look for "Songbird" somewhere in Daphne's room on March 19.  I would love to hear from you if you see it! 

And thanks for being here so that I can tell you about it!  I'm also grateful for you!

<3 Lori