Is There An Artist In The House?

I’m Not One…But I Play One On TV…


Well, yesterday was the day that I’ve been looking forward to for the past couple of weeks now—because I was supposed to have “THE” interview Friday morning.

I was sort of surprised that I managed to maintain a “devil may care” attitude through the entire ordeal, but it was not without some conscious effort that I was able to avoid getting myself all lathered up and nervous in the process.

“THE” interview I’m writing about here was the one I had scheduled with Mrs. Mildred Wilcox, proprietor of the Left Bank Art Gallery.

One of her assistants had earlier indicated that my pen and ink drawings of local churches and landmarks could be of interest to Mrs. Wilcox, and to my surprise I had the opportunity to present my work—hoping to display some or all of it for sale under her tutelage.

Mrs. Wilcox and her family are the acknowledged experts on all things Island and all things Art and all things Island Art for the past forty years here on St. Simons Island. The gallery is full of paintings by famous French Artists, along with a bunch of popular local artists that sell their work for tens of thousands of dollars each.

Am I audacious or what?

Things didn’t start out on an encouraging note, however, because when I arrived at the Left Bank Gallery yesterday morning about 10 minutes early, there was no one in sight.

The doors were locked and the lights were off.

No big deal…art gallery personnel keep bankers’ hours, so I wandered over to a nearby shop where I knew some of the employees and showed them my pen and ink drawings.

Yada yada…yacka yack…

By a few minutes after 10 AM the gallery employees had arrived and opened the doors, but by 10:25 I was distraught and discouraged because I was standing around by myself—no Mrs. Wilcox.

I handed the young woman at the front desk my business card, and I politely excused myself.

Just Damn…

In a fit of sanity, I decided to run down to another gallery in Redfern Village to check out their interest in the original drawings and possibly some stationary and note cards featuring my images.

Things were going well and while in mid “sales-pitch” mode, my cell phone rang, and Pat told me that someone from Left Bank Gallery had phoned and sent Mrs. Wilcox’s apologies and had asked that I stop back by the gallery on my way home.

Just Damn again…

My nerves were starting to wear thin, and my gumption was ebbing.

Remember that I’m and engineer, not an artist, in real life—at least not in the recent past. I have to psych myself up to do this stuff and play the part, and I was really ready to just go home, have a stiff drink, and take a nap or something while I licked my wounds. (Mental pictures of people tilting their heads back to laugh hysterically at my efforts come to mind…)

So any way, I went back to Left Bank Gallery, Mrs. Wilcox arrived, and forty five minutes later I was walking out the door with a grin that extended from ear to ear.

Double Damn…

She loved my work, expressed an interest in showing at least a dozen pieces, and took pictures of some of my drawings to include in her monthly newsletter along with a biography highlighting THE UPCOMING EXIBIT FEATURING THE WORKS OF VIRGIL RAYMOND ROGERS, III.

The only problem I have now is that I just put four of my best drawings in the Glynn Art Association’s Georgia Coastal National Juried Exhibition that runs through the month of April.

If I manage to sell them, then I have to reproduce them again for this new endeavor. That’s OK, because each time I draw a building I get better results because I’m more familiar with the details of each structure.

I’ve got to go now… where are my pens…