Someone I’ve never met called and actually left a message. I returned the call to learn about someone (Let’s call her AF) who bought an old home and had seen a pencil drawing of the house. The seller was supposed to leave it behind, but took it away. AF had the foresight to take a photo of the drawing, and then she sleuthed around until she found me.
It took a bit of conversation until I figured out what house she was speaking of. She was hoping to be able to buy a print of the house, but when she told me it had the date of 1995, I told her that I didn’t even own a computer back then, much less a scanner.
However, sometimes when I have prints made, I keep one in my flat files. I told AF that there was a possibility that I had one.
The bottom drawer of my flat files is very hard to open, so I rarely fight it and as a result, don’t know what it contains. But the label indicated it might contain the desired print, so I wrestled it open.
AHA!! EUREKA!! Here it is!!
I couldn’t get the drawer to go back in so I made like a snake and bellied up to peek inside. Look what was shoved behind that bottom drawer! I had occasionally wondered where these drawings were, but as someone who loses things regularly, I had other missing things to occupy me.
I called AF to let her know I found the print. She was quite excited, as was I. Before packaging it up for her, I scanned it for you.
I remembered that the customer had only the bottom portion turned into notecards, and just two weeks prior, one of my drawing students brought one to me that he found in his mother-in-law’s stacks of stuff. (Weird.)
Turns out, that card was the drawing that AF had seen at the house, and she had no idea that the drawing was an intricate collage of many parts. She has connected with my original customer and will get an explanation of everything included. (Obviously I drew this before instigating the rule of No Faces Smaller Than An Egg.)
I love it when things turn out like this, with the added bonus of finding missing items for myself too. (Who cares if I talked myself out of a drawing commission? That’s not as important as actually helping someone.)
6 Comments
I am cleaning out my files. The things I’ve found! An old, small folder of recipes from
The cabin. Maybe from
The 30’s Ha!
Sally, doesn’t it just make you scratch your head sometimes to contemplate the things we keep?
Yay, I love it when that happens. And I bet AF was thrilled!
I assume the portrait is of the previous owner? And it looks like there are 2 separate houses?
Congrats!
Thank you, Sharon! The portrait is the (first) customer’s grandmother, who had the house built. The top house is the front, the second house is the back.
How wonderful that you found the drawing hidden away! I can’t blame the original homeowners for taking the drawing with them. It’s funny to think that in 1995 we didn’t have such easy ways of making copies.
Michelle, it is funny to me that 1995 is 30 years ago! And it was the 2nd or 3rd owners of the house who took the album with them. Fortunately, it only contained a card of the drawing. And fortunately for AF, I’m still around.
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