From Dec 20th, 2008 through Jan 3rd, 2009 the artists at ArtKlub have art on display at the Atlanta Bread Company near the Dulles Town Center mall.
This Saturday and Sunday various local artists, including myself, got to hang out, and chat with the public. We were even pleasantly surprised by the visit of Frank Cho.
During lunch, a young lady came up to me and asked me for my autograph and pushed a pad and pen in my hands excitedly.
Now although I have drawn comics, I’ve recently taken up more of an interest in photography, which I had on display. And while I have a heavy internet presence and can be found in some technical books, I doubted either of these were contributing factors and that she was just collecting names for the enjoyment of the experience.
So, I whipped up an original cartoon with her in it and signed my name. She was very pleased.
However, I wasn’t able to return to my lunch, because her considerably younger brother came up and mimicked the request. Almost.
“Can you have my autograph?”
I smiled, “Sure you can give me your autograph!” And I pushed a blank napkin at him.
He looked down at it and asked, “What’s an autograph?”
“Do you have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to write it?”
He got all excited, “…yes!”
“Then,” I explained, “you have an autograph.”
At that point, he was simply thrilled and went running to his sister and accounted loudly, proudly, and slowly for all to hear: “I have an awe-toe-graph!” and kept writing his name to himself in his pad.