Years ago, I lived at 909 Bladen Street in Beaufort. We had what I suppose you could call an underground art gallery there: a friend’s paintings and my photographs.
We were afraid to put a sign out front. We were even afraid to apply for a license, for fear we would be turned down. So there we were, with art to show and rather limited enthusiasm for announcing ourselves.
Somehow, people heard about us anyway.
At the time, I was working at a garden center. I came home one day, and my partner told me she had sold fourteen of my photographs to a woman who had heard about our little gallery. Most of them were matted. They were going to be prizes in a women’s golf tournament.
Fourteen.
I have to say, I had to lie down when I heard that.
There is something quite extraordinary about finding out that someone has chosen your photographs. You made them because something caught your eye, because the light or the place or the moment asked you to stop. Then someone else sees something in them, too.
And on that particular day, someone had chosen fourteen.
I was reminded of our gallery recently while reading about the Pat Conroy Literary Center on Bladen Street. The same street where we had been so hesitant to put out a sign now gives me another reason to think about art, books, and the people who make them.
Things are different now.
But I still remember coming home from the garden center and hearing what had happened while I was at work. Our little gallery had no sign out front, yet a woman had found her way to us.
And fourteen of my photographs were on their way to becoming prizes.
