Last night I got an email notification from twitter. New follower. New follower??? NEW FOLLOWER!!! Backflip time. Handsprings even. Because I’m new to twitter. Don’t have a lot of followers. Umm…let’s put it this way, between my fingers and toes I can count them all. And I may not need both feet. So a new follower is a BIG DEAL. Like the new phone book. Or the UPS truck with a box of pigment sticks.

A BIG deal. And hey, if you want to follow me I’m slporterpaints.

So I checked out this new follower. Went to her blog.  Her name is Tracy. She’s a mixed media kindred spirit artist from Australia. AUSTRALIA? Yes, that place. The one where things are backwards and it’s spring right now. Imagine that…spring. Lucky lucky them. And that’s not to say Aussies are backwards–although I’m sure some of them are (as everywhere else). I’m just saying their seasons are confusing to me. Especially when I’m huddling in front of the wood stove and she’s taking pictures of all the new plants in her garden.

But back to Tracy. I like what she had to say.And all the links that I don’t have time to follow right now. I did follow one though, to her Facebook group, Magically Mixed Art Community. Which I promptly joined. Check it out. There’s over 1,500 members. I scrolled through a bunch of posts, commented on a couple and then jumped in and introduced myself.

I felt that at home.

And people welcomed me like I was a long lost friend. Imagine that–total strangers from all over the planet welcoming me into their midst. Fellow artists. Turns out I recognized a few names from the hot wax class.

Just as I recognized some names in the hot wax class from the plaster class last summer.

I was thinking about this today. Thinking that as my contacts are expanding, the world is shrinking. What does it matter if someone is halfway across the planet when we can communicate in real time on-line.

It’s a small, small world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKt_o6AflbI