Painting Portraits

     Today I succeeded, as I knew I would. I was at the Oakridge mall with my wife and son, letting my son play around in the kiddy area. We wanted him to let off some steam, thinking maybe that was what was causing him to be so chaotic for the last 24+ hours. After a while, I leave them and start to search for someone to have a chat with. 
     Parents were all around us in the play area, but I just could not devise an entry plan. So I took my search out of the said play area. First, I was thinking of entering Nordstrom Rack, then maybe the arcade place, but what seemed like the perfect spot appeared, even though I passed it up twice already, a little shop that sold paintings. 
     Inside, there were no sign of shoppers, no sign of muggers, only a middle aged Asian lady. Now, I am not one fond of paintings, not like I do not like them, more that shopping for them has never been in my agenda. I begin our conversation telling her I have never bought a painting for myself, but I did find one outside on the sidewalk in front of a house near my neighborhood which I brought home and hung up towards the top of my stairs. It looks really good I tell her, and damn straight it looks good. For a free, reclaimed painting, it looks pretty spiffy in it's current location. But why should I stop there? I look through her paintings, asking her if they are all from the same painter, what are the different types of paintings, what makes these paintings with this type of paint style different than the ones with this type of paint, so on and so on. 
     Unfortunately, she was really sparse in her responses, kind of like she did not even care for making a sale to me even though I was looking at every piece of art. I asked her if she has Van Goh's Scream, if you have not seen this piece I highly recommend it, but she tells me she doesn't because she would have to spend a very high price to get one. This opened her up to telling me how she is able to sell all these paintings at a very low price, she gets them from people who are trying to make a quick sale, discounted to a fraction of the original asking price. Literally every one was 75% or more discounted from the original sticker price. What a bargain!!! They all looked very nice, it was not like an amateur vendor found this lady in the mall and began selling her paintings. These were legit.
     Probably 10 minutes have passed by now, and she begins to be curious to what I do for a living. I give her the rundown, she has heard of M8trix and asks some questions about the establishment. From this tangent I learn from her she is from Las Vegas and she used to sell paintings in one of the casinos, and she has family that deal at the big casinos on the strip. Pretty cool eh? I was lucky to find some common ground with this person I had just met. 
     Sadly, her business is not doing very well. I ask her how she makes her money, she says she gets some good sales, sometimes a family will come and buy several paintings. She shows me some portraits on the wall and tells me she she did those herself. Some of her income comes from these portraits, and she also does lessons in the morning. This shop was not her first, she has had others before in other malls, but she tells me she is hoping to move on from this business and move back to Las Vegas. She owns a house there, but will not move until her son is out of high school and off to college. He might be going out of state she says, leaving her free to move back to Vegas. Until then, she will keep her little shop and sell these discounted paintings. My time is up now, my wife and son stroll by outside the shop so I tell her goodbye. Her name is Yvette, and she was pretty cool.
     This experience started off daunting, she did not seem the type to strike up a conversation with some random customer. Why? Maybe she was so used to trying to sell the paintings to the customer rather than letting the paintings sell themselves. I told her I was looking for paintings that have an effect on me, effects like pulling me into the painting itself and seeing the world through the eyes of the painter. This could have led her to believe that she should let me be so I can find the right one that pulls me in. Maybe she got the feeling I was there not to buy a painting, but to learn about her business so she started talking more.  I did not give up though, I stuck around and continued to talk to her and ask her questions. More and more we opened ourselves up to each other, feeling comfortable in the process. This I hope I can develop more when I find others to meet.
     Her niche is located in an odd location, Oakridge mall. It's probably not often people go to the mall with the hopes to find a painting to put on the wall. She keeps going though, business may not be the best, but at least she has business. Portraits, paintings and lessons, go check them out. Her name is Yvette, and she might not be there much longer.