I Stumbled Upon Hippocats.

Last week was amazing! I was flying down to First American Title, HQ in Santa Ana, California to spend a few days with some of my (social media type friends and) co-workers for a 2 day retreat with Jeff Turner of Zeek Interactive, Jay Thompson, the Phoenix Real Estate Guy (and as of today, also now at Zillow), Stacey Harmon, and Tamara Dorris.

As it turned out my flight ended up being 3 hours late. First response, I’m mad, then sad, I’m missing a really great dinner with friends in Santa Ana! Yet not one to stay down for long I went exploring and to my delight I started discovering the wonderful art that is everywhere at the Seatac International Airport.

Just before boarding my flight from N Gate I stumbled upon some works in clay by local artists. They were all great and charming but my eye was drawn to one in particular. It had a great whimsical slant on life and an attitude that reminded me of my daughter Shannon's cat Charlie.

Hippocats by Aaron Murray.

Aaron is an artist and an independent arts educator who teaches at various community centers around Seattle. He makes ceramics, wood carvings, prints, and paintings. He’s a young guy (compared to me) and I think deserves some attention.

The irony of my story is social media. I meet most people nowadays online first then later in person. Here at N Gate at Seatac I'm getting impatient waiting for my flight then literally stumbled upon this exhibit and being the well meaning social mediast I am I fired off a few photo’s thinking, "hey, maybe there's something here, maybe not."

But I made a connection. Those dang cats hanging out on that hippo with attitude! It stuck. When I got back home I did a little online research and found Aaron's blog and got to see more of his work at: Aaron Murray. I emailed him and asked if it would be okay to use my photo's of hippocats in one of my blogs?" He replied back within 24 and said it was fine and thanked me for my interest...

I’m hoping as things play out these days we will meet in person soon. Aaron, you have a lot of wonderful ideas to share with the world. An insightful eye, you have a knack at capturing life and make it stop for a moment so we can pause to comtemplate. I felt a shared sense of humor that went way beyond our differences in age. Thanks!

I stumbled upon Hippocats. More about my Santa Ana trip later...