Showing his work to someone else always felt deeply personal and intense and this was no different, no easier. If anything, it somehow felt even more challenging. There was something in the way Alecto was examining his work closely, his dark eyes sweeping each page with an unexpected and yet unsurprising sense of expertise, examining details and technique with an experienced eye, that gave Joshua the impression that he was deeply acquainted with artistic techniques. He forces himself to look to the side, to the table, to the rest of the room - anything to avoid the magnetic draw of his host's very expressive and mobile face reacting to Joshua's handiwork; he's not sure what he would do, if he saw disappointment there.
So the question catches him entirely off-guard, thrown by the sudden return to formality, after being invited to use a first name.
"I... I don't know that I decided, exactly," he replies, sounding more than a little bit baffled. "I just. I can't imagine not making things. Even when I was younger, I was always being scolded for letting my mind wander." And now, away from home and independent, forced to support himself, he was far more likely to skip a meal or five than to fail to replenish his meager supply, seeking out cast-offs and discards and eking a few more images' life out of those remains. He had never dreamed of supporting himself on his art - a few coins here and there to supplement the odd jobs he was able to pick up, the satisfying stretch of creating something to order and sharing it with the subject and seeing their reactions - but he still devoted himself to it, in every moment he had to spare.
"Even now I'm..." he bites his lip, looks down at the table's surface. "I don't know if I can call myself a painter. This is the first real commission I've ever been approached with. But nothing else seems to fit."
no subject
So the question catches him entirely off-guard, thrown by the sudden return to formality, after being invited to use a first name.
"I... I don't know that I decided, exactly," he replies, sounding more than a little bit baffled. "I just. I can't imagine not making things. Even when I was younger, I was always being scolded for letting my mind wander." And now, away from home and independent, forced to support himself, he was far more likely to skip a meal or five than to fail to replenish his meager supply, seeking out cast-offs and discards and eking a few more images' life out of those remains. He had never dreamed of supporting himself on his art - a few coins here and there to supplement the odd jobs he was able to pick up, the satisfying stretch of creating something to order and sharing it with the subject and seeing their reactions - but he still devoted himself to it, in every moment he had to spare.
"Even now I'm..." he bites his lip, looks down at the table's surface. "I don't know if I can call myself a painter. This is the first real commission I've ever been approached with. But nothing else seems to fit."