Mt. Gretna Newsletter – May 7, 2009
Good Things Happen When You Follow Your Heart
Roger Groce
The judges selecting this year’s entries for the Mt. Gretna art show included a Hummelstown artist who was working as a mail carrier when she first discovered, nearly a decade ago, a college exhibit of glass art. A few years later, after saving up sufficient vacation time at the post office to devote one day a week to a full semester of classes, she began the study of glass-blowing. In 2005, having created a collection of stained and fused glass artwork, she summoned the courage to submit a first competitive entry to the Mt. Gretna art show.
“I had been coming to the Mt. Gretna show long before I ever considered myself an artist,” says Linda Billet. The acceptance letter she received a few weeks later both stunned her and launched a new career. “I was fed up at the post office. I had been there forever. I quit that job in March 2007. Now, I can’t wait to get up in the morning,” she told a newspaper reporter.
Her selection as a Mt. Gretna art show judge this year not only completes the cycle — from show visitor, to exhibiting artist, to judge — it affirms another enduring truth, she says: “When we follow our hearts, something wonderful happens.”