It was with a feeling of great reluctance that I removed my 3-Day Member badge from the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live event when I arrived home, excited and exhausted, last Sunday evening. It was as if the lifting of the lanyard over my head would break the spell, extinguishing all the magic that had surrounded me for the past three days. It stayed around my neck as I drove across Kansas City to my home in Blue Springs and I know that I uttered more than one contented sigh as I conversed with myself, internally and aloud, about the sheer wonder of this experience.

And a wonder it was.

It will be impossible to accurately convey the immense satisfaction, the inspiration, the camaraderie, and the joy that filled these three days.

I will try, and I will fail.

I had HIGH expectations. Sky High! And by the end of Friday evening’s brief four-hour opening, those expectations were so far exceeded that I could only stand there amazed, wondering why I had set my sites so low. Take every excited word I will write, filter it through your hyperbole detector, and then magnify it to the 10th power and you might start to come close to just how special this event was. There were geek-out moments in abundance. I am, after all, an admitted fan of Fantastic Art. But once the initial shock of “oh-my-gosh-I’ve-just-met-Michael-Whelan” and “I’ve-just-stood-inches-away-from-original-Donato-Giancola-oil-paintings” passed–sort of–what I was left with was a number of genuine personal interactions with artists I have admired for years and others that I had just discovered. I was left with an impression of just how generous this community is to each other and to the fans who admire them so deeply. I was left with a feeling of awe that something of this caliber happened in Kansas City.

I was left with an unforgettable experience.

Continue reading A Blissful Melancholy: One fan’s perspective of Spectrum Fantastic Art Live →