Long ago, in some fuzzy conversation from my past, there was a discussion about different types of people: followers, leaders and not-followers. For years, this trio of types has lingered in my mind and caused many a joke, as I can be a pretty ridiculous “not-follower.” This can be translated into my stubbornness against those newfangled contraptions or those audacious new pants…you get the idea. Can we say “hello Granny”?

Suffice it to say, I pushed against the world of tweets. It took me years to get on Facebook, a long time to buy a pair of capris back in high school, and a good while to jump onto the Harry Potter train. But I’m no stick in the mud…I just hold out long enough to be a “not follower,” aka cool and awesome. Nowadays I’m all over Facebook, I own all Harry Potter books and movies, and I flip up my jeans in the summer. And I’ve finally stepped into Twitter.

At first, I was nervous. I had 8 followers…why tweet? If you tweet to no one, does it make a sound? With baby steps, I began tweeting and following, and hey! I was followed back! Then suggestions began so courteously showing up in my inbox, helping me connect to more artists around the world. It was a big day to be retweeted by someone I didn’t know, and an event to reach 100 followers. In a few weeks of tweeting, I’m up to 139 followers and climbing.

I’m starting to get the hang of it, and I’ve made some novice observations:

Twitter truly is about community. It’s awesome to so easily connect with artists in France, the UK and Ontario; to connect with Sennelier and Ampersand; to tweet and be tweeted. I like to think I’m able to share my art and images of my American South. Pretty cool.

I also realize the “tweeters” I like best are the ones who seem like real people. With them, it’s not always business, not repeated tweets over and over, and by their 140 character, hash-tagged tweets, you get a sense of a personality. It makes their little photo seem like a human instead of a stock photo.

I also find I click on tweets with easy to see images, nothing I have to work too hard to view. I click on blog posts very relative to my interests. And I like to read the funnies!

So tweet with me and see what you find!