I usually draw in silence, but listen to music or public radio when I'm painting, after all the important decisions have been made.

Many messages are just thanking a stranger for a kindness...I love those ones, because I imagine everyone else reading them feels encouraged by such examples of humanity and generosity and tenderness. And if they encourage us to reach out to strangers more often, that's a good thing.

I look for ambiguous messages to illustrate...I like some detail but not too much detail.

There are also dozens and dozens of success stories; many couples have emailed me with their original posts. I love reading these stories, but confess I am not as interested in drawing them as the unfinished, elusive ones.

Some people have recognized their friends in my paintings, but I'm not directly responsible for any hooking up as far as I know!

Nothing is known for sure, even the person who was there isn't entirely sure he or she had the same response as the other in that moment. One person might have fallen head over heels, the other might have been thinking about what to have for dinner and inadvertently making eye contact.

I toyed with making portraits based on people's discarded shopping lists found on the street, or old diaries bought on eBay, or other forms of borrowed stories. When I stumbled across the Missed Connections listings, I knew immediately I'd found it.