“Indeed.” He briefly glanced at Fritz as the other man seated himself at the fountain’s edge as well. “Yes, admittedly long periods of conventionality are not conducive to progress. Innovation is about challenging the status quo, after all.” Creativity had never been his strongest point. He was much more suited to observing and connecting clues of the past together to form a whole picture. Felix was not born to challenge the norm and reinvent long-held ideas about something.

“Like I said—not too surprising.” He scooped up a twig and set it beside the organized stack of leaves. “I think most artists tend to think on the creative and innovative side. It probably just naturally comes to them more easily than it does for others.” As Felix withdrew his hand and dried it off with his jeans, he warily eyed Fritz. “For various reasons.”

“Oh, really?” he answered, his eyes alight with mild curiosity at Fritz’ response. “Surprising, you say? How paradoxical, but I guess you would find paradoxes to be interesting.” He continued to eye the art major. “You were looking for a pencil to draw with, but it seems you aren’t drawing at all. Do you need paper to draw on?” He wasn’t particularly sure. Felix had seen a couple art students at the university drawing rough sketches on napkins and other small scraps of paper.