IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. One day, a few weeks ago, NDG-based photographer Bob Cadloff opened his e-mail to find a note from a gallery in Barcelona Spain asking if he would like to show his work in an upcoming exhibition.  Would I! Cadloff exclaimed, swivelling in his chair before typing back a gracious acceptance. A few weeks later he was making his way through a crowded quarter of the old Catalan city, along the fashionable Gracia Torrent d’Olla, half surprised to find the gallery existed, and was full of people looking strangely similar to himself, casual artsy types, drinking wine out of plastic cups. Strangers, all of them.

As it turned out, no catch, no big money-making scheme. The exhibition, which is still on, features work of photographers the curators found on the Web. He’ll get a one-third slice of 45 Euro per print should any of his pictures sell. But the event, he figures, was pure serendipity. He did nothing at all to promote his work, except to post a few pictures on the Web.

“The odd thing was I’d been to Barcelona in the summer, on vacation,” Cadloff says. “I fell in love with that town. Never did I think something like this would happen.” Other participants in the exhibition are mainly Spanish, although there was a sprinkling of Americans and other Europeans. The gallery prepared an elegant full-colour catalogue, all of it leading Cadloff to suspect he should be putting more rather than less time into what he has always considered an absorbing hobby.

An engineer by training, Cadloff was thrown out of work last year when his firm closed. He decided to take a break from his professional life and coast on the severance package for awhile.

“I actually had something similar happen to me before,” he says. “I was contacted by a Beverly Hills ad agency that was looking for some interesting photos to put up in their lobby. They saw my Flickr photos and commissioned four huge prints from me through Etsy (a photo sales Website).” While the exhibition hasn’t quite changed his life, Cadloff says he’ll definitely start taking his hobby more seriously from now on.

His photos can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/bomobob.

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The holiday season is an excellent time to find high-quality art in local galleries, and gift ideas created by local artists. Articule, the artist-run gallery at 262 Fairmount St., is selling a gorgeous calendar featuring paintings by Emily Bennett Beck, who had a solo show at the gallery earlier this year. Her flashy take on Hillary Clinton (pictured on Rover’s homepage) is just one of the 12 female portraits in the calendar. To find out the gallery’s hours, check their Website www.articule.org.

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Talisman Theatre has found an imaginative fund-raising idea. Artistic director Lyne Paquette gathered up all the pages of parchment used in the set of their recent show “Down Dangerous Passes Road” and took them to her life drawing class. The result is dozens of etchings of nudes, various poses, shapes and sizes. And fit for all budgets: the drawings range from $15 to whatever you wish to contribute.  To get a look, go to http://www.talisman-theatre.com/Press/DDPR-Presskit.pdf3.

All money raised will go to Talisman’s 2009 production of Rock, Paper Knife, to be directed in the New Year by Emma Tibaldo.

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The Rover’s holiday project, The 12 Days of Christmas, Chanukah Etc. begins tomorrow.