A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... (Lao-tzu)
It's not often in life that you really know what is coming around the corner. In grade school, I found drawing to be second nature and I wanted to be an illustrator. In high school, I joined the school paper and yearbook staff and was enamored with journalism and photography. By the time I attended college, the art "bug" hit me again so I took many art classes and majored in graphic design, a field that I thought would give me the greatest chance of earning a decent living in the art world. After college, while looking for work, I landed a Hawaii government job in the arts. The job provided me the opportunity to travel the Hawaiian Islands, install artworks, and work in an art museum. Being around art daily was very inspiring... it also made me realize that I longed to create art myself.
In 2008, I decided to move from Hawaii to California and pursue a lifelong dream of honing my skills in woodworking to become a professional furniture designer and craftsman. From the age of 12, I was deeply involved with woodworking and it had been a staple of all of my hobbies. Several months into living the California life, I attended a local community college and learned many of the advanced woodworking techniques that I often dreamed of acquiring one day. It was apparent to me early on that all my years in the arts had paid off with my ability to design furniture and other objects. One of the classes that I enjoyed immensely was wood turning. There, I learned how to turn small projects on a lathe, including pens. Many of my family and friends were so impressed with my work that it made me think how great it would be to make and sell pens and similar objects to jump start my new career. Soon after, my wife introduced me to Etsy and "Grain Works" was born...