I spend my day covered in dust for this reason...
In 2013, I started waiting tables at a high-end restaurant in Huntington, WV. One summer night I was serving a man and his girlfriend and we exchanged small talk, as I did with most of my customers. I mentioned I was an MFA student at Marshall University and I was about to graduate and I told him that my medium of choice was wood. I experimented with wood and it's capabilities, resulting in sculptures. He seemed somewhat interested so I gave him one of my invitations for my show.
The show was only up for 3 weeks and it featured an array of skills so he called me and set up a private tour. On the day of the tour, he walked around the exhibition for an hour or so while I talked about my work in great detail. When the tour concluded, I asked him what he thought and his reply was simple: "Lets go get a beer."
Despite it being 11AM, we got beers and right off the bat he said, "I would like to purchase three of your works". Me being broke and jobless, I said "thank God" and breathed a sigh of relief. A couple beers later, my life was finally set with the offer of an investment and a partnership.
That man was the vice president of internationally known lumber mill. I was able to start my own company called Stump Standards- a design studio where customers have the capabilities of customizing furniture using live edge slabs.
