How Following Up Helped Abby Pawley Paint for Amazon and IKEA

Abby Pawley started by painting surfboards in Virginia Beach, then said yes to a 50-foot mural festival wall that changed everything. Five years later, her work has shown up in Amazon’s main entrance, an IKEA Monet collaboration, local landmarks, and commercial spaces across her community. Abby shares how she left a warehouse job with no perfect plan, followed up until clients answered, handled the panic of large-scale projects, and learned to keep painting through the ugly middle when even she needed to trust the process. She also talks honestly about AI-generated client requests, social media pressure, public rejection, and the kind of persistence that can turn a “no” into the next wall.