I'll start. My first one was not a submission, not a portfolio, nothing professional. A woman who ran a small space near the Roman Forum here came in to buy a birthday present, stood in front of a panel for about ten minutes, and then asked if I had more. That was it. No proposal, no CV, she just liked the work. I spent the next month convinced she had confused me with someone else.

So how did it happen for you? Cold email, walked in, someone's cousin, an open call you nearly didn't send? I want the real version, not the tidy one you put in the bio.