We’ve seen way too many talented creatives quit because they couldn’t make it work financially. No doubt, the financial challenges of pursuing a creative or artistic career are daunting, but we felt there wasn’t enough discussion around how to make it work. So, we connected with artists and creatives who’ve been able to earn a full time living from their creative work and asked them to share their stories with our readers.

Figgy Fig

Yes, I’m currently working full-time in the creative space. I’m part of the midday show, In The Loop on SportsRadio 610 here in Houston, Texas. It’s been a long and rewarding journey. I started with Audacy Inc. back in 2012 in Cleveland, Ohio, where I was an intern on the promotions team. At the time, everything felt fast-paced and larger than life — watching DJs and media personalities work up close was both exciting and intimidating. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for it. Read more>>

Williams Merenini

Well, it was not easy while I was in school, shuffling school works, because I studied Fine and Applied Arts in school. Shuffling that with my personal practices and commissions.
Commission jobs that I got were jobs for the moment and to not die of starvation as an Emerging Artist and also to pay bills including school ones too. My personal practice works are works I do to prepare for big opportunities like exhibitions and hoping for art collectors buying from me and promoting me. Read more>>

Jeremia Sunfellow

My life long passion for Fine Art. I worked festivals, events, had my work in local shops and storefronts, created commission work and hustled. It is well known how difficult it is to make a living from art, and I am no exception. Even more frustrating for me, was watching other AMAZINGLY talented, trained and experienced artists struggle with me. Sometimes quiting the field entirely for more reliable income. It’s crushing. Read more>>

Zachary DeFour

I have been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work. But it wasn’t always like that. When I first started with my dual passion of wrapping cars and playing my saxophone. It was a struggle getting to the point where I could have a comfortable living. I feel like if I had taken more risks when I first started I would have gotten to this point a lot faster. But because of my own insecurities and my goal of what I thought was perfection, I held myself back until I finally decided to take more risks and put myself in situations and opportunities to get to where I am now. Read more>>

Frank Papandrea

Yes, I’ve been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work, but it definitely wasn’t an overnight success. My journey has been a mix of determination, taking advantage of opportunities, and never saying no to a project. Read more>>

Towse

It’s been two years now since music became my only job and that has felt like such a dream come true. Corwin and I have been touring full-time as an acoustic duo for the past full year now, we gave up our home in London and have been living in my 2008 hatchback with duct tape holding the bumper on, sleeping on friends’ couches and gigging about 4 times a week around the US. Definitely knowing what I know now, I think I would have made some different decisions years ago when I first started trying to make this happen, but that’s why they say hindsight is 20/20. Mostly I wish I’d taken feedback better and not tried to do everything myself, I’m a really sensitive person and that has a beautiful tender side, but it also has a defensive stick-in-the-mud side. Read more>>

Percy Bell

Yes, and no. The life of an actor is inherently unpredictable. Many of us rely on other work to support our dreams until we can sustain ourselves or our families solely through our creative endeavors. Filming schedules can be sporadic – a few days here and there, or, if you’re fortunate, continuous work for weeks or months. The future, even the near future, can often seem uncertain. I consider myself fortunate to have a career that provides financial stability while I nurture my acting career. I see it as a marathon. This safety net minimizes stress and allows me to take greater risks in my acting choices. It also empowers me to decline projects that don’t resonate with me. Read more>>

Shaun Downey

Aside from some brief periods when was teaching part time, I have been fortunate enough to make my entire living from selling my paintings since 2003. After studying for a time from the Academy or Realist Art, and graduating from the illustration program from Sheridan College, I decided to pursue a fine art career. I was recommended to apply to the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, which takes place each summer outside of Toronto City Hall. I was accepted, and worked extremely hard for several months to prepare enough work to fill a 10 x 10 foot booth. Luckily for me, my work was greeted with excitement from the collectors who attended, and I sold most of my paintings. Read more>>

Evian Zhou

Yes! When I graduated from design school, landing a full-time entry-level UI/UX job was incredibly tough. So, I started freelancing in my mid-20s. I immersed myself in networking—attending cultural and creative events, introducing myself to people, and handing out business cards with my portfolio ready on my phone. I wasn’t the most experienced, but I learned from YouTube, absorbed industry practices, and just put myself out there. Slowly, friends of friends began reaching out for design help with their businesses. Read more>>

Anna Mayo

In 2023 I was finally able to earn a full-time living from my creative work—it was the most fulfilled I’ve ever been, and also the most stressed. Maybe the two go hand in hand? I lived in New York City for 10 years, going to school, working multiple part-time jobs, while constantly auditioning and taking gigs whenever they came along. I didn’t book anything my first 2 years out of college, and after that, my artistic work had to exist around the edges of my survival jobs. When I pivoted into film and commercial acting and producing during COVID, I started booking and creating much more consistently. Eventually, the workload started interfering with my day job, and that says a lot, because I’ve always been a good juggler. Read more>>

Alyssa Hankey

I attended college at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where I studied art and majored in Graphic Design. While in college I really began to craft my songwriting and started to perform live at open mics. After college, I tried doing the 9-5 gig as graphic designer and also being an active musician. I found myself unhappy trying to make time for what I really loved, which was music. I also a string of awful employers with terrible pay. In 2018, I was so fed up with where I was that I came up with a six-month plan. I would book up my calendar with as many shows as I could so I could leave the job. I also decided I would plan my first cross country tour at the end of those six months. The desk and the office felt like a cage. I could make a week’s pay in one night of playing a show. So, in August of 2018 I quit the job and embarked on tour out west with one of my best friends. Read more>>

Andrew Tandoh-Adote

In my case I’d say yes…but as a single person. I’m yet to make enough to take care of dependants … i.e. a wife and kids.
Where I’m from the arts is not well structured with systems in place for royalties, fees for performers, protections, etc. at least not yet.
It’s a kind of wild west where those who love to entertain and tell stories feel their way around and create a path as they go. Read more>>

Ester Karm

“I can’t quite recall the exact beginning of this ‘journey,’ but I know for certain that without the people who believed in me and saw something in my creative work — something I couldn’t even see myself at the time — I wouldn’t be where I am today. That support has been a true gift from Source, and it’s brought me to a place where I really do live solely from my creativity. And by ‘creativity’ I mean anything that flows from the heart. Read more>>

MadelineKarita Fleming

Moving To L.A. was the most massive thing I have ever done. I have been on television and movies , written books and had my own television shows, podcast, modeling career but for some reason I was scared of moving to moving to Hollywood and really taking a chance on myself. Read more>>

Jane Petrov

I am co-owner of SkyTown Entertainment, a bi-coastal video production company. We started in NY in 2006, 2 years before the economic crash of 2008. That meant we had to go back to steady support jobs, i.e. restaurant work to maintain our business. We continued to grow our actor audition taping service that became known as “self-taping” a few years ago. It’s very rewarding to work with actors every day and have a pulse on the industry. Even though we were busy over the years, we had to pay for part-time help and office space (expensive in NYC). Our business really didn’t sustain the owners until Covid hit and we had to lay off our part-time help. And then with the SAG strike, we got rid of our NY office space. Read more>>

Breeze Marcus

I began the path to a full time career as a visual artist in 2005. For the first 10 years I struggled hard to make ends meet. What i was aware of in the very beginning is was i didnt have the knowledge or lived experience of what it takes to be in business for myself. I definitely had to learn on the run. Over time i learned from a lot of failures, but also from examples and other individuals around me who were mentors and guides. Read more>>

Gabrielle Tolliver

I have had to be creative in defining what it means to earn a full-time living from my creative work. When I first began my career, I believed that “making it” as an artist meant supporting yourself entirely through the sale of your creations, whether at art markets, in galleries, or by cultivating a clientele of collectors who appreciated your work. But the inconsistency of this path always gave me pause. I felt it fed into the fear that often surrounds the “starving artist” trope, an identity I was determined to avoid. Read more>>

Josephine Rais

I’ve been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work, but it was a gradual process rather than something that happened from day one. I studied product design and strategic design in a small town in southern Germany. After graduating, I moved to Berlin in search of a job opportunity, but when that didn’t materialize, I found myself somewhat at a loss. Read more>>

Enso Taves

For most creative people earning a full living from their Artistic output is a dream, however it does come with some compromises. Getting started is the hardest thing, it means that you need your full mind and time available to create and perfect your craft while outputting some sort of useful service to people that will in exchange patron or support your career. This can often come in the way of a grant, patronage, teaching work, or even your own savings from past years of work. Read more>>

John Polk

I currently am a full-time entertainer. It started when I was laid off in 2013. I hustled to find work musically to make ends meet while looking for another job and noticed that I was making just about the same amount of money from music as I was with traditional employment. So I never looked back. Read more>>

Nikko Kimzin

Yes, I have been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work—but it wasn’t immediate, and it certainly hasn’t been a linear path. Throughout my journey—from earning a BFA in Musical Theatre and performing nationally and internationally, to launching my own production company, to designing arts curriculum in schools across the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem, and then becoming a Director of Education and Community Engagement at a theater— to then starting my own business consulting – the driving question has always been: How can I be used to my fullest creative capacity each day? Read more>>

Tricia

I now make a substantial amount from my artwork, but that was not always the case. I had to learn marketing techniques and spend time promoting my work in order to move forward. I have outlined the steps I took to make this happen in my book “The Artist’s Map to Success”. There are 12 steps that an artist must take in order to be successful. If I had been taught these 12 steps when finishing art school, I would have been on the road to success much sooner. Read more>>