We asked some insanely talented artists, creatives and makers to tell us about when they know they were going to pursue a creative career.

Ben Yen

My childhood neighbor called me one day while I was home from college for Summer break. He told me to come outside. I met him in my front yard & he said “Ben, let’s try to rap.” I agreed & for the rest of the Summer we were writing songs. I had never tried writing/making music before, but I immediately loved it. We went on to record a handful of songs together & from there I was hooked. Read more>>

Brian Torres

Growing up, Acting & Film/TV was always a hobby of mine. I’ve done Theater one year in Middle School & High School, was in short films, & made silly YouTube videos along the way which I still do. During that time my parents always pushed me academically because I had great grades, majority As and would never get below a 3.5 GPA. Then came senior year of high school and that’s the time where every teen needed to decide what they wanted to do after school, whether go to college or work. Read more>>

Brooke Skousen

When I was eight years old I began taking oil painting classes and since that start I have continuously created art in one form or another throughout my life. However when I became a mother I gave up that part of me for about 3 years. I felt so overwhelmed with this new role and did not feel I had the time, energy or bandwidth to even entertain the idea of creating again. I also felt it would be selfish to bring art back into my life. Read more>>

Devon DuBree

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue a creative career was my first portrait photo shoot in 2017. I had gone out with a couple of my high school friends to downtown Wichita Kansas to practice shooting portraits for the first time. The moment I realized I knew this was the path for me was after showing them the photos and their responses telling me how good my photos made them feel about themselves. I knew I could make an impact on the people I worked with and have strived for that ever since. Read more>>

Tina Ngo

Being a professional artist really wasn’t an option growing up. Born and raised in Dallas by an Asian immigrant family, there had always been cultural, societal, and education expectations that needed to be met. I’ve have been taught values of structure, loyalty, hard work and dedication; to where art and any creative expression were more of a hobby than any a passion to pursue. So, I became what I thought I was supposed to be… a corporate technologist. Read more>>

JLR

My love for Music and the Arts has always just been part of me. I started playing piano at about 6, after that I joined musical theatre, was in dance, learned guitar, all while practicing painting and drawing. I’ve never lost that energy, to this day I love picking up any new creative thing I can find just to try and tell a story with it. Art is everywhere, you just need to know where to look. Read more>>

Kiara Rashawn

I’ve always known that the creative arts would be a major part of my life. At a young age I was trying out singing, praise-dancing, and stepping in church. In elementary school, I performed in school musicals,sang in the choir, and played in the band. Junior -High I would join the step team, dance around in talent shows, and even start a singing group with two of my God-sisters. With high school there was West-African dance, more choir, and BSU productions. By that time I was convinced, I was going to have a thriving career in the arts, as I loudly told a gymnasium full of my peers that I would be “the flyest thing on [their] TV screens”. Read more>>

Neal Aronowitz

I’ve always loved designing and making things, but thought having a career actually doing it would be some far off fantasy. For most of my life, I’ve run my own construction company and created artwork on the side as a hobby. Around 10 years ago, I decided to develop an organic food bar. I spent two years on the product and finally presented it to one of the largest natural food chains in the country. The head buyer was very impressed and said he wanted it for all his stores. Read more>>

Demario Hinds

Initially, it began in my backyard when my dad asked me to take a picture of a banana tree that was blossoming. Over time, it developed into a habit and more so a passion. I only began shooting professionally seriously since July 17, 2020. I remember the exact date because I was doing a summer job, and decided not to go to shoot my friend for my clothing brand. I got fired though, from the job that is. Read more>>

Kaleb McNack-Williams

I was working at a school, not really liking the job but it was paying the bills and helping me stay busy. Until a local brand (The BMW COLLECTION) contacted me to model for them, I didn’t think much of it I just knew they liked how I dressed.I didn’t expect for that first photo shoot to spark an interest that would get me to where I am today. I absolutely loved every aspect of the photoshoot I was able to recognize quite soon that fashion is something I must pursue. Read more>>

Jennifer Simpson

I’m a local artist with a teacher’s heart to encourage creative growth in artists of all ages. My back story starts in elementary school where there wasn’t a strong Arts program and more often then not, a consistent Arts teacher due to financial restraints. Unfortunately we creative students missed out on basic information that would’ve grown our artistic skills. Once I got to college I found myself having to work harder to catch up to my peers. Having this experience instilled the need to be the teacher that I needed as a younger Artist. Read more>>

Vincent Richmond

The time it fully sank in that I wanted to pursue acting as a profession was after doing my first show in college at CSU Dominguez Hills. I had gotten my first real taste for acting on stage in 2014 when we had done a production of In the Red and Brown Water. Even though it was just an ensemble role, I had already felt the drive to keep going from the immediate audience reaction to even the slight character work I was part of and the thrill of being in the spotlight. Read more>>

Tianna Lauderdale

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue my path professionally was when I built up my confidence from within.I use to believe what others would negatively say about me, but I always remind myself that not everyone is going to agree with you and support you. I remember my first time getting in front of the camera i was helping out a friend who was getting to the photographer business, we did a quick photoshoot at a studio in my hometown, it was fun and everything went smooth and easy, I had so much energy afterwards and was ready to learn more about the path other then just standing in-front of a camera posing. Read more>>

Bambi Hanna-Bleakney

Although I attended The Art Institute for Interior Design as well as Fashion Design, I still often wondered if the thought of an artful career was truly possible. The term “starving artist” was very much alive within the vocabulary of people that surrounded me while attending college. Thankfully, I had a set of parents that believed it was possible. Read more>>

Isaac Barkley

The moment I knew I wanted to pursue a creative and artistic path professionally was Junior year of high school. Growing up, I had a lot of musical influence surrounding me and I was in lessons for piano and violin, but I never had a passion for practicing or creating songs. I was really into video games at the time and the idea of creating my own worlds and stories was super appealing. Read more>>

Regina Kozhevnikova

When I was the age my daughters are now, my girlfriend and I often made music videos to Britney Spears and other famous singers of the time. I liked it very much. But after graduation, I opened my own business and left the business completely, my company developed rapidly, but when quarantine was announced in 2020 and we all sat at home, I started filming again how my daughters play, then the quarantine ended, we began to travel and all this shoot and show people. We have subscribers who like our work, thanks to them for this, they inspire us. Read more>>

Dallas Remington

Growing up I always loved to sing. From the back seat of my mom’s car to school talent shows to church, I always singing. When I was 10 years old, my Mapa (my mom’s mom) saw an ad in the paper for guitar & vocal lessons at a local venue back home in Kentucky. After I started taking lessons, I began performing in their Winter Talent Competition. Read more>>

Anita Oksanen Morford

I have always had that creative passion in me but didn’t think I was a good enough Artist to pursue that professionally. I chose a career with animals instead. Little did I know that all that experience working with different species of animals helped me learn their anatomy and character and further help my skill as an artist. Read more>>

Ivy Wu

It wasn’t until I was 31 that I knew I wanted to become an artist. Late by some standards but maybe it’s not too late in the context of a life-long journey. My love of artistic creation began much earlier though. In 5th grade, the art teacher in elementary school sparked my imagination and encouraged my work. I used a sumi brush to paint literati painting in an expressive way. Read more>>

Akaimi Davis

My creativity is genetic. My father’s side hustle was architecture. He designed and built homes- including my childhood home- and other structures in my hometown Austin, Texas. My father and his brother even built the church my grandfather pastored, which is now an historical landmark. Read more>>

Piper Heaton

It all goes back to junior year of high school. Throughout high school there was always this pressure to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life to then figure out what type of education you receive after graduating. Being one of the top students within my class, this pressure weighed heavily on me. I felt that I needed to want to do something that would catapult me to success but to be honest I wasn’t really interested in becoming a doctor, lawyer, etc. By the time junior year rolled around, I stressed day and night. Read more>>

Zaria Williams

The very first time that I knew I wanted to pursue my creative talents professionally was when I participated in my first pageant at the age of 13. I had been invited to participate and compete in the National American Miss Pageant held in Dallas, Texas. Around this age, I was very soft-spoken and super shy. I’ve been an only child for now 23 years, so go figure. I had no 1 on 1 communication skills, I didn’t know how to interact with other children, Read more>>

Taleah Granville

I first knew I wanted to model at a very young age, I had to be maybe Five or Six years old. I would always watch America’s Next Top Model, reruns and all; practicing my angles in the mirror, my walk and you can even say I knew how to professionally walk in heels by the time I was Seven! My family has always been big on getting professional photoshoots done and by the end of every shoot I always had the most pictures because the photographer would always say “The camera loves you!” I’ve been saying I wanted to model every since! Though it wasn’t until I was 20 that I actually decided to pursue modeling. Read more>>

Morgan Brown

I had this vision since a kid that I was meant to do something with music, I didn’t care what it was as long as I could be around music everyday. That energy grew a love for helping artists build themselves as well as building myself as an artist. When I was eighteen I traveled up the east coast from Louisiana with my guitar playing wherever I could. I ended up in multiple highly creative establishments, such as Ashford & Simpson Sugar Bar in New York City where I got to play some live music for Valerie Simpson(one of the writers of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough as well as many other songs in the songwriter hall of fame.) Read more>>

Benjamin Hinkelman

I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. I grew up with an extended family that loves and respects the art form of film. I was introduced to all sorts of different films, which included a lot of silent and “classic” cinema. I forget which of my family members originally said this, but I was once told that “There are no old movies. There are just new movies you haven’t seen yet.” To this day, I have tried to keep that mentality, and even as a kid I spent a lot of time reading about movies and the process of making them. Read more>>

Karmello Drip

Guess I first knew when I was thinking what’s the next move after graduating from highschool. One of them nights smoking a bleezy thinking to yourself about life an how Time is passing fast. It felt natural I was comfortable, it’s like peanut butter met jelly so music stuck with me and everything that came with it. The lifestyle highs and lows but carrying yourself through the dark times with a tune or note towards the bigger picture. I’d seen people I knew and family I grew up with change for the worst so I just felt I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. There had to be a different path then the choices I had so I created one. Read more>>

Sade Moore

I’ve always had aspirations to work in a creative field and seen myself during something creative as a career. I’ve always found creativity as way of self expression since a young age growing up. Read more>>

Silvana Soriano

My intense interest in art happened very early in my life. I have been involved with art since I was a little child. My parents enrolled me in different art courses during my school life: I took drawing, printing, and a painting class at the Museum of Modern Art ( Rio de Janeiro – MAM) with a famous artist called Ivan Serpa. When I finished High School, I decided to pursue my goal of being an artist and enrolled in the best art school in Rio de Janeiro, Escola de Artes Visuais. Read more>>

Trevor Armstrong

It’s when I moved to Houston. The city found me and picked me up in a way. I was at a party in 3rd ward off Cullen and I’ve always freestyled for fun, but I got into a cypher with this rap artist Smashbro and it was different. I felt a positive impact that hit me in my soul. I found myself that night and realized it was time to do what really makes me happy, rapping. The amount of people that believe in me and how rap grabbed me, I’m lucky. Read more>>

Dan Orgill

I’ve always enjoyed drawing, ever since I was a young child. With a love of comic books I one day saw myself as a comic artist, but as is usually the case, interests change and other career paths are formed. I continued drawing as a teen and sporadically in my 20’s. I wasn’t bad, good enough to impress my friends. But no where even close to being a pro. Read more>>

Norman Kary

There was no approximate moment that I can think of that made me realize I wanted to make Art and be an artist.I was always interested in drawing from that time I was 8 years old.My sisters were alway asking me to draw things for class projects of theirs.When we were studying the various parts are the country like New England, Mid-Adlantic ,Southwest etc we had to put it all in a booklet and do a cover. Read more>>

Michael Holt

Shortly before 2009, when the market crashed, I had returned to the city I grew up in, Sandusky, Ohio., In the 80’s it was an automotive manufacturing hub, along with various other factories. By the time I had graduated high school, those jobs had mostly gone the way of the Dodo. What was left was primarily service industry jobs supporting tourism for the local amusement park Cedar Point. After the market crash, even those jobs were scarce. I found myself questioning if this was all I would ever achieve in life. The prospects of living like that were absolutely soul crushing. So I decided I would go back to school as a non-traditional student. Read more>>

Hannah Rotwein

I knew I wanted to study art in college, but I didn’t know what kind of career I’d pursue afterwards. I assumed it would be arts-adjacent, but it was while studying art as an undergraduate that I realized I wanted to be an artist. I also studied history and liberal arts in college, and I liked that art gave me the most tools to ask questions. As an artist, you can pursue a question with the tools that feel most relevant to that specific inquiry rather than being limited to the methods of only one discipline, as in history, anthropology, or biology. Read more>>

Cornelius Washington

Well I come from a musical family some of which are internationally famous so you can say I’ve always known that I’d be doing this it’s in my DNA. When I was 6 I learned that I’m a prodigy at Art. My mom always told me Art is my natural talent and I should capitalize on it. So when my senior year of highschool came around I decided that I want to make art for a living. So I went to Columbus college of art and design. I still have my love and talent for music so I decided that I would make a company for not just art but music too. Read more>>

Marcus Gibson

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been immersed in entertainment. Growing up, there was hardly silence in my house as my parents loved music and always found a reason to fill our world with it. My mother was a music teacher, so naturally my bothers and I dabbled in different instruments throughout our youth. Read more>>