The world needs artists and creatives. Unfortunately, being needed doesn’t often easily translate into financial stability. The struggle is real for so many incredibly talented artists and creatives and so we think it’s important to hear from creatives who have made it work – there is so much to learn from the folks we’ve featured below.

Asia Cash

In August of 2022, I unexpectedly lost my job. I was out of work for four months and it allowed me time to rest and reignited my passion to become a content creator. So during that time, I studied other content creators, taught myself how to edit short form videos, purchased basic content creator tools and started to get comfortable being on camera. To me I am still in the beginning stages, but I’ve learned a lot about myself in the early stages. My perspective quickly shifted to trying to “go viral” and get a bunch of likes, to now just focusing on a sharing a couple of my niches and building community. Read more>>

Philip Daniel

I am so blessed to be able to make a living as an artist full-time. It has been a long process of getting to this point. I started out accompanying piano, teaching piano lessons, playing random gigs to earn a living and composing at night on the side. But a couple years ago I landed 2 piano pieces on the biggest piano playlist (culminating in over 30 million streams) in the world and that enabled me to quit my “day job” accompanying piano and pursue writing music full-time. Read more>>

Tyrel Davis

The key to earning a living as a full time creative is to be so good, that you can charge more, and work less. If you’re good about, you’ll get past $1000 or less gigs, and you be found by clientele who don’t argue with pricing. They just want perfection. This of course is done by continuously learning about your craft. The science of it, the human nature of it, the equipment and more. If you own a piece of equipment, you should be able to take it apart and put it back together. A mastery of your craft is necessary. Read more>>

Min Soo Park

I started working as a freelance filmmaker couple of years ago. In the beginning, things weren’t easy as there wasn’t much work, and my rate was too low to support myself. However, I was determined to make it work. During the pandemic, I traveled back to Korea for a year and started reaching out to strangers. I offered to shoot free music videos and promoted my work on Instagram, my website, and every film-related page I could find. Read more>>

Brandon Coleman

Throughout my career as a dance artist, I’ve had my share of odd jobs and side hustles. It took me years to not only find work that I loved, but work that also paid me a livable wage. I’m currently earning a full-time living as a performer and teacher in NYC but this wasn’t always the story. In 2015 I was basically living out of my car and crashing on my friends couches in Chicago. I just got a “full-time” contemporary dance job that paid me $200 a week and served late night pizza by the slice in Wrigleyville on the weekends. Read more>>

Nequia Hill

As a dreadlock stylist, I can tell you that earning a full-time living from my creative work has been an incredible journey. It’s definitely not something that happened overnight, but I’m grateful for the path that led me here. When I first started out, I focused on building my skills and developing a strong portfolio. I invested in training and education to ensure that I was providing the best possible service to my clients. In the beginning, I took on whatever work I could get and didn’t always charge what I was worth. But over time, as my skills and reputation grew, I was able to charge more and attract higher-paying clients. Read more>>

Jacob Serrano

When I graduated high school from Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in music. The problem was I didn’t know where to begin. It’s one thing to love music and having a passion, but it is something completely different when the goal is now not just winning a competition or having a good performance but rather making money. My parents encouraged me to start teaching music lessons at a music store close to where I live in Grand Prairie. I have now worked at music world and have been teaching there for 5 years! Read more>>

Victoria Beerman

I am not currently earning a full-time living from my creative work, but I am earning income from it. I dream of working full-time on my business and will shout for joy when that day comes! I am so glad to share my journey with other creatives, because my path has not been linear, and I hope I might be able to encourage others to keep pursuing their dreams, no matter their life circumstances or age. There is no shame in holding down a day job if you need it. You can think of it as being your silent business partner! Read more>>

Shayla Penera

Thankfully I have been able to earn a full-time living that started with photography services—when I started my business in 2020 I also began offering social media management and other creative marketing services. My photography journey started as a student in high school when I was gifted a camera by my parents. At the time social media was taking off and I was inspired by tons of photographers that I discovered through these platforms. I started bringing my camera with me on adventures with friends and when graduation season rolled around I started picking up my first few photography jobs. Read more>>

Anne Kullaf

I have earned my living as a full-time artist for over 25 years. It’s not the easiest route to take, but like any other small business, if you put in the hours and develop your business relationships, you will be successful. Of course, most importantly is offering a high quality, unique product that you stand behind. Read more>>

Talisa Almonte

It’s been rewarding running Almonte Studio full time, but being a full time small business owner comes with it’s challenges. While I’m much happier than when I was working corporate, the financial instability in the early stages is always a challenge. What truly keeps me going is having the control over what my day, month and year will look like. I love being able to work with other small businesses and take on cool projects like when I had the opportunity to work with Star Wars and Disney+. I also recently got into doing murals and I’m really excited to see where that will take me next and to see my work in a larger scale. Read more>>

Jucebox

Earning a full time wage as a creative is always an interesting thing to achieve. Anything creative is so subjective when it comes to art so while some people might love what you’re making, some people might absolutely hate it, so it’s hard to gauge how much it’s worth to the consumer of your creative endeavors. I am fortunate enough to be able to make a very comfortable living off of being a creative, but it definitely didn’t happen over night. Specially being in the tattoo industry. Read more>>

Josh Pruitt

I am very grateful to be able to do what I do full-time. I learned fairly swiftly that there are no shortcuts when it comes to turning your hobby / passion into a career, but there are certainly things you can do to help you move forward at a steady rate. In my case, photography was something I had grown to love, but never had the intention of turning it into a career. Read more>>

Aileen Martinez

November will be year 3 of me doing my art full time. It has not been an easy journey; income was hard to come by in the beginning. There were challenges as to having funds to purchase more materials to continue my work. I slowly saved funds from selling prints at art markets around town. Doing pop up markets continuously for a year straight helped me gain traction to get clients for my commissioned work. Read more>>

Mallory Cash

I have been able to make a full-time living from my custom pet portraits and vibrant landscape paintings. I went to an art middle school, an art high school and then to an art college, so being a creative was ingrained from day one. The path to making a living off of my art took some time. After college I started a toy company that did not last long, and left me discouraged for some time. I worked a variety of creative jobs for other companies, but in May 2015 I could no longer stand working for another and pulled the plug. Read more>>

Beth Erlund

Although I was educated as a scientist and had done medical research, by the time I got a divorce I had moved and no longer had the same connections. Also, I had learned to do batik and several other arts in Japan and was doing them as a hobby. At that time, the early 80’s, there were no jobs in Denver in the sciences and an artist friend suggested that I try making a living as an artist. I took a few business courses to help me succeed as I began to pursue becoming a professional artist. Read more>>

Robin Arthur

Yes! I’ve been able to earn a full-time living from my creativity. I am able to do this by working very, very, very hard and being skilled in all aspects of running a small business (advertising, social media, bookkeeping, etc.). In this day and age, visual artists need to do a lot more than create art and show it in a gallery. These days, artists are clamoring for attention online while competing with the entire world for viewers and sales. It’s tough to get noticed! Read more>>

David Miniatures

My foray into the world of miniature making didn’t begin until later in life. Although I dabbled in it as a child like most people, it wasn’t until my teens that I began building model car kits. However, following the instructions quickly lost its appeal, and I yearned to create my own pieces. In my free time, I created miniatures as gifts for friends and even for small films, indulging my hobby. Read more>>

Troy Holmes

I’m in the process of doing so.. Not quite there yet! At first I just drew as a hobby, but then I learned there was a way to monetize your work. Over the past couple years I’ve only done commissions, which came in very scarcely. After moving to GA, I decided that I was going to be more aggressive with my work this year. Now I vend at anime conventions, pop up shops at Atlantic Station every other week, and attend various art shows. Read more>>

Danielle Taylor

Sure, I’ve been fortunate enough to be a full time creative now for almost 10 years. In 2014, I’d been grinding it out as an ‘after work’ musician for about 6 years. I would wake up crazy early to go to a desk job that was an hour from my home, put in my 8 hours, drive the hour back and THEN be a musician. It was honestly draining. Trying to be creative at the end of a long day when all you want to do is relax is hard. Read more>>

Sarah Hummel Jones

I currently work for a non profit where I can work within my field of ceramics, however my goal is support my lifestyle from making ceramics alone! I think if I knew how to reach a wider audience via the internet and instagram my online sales and national representation would happen. Read more>>

Shaylen Broughton

When I first started out I had no idea what I was doing, to be honest. I made connections through my career as an Interior Designer that led me to a few big commissions which were enough to get me through the first year. After that, I tried a lot of different avenues, including social media, Etsy, art fairs, and galleries. I spent a lot of time researching online, looking at how other artists were doing it. Mostly it was a lot of trial and error. I picked up side jobs here and there, assisting other artists I had met at social events or online. Read more>>

Dawn Moraga

I made the step to go full time with my Art around 2012 and I would never want to go back. I had been painting prior to 2012 as part time artist since around 2006. I started drawing as a kid and can remember selling pencil drawings of horses for 0.25 cents at my Elementary school lunch table because I wanted to buy chocolate chip cookies. I am sure even at this age being a creative isn’t something you choose to be it’s born into you, however making the choice to become vulnerable and live of your creations is most definitely a choice. Read more>>

Shanay Bute

I am currently earning a full time living from my creative work as a balloon artist and it’s been truly a dream! It has its ups and down, we have slow and busy seasons but I try my best to prepare for those times and save as much as possible for the slower months. I have been blessed to have a very great beginning to the balloon business. Balloon companies have been around for years but there was a big boom in adding balloon decorations in trendy ways to elevate events and I began my business at the perfect time, in the midst of the boom! Read more>>

RAMON NIEVES

Currently I am blessed to be able to earn a living through my creative work, which in my case would be tattooing. The truth is that when I started tattooing I didn’t know that you could make a living from this, I come from a country (Venezuela) where the culture is quite closed with respect to art and living from art as such, for them living from art is something impossible and you grow up hearing that. So when I told my parents about my decision to dedicate myself to tattooing, this was undoubtedly one of their biggest concerns, Read more>>

Sara Simms

I’ve been very fortunate to be able to make a living from music! DJing started as a hobby for me and turned into a career over time. One of my stepping stones was working in Moog Audio, a music store in Toronto which helped to give me a lot of connections for gigs. I lived in Berlin for six months, which gave me exposure to the European music scene and early performance opportunities. I’ve been able to DJ in Amsterdam, Detroit, Miami, LA, and Tokyo and have toured the UK and North America putting on shows and music production workshops. Read more>>

Abby Shepard

Yes! I’ve been a full-time photographer for a little over a year now. It’s been a journey for sure, but I’m really proud to be successfully self-employed. I first started photography back in 2016 when I purchased my first DSLR camera after graduating college. I was working for the state park system in Delaware at the time, and started my photography journey by taking photos of the parks for fun. Within a couple years, I was promoted a few times and eventually ended up overseeing all photography and video production for the entire state park system in Delaware. Read more>>

Ryan Adams

I am fortunate enough to be making a full-time living from my creative work, although this wasn’t always the case. In 2008, when I was preparing to leave school, I had the exit interview with the Registrar, where the showed me what my monthly payments for student loans was going to look like. I felt like I had just bet my life on a 3-card-monty with the inevitable result. So, for 10 years prior to taking the leap, I worked in the stereotypical corporate environment. Fully equipped with cubicles and Monday morning meetings. Read more>>

Kendall LaCombe

I have officially made my business a full time career as of 3 years ago. The road leading up to it wasn’t exactly easy or a seamless transition from a “regular” job to then being full time self employed. There were a lot of ups and downs and moments of self doubt, but we made it. When I very first started I had maybe 10 clients a year and now I work with over 100 people yearly. I truly believe the only way to make a living as a photographer is to live and breathe your work. People are attracted to passion and those people have the money to hire you, which intern means you can make a living. Read more>>

Emma Miller

I have been so fortunate to have found a way to make art into a profitable and fulfilling career for myself. I studied fine art in college thinking maybe if I got really lucky I could get a job in my field, but most likely it would end up being just a hobby for me. After graduation I was thrilled to get a full time job teaching k-12 art and a few months into that job I launched my art business. I started out mostly painting commissions and doing the occasional wedding painting, but it formed a small portion of my income. Read more>>

Rick Wright

I feel pretty fortunate to say I am able to earn a full-time time living from my creative work today. It’s certainly not something that happened overnight. It took years, really, and it has become an aggregate of a lot of gained experiences. I was pretty clueless right out of art school. I graduated with a BFA in illustration way back in the mid-nineties and had a naive misconception that I would somehow get a 9-5 job right out of college. Someone was supposed to just pay me to make art for 40 hours a week. Read more>>

Brigitta Mathe

My name is Brigitta, and I am currently working in Chicago but am moving to Miami soon with my family. I am hoping to find a new Tattoo family after these five beautiful years in the windy city. I am tattooing for about 12 years and I came from a very small Hungarian town, made it to London, then Chicago and now to Miami. Read more>>

Jason Borbet

Fortune! Fame! Freedom! All fabulous, all difficult to come by. I’ve been painting full-time since July 2, 2009 — a privilege earned through discipline and hard work. From day one, I committed to a traditional business development plan, and a traditional schedule. The former included developing a standard form of contract, collecting/commission protocols, annual price increase standards, accounting relationships; Read more>>

Molly Box McCarty

Yes! I now work full-time and earn a full-time salary from my creative work. I initially started by working jobs and growing my skill set in design while also continuing artwork on the side as more of a hobby. While working as a full-time corporate graphic designer, I started taking on freelance side jobs. That slowly began to grow, until I started my LLC, Prairie Sage Creative, in January of 2013. I switched to working part time jobs in conjunction with Prairie Sage, until that grew enough to replace the time and work of a full-time position. Read more>>