Wanting to be an artist or creative is step one. Following through means investing in learning your craft, but we’ve heard from so many aspiring artists and creatives who feel unsure about where to start and so we’re incredibly grateful to the artists and creatives who’ve agreed to share their stories of how they learned their craft.

Alex Page

I went to school at Appalachian State for Graphic Design. When I studied abroad in Sunderland, England my junior year, I realized Graphic Design might not be my path. I missed the hands on emphasis of other artistic expressions. I was also gathering stones and random found objects I wanted to make my own souvenirs with! When I returned to App in the spring I took my first metalsmithing class and fell in love with the process and possibilities. Read more>>

Kaleb Dettwiler

Initially I learned from the internet and videos, which is where i first came across blade smithing. I immediately took interest in the craft and did lots of research and wondering ” man it would be cool if i could do that” . I kinda had this moment of well why cant you do that whats stopping you ? you have a decent knowledge to get started you have some space to do it what is holding you back ? At that point i realized it was me who was the obstacle so i took the jump and got a very bare bones set up and made my first knife. Then fell in love with it and started buys some more tools to make life easier and found the craft to be therapeutic for me . Read more>>

Othering

The guitar was the first instrument I learned how to play. I learned by ear, mainly playing along to Metallica and Muse albums then moving on to the stuff that Bernard Sumner and Kevin Shields were doing. From there, I branched out into learning how to play drums through punk music and then synths through new wave. Read more>>

D Marcell

I’ve taught myself mostly, which is a gift and curse I feel sometimes. It can feed your ego as you become better for sure, which can make you feel you don’t need to be taught. Which for me, was a huge obstacle for me early on. It probably prevented a few opportunities to collab with other musicians and artists when I was younger. I mean, maybe those things could’ve speed up the process, but I’m learning that you also can’t rush the process without a cost. I don’t think I would be who I am as artist without trusting my process. And what I mean is, Read more>>

Carina Rivera

I don’t think acting and modeling have a book to follow or a path. Everyone is going to have a different path and learning experience along the way. Read more>>

Ryan Murphy

I learned jewelry making by just diving in head first. I was living in LA at the time, and I had heard about the jewelry district downtown. One weekend I headed down there and started checking everything out. It was a bit overwhelming, but I found myself in a big jewelry supply store. I started picking one of the sales man’s brains about how to get started, what tools I would need, and he set me up with some basics. Read more>>

Chandra Lynch, Jamaal McCray N/A

Jamaal: Theater is all about storytelling, entertainment, and communion. So I learned informally by watching a lot of movies, reading comics, playing with action figures. Then I seen a professional play for the first time around 17, it was powerful. Then I seen some people do horrible and that gave me confidence. The rest of my technique I learned in IU Bloomington theater and drama program. Most kids had at least 5 years or more experience than me so I had to absorb as much as I could if I wanted to excel. Read more>>

Olivia Boi

I took an intro to smithing class in 2017 at Metalwerx in Waltham. After that I am self taught through trial and error. You can never know it all in this craft- there is always more to master. The intro class was really helpful to learn all the science and math behind the process of making jewelry. I also learned the basics of soldering and then after applied that in all sorts of ways in my home studio once I was able to gain confidence to work at home, with fire… Read more>>

Chadwick Farley

I first learn about acting in Highschool only because I didn’t want to go home I decided to submit for an school play, which I didn’t get at first but somehow the person who did ended up transferring schools and I was the one they ended up going with. Had I kept acting after highschool I think be alot further than where I am today, rap was always my first love. Read more>>

Chance Johnson

I think whats been most helpful for me is learning by listening and practicing, intentionally and openly. I was pretty deliberate about collecting technical information. Understanding how a camera works and how to measure light, how to understand a scene/conversation. I try to only let it accentuate things though. It’s been helpful to avoid letting numbers or terminology or rules distract me from the feelings/thoughts. What I’m really looking for is for those things to help me figure out emotions and thoughts that feel more important. Read more>>

Lygia Guzman

Since I was a child, writing has been how I communicated my feelings and escaped. So I always tell people that I was a self-taught writer for the first half of my life. Then I went to college and grad school, where my writing was shredded in a good way. Read more>>

Cassia Jones

Writing and acting are continuous on the learning curve. Had I not wrote, acted in, produced and edited my first project (web series: To Live & Date in LA) I would not have been able to make all of those mistakes in silence! I had to teach myself how to do literally everything since I could not afford to hire anyone. Youtube university, Google, watching other web series, and trial and error literally became the way that I learned, in the beginning. Read more>>

Emily Elhoffer

The processes I use in my craft are largely self-taught; this is where I find most motivation when I’m learning something. I enjoy making problems for myself to solve. I have worked in a handful of crafts, some learned from teachers, others invented by myself, and I can share my story on the one I use most: creative upholstery. Read more>>

Tommy Guns

I learned how to make music just basically by instinct foreal, I use to just randomly blurt out and start freestyling, it wasn’t good but it was just something I’d do. I had a friend who use to record in his closet and he just invited me over one day, and from there I actually knew I can actually make music if I tried. I could’ve been more consistent when the opportunity came around I would’ve been way farther than I am now, at first it was me trying to be stable and still live the life I want at the same time that was slowing me down. Read more>>

Imani K Brown

As tattoo becomes more saturated, it’s easy to go to Youtube and learn to tattoo. Though I wouldn’t advise this if you paid me a boat load of moolah ~ And as I walk in to 20 years a tattoo artist; transforming into a master tattoo artist I’m truly reflective on what it means to learn and master a craft like tattoo – where you can use human flesh as a diary page that lasts for all eternity. I think about what it actually costs to become a masterful and influential tattoo artist. Read more>>

Blapsmith

I pretty much taught myself from the jump. I had a few bass lessons in high school, but that was after a few years of teaching myself and playing with friends. Other than that, I’ve really had no formal training for production or DJing other than YouTube University. Definitely learning about sound selection and listening to vastly different styles and subgenres of music was super essential for me. Read more>>

Samantha Samii” Ramsahai”

Every day, the fact that I can make a living doing what I enjoy astounds me. When I was younger, I used to imagine that my life was a movie set and I was in charge of every aspect of production. When my mom told me I could do anything, I believed her. Everything creative within reach was fair game, and if I felt like tackling it, I would. Read more>>

Josue Perez

It was sort of like reverse engineering where I would take an image or poster that I liked and then try to recreate it by playing with different tools on photoshop and illustrator to approximate it. I was terrible at first, but over time I learned how to use and combine different tools and software to create more sophisticated designs. After a few years of doing this, I learned many of the principles of graphic design but I felt lost without a formal education. Read more>>

Nikolay Kibkalo

When I decided to be a tattoo artist, first of all, I researched and watched a lot of videos on YouTube and learned how this industry works, and what supplies and brands artists prefer. Then I went to local tattoo shops and asked artists who do an apprenticeship. One of the artists became my mentor. I already got my first basic tattoo machine and in the beginning, my first clients were fake skin and oranges. Read more>>

Ben and Becca Pettis

We learned to do our unique color-grading by playing around with different settings in photos then later trying to recreate it in the video. We learned that black and white color grading worked easier, and so it gave us a leg to stand on for both photo and video. The skills that were most essential was perseverance and determination, to not give up. As well as be teachable–if you want to create and be different, you have to understand it won’t come easy. Obstacles, the hardest was gaining traction for being different and gaining respect! Read more>>

Destiny Gray

I learned how to vogue at Debbie Reynolds Studio in Los Angeles in 2016 through the scholarship program. I started attending balls as a spectator. In 2017 I walked my first ball in New York and fell completely in love with the ball room scene. I don’t do think there’s anything more I could have done to necessarily speed up the learning process. I was talking multiple vogue classes a week and attending every ball in Los Angeles. Read more>>

Chalae Lindsey

I am a jewelry brand owner, makeup artist, hairstylist , and Choreographer/dancer. With jewelry making and being a dancer it really just came natural to me. For makeup artistry fx makeup to be exact I learned EVERYTHING from YouTube. With hair I went to cosmetology school and also YouTube taught me a lot of styles school did now. What I could have done to speed up the process was to believe in myself more. Read more>>

Lacrisha Holcomb

We did not have a computer in my household—or a car and many other conveniences. I recalled excitedly (and cautiously) taking trips to the public library in middle school and high school to quickly ingest information to crank out papers and projects. Learning “fast” was not only a blessing, but possibly an adaptation to being perpetually under resourced. Read more>>

Destiny Toussaint

I started dancing when I entered middle school; there was a gifted program that allowed children from grades 1-8 to leave school once a week to learn and explore their craft in either dance or visual art. Looking back, I am incredibly grateful for that opportunity, because I wasn’t just learning different dance techniques but I was also learning dance history, how to critique and interpret art meaningfully as well as creating choreography. Read more>>