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.

Eugene Gardner

One of the hardest things about pushing to make a career out of music is that you still need to find time to become a better musician. Not getting better at booking, or promoting, or networking, or “content creation”, but actually spending time with your instrument and pushing the boundaries of what you can create. Read more>>

Samantha Krones

We all started taking lessons for our instruments before even meeting each other. The love for the music came from all separate places, as we all grew up in different environments. As a band, the learning curve was a bit rough in the beginning, as we had tons of unproductive practices. Read more>>

Angela Kohler

I really think that when you are in a creative industry you need to be surrounded by creativity. And not just the kind that directly relates to your field. If you are a director, go have lunch with a choreographer. An illustrator. Go take a silk screening workshop. Join a writing class. Read more>>

Emily Cauble

I have been a creative all my life, utilizing my my skills in many different ways over the years. I learned the art of surface pattern design (taking your artwork and putting it into repeat patterns for use on products such as textiles), only recently. Read more>>

Bonnie Marshall

I learned to direct plays and teach high school theatre through the guidance of mentors, through the experience of being “thrown into the pool,” and through careful study and observation. I was a High School English Teacher who loved literature and teaching when the theatre teacher in my school moved to a different job. Read more>>

Joe Movick

#1 Do. Do. Do. Nothing I can recommend more than putting in time, effort and brainpower to make your ideas come to life. #2 Do with someone smarter/more experienced than you. This will come with time, but you have to find artists and professionals who can bring their experience to the table and learn from them. Read more>>

Nina Yocom

Over the years I tried my hand at many different mediums such as watercolor and acrylics, but I never felt a natural affinity. When an artist friend suggested that I try alcohol inks I was intrigued: I had never heard of this medium before. Read more>>

Kaitlin Saltzman

My skill set comes from a combination of mentorship, online courses, experimentation, and a background in film and television that undoubtedly covers a great deal of unconscious understanding of framing, even though it’s a different medium. Read more>>

Chuck Morriss III

What I think is amazing about the time we live in is that for any given creative field there is an infinite amount of information online about the technical aspects. It’s the practical experience that is more difficult to come by because you don’t know what it feels like to operate on a professional level until you’re already in the room or on the stage. Read more>>

Annie Duncan

I came into my MFA as a painter, and I’d only worked a little bit with ceramics before. I ended up working with clay mostly by chance. At the start of grad school, I was late to register for classes, and a ceramics course was the only one left with space. Working with clay has been one of the most exciting developments in my practice. Read more>>

Victor Evangelist

I have to say up front that I am not a professionally trained bartender or mixologist. I’ve never even worked in the service industry. I learned how to do what I do the way many people might, which is experimenting, with a lot of trial and error. Read more>>

Doc

The core of what we do (writing) is something that I have been doing vehemently since I was a child. Writing the biographical articles I do specifically was just learned with hands on experience. The opposite is true for video and audio editing for our videos. Read more>>

Natali Zarate

My interest in all creative processes has always been intense. And when I was a kid, I could see various practices all around me. When I was a toddler, I started coloring and drawing, and I immediately started practicing when I got to preschool. Read more>>

Will Foerster

Stylistically, I learned how to do what I do through photographing and experimenting as much as possible, and for me that meant being in the studio as much as possible. I think that most photographers would agree that to develop your style, the biggest component will always be to just photograph as much as possible. Read more>>

Asif Akbar

I learned a lot of what I do for a living through practical experience of working on set in different positions. My education was also in film and Television productions as I have graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film and Television Productions. Read more>>

Myles Jackson

I was a child of media from birth- my earliest and fondest memories of are being introduced to films that would shape the rest of how I lived my life- my mother showed me Star Wars and Star Trek as a child, and my father showed me classic action like John Woo and Michael Mann. Read more>>

CT Adams

It all starts with being a bartender in Palm Springs. To get paid for making people laugh is the first skill you learn at a resort bar. My knowledge of alcohol and humor grew together. I worked everywhere I could, from weddings to funerals. My wine career began at Los Angeles Wine Company, ironically located in Palm Desert, CA. Read more>>

Dylan Dynasty

I initially taught myself how to play drums by watching YouTube videos. I would watch drum covers of my favorite songs over and over again until I could play them. Once I learned the basics and could carry a simple rhythm, I began to take drum lessons and have continued to do so for the last 7 years. Read more>>

Melinda McCormick

I learned about photography through trial and error, and my mom. When I was little, I remember my mom taking photos everywhere we went, and even going to special events to capture on camera. I would go with my mom to some of the events and she would let me take pictures on her old digital camera. Read more>>

Anna Ashon

As long as I could remember little anna was always connected to music. It wasn’t always love at first sight tho. From my childhood, I remember not wanting to wake up at 6am just to travel into the city for piano lessons. Truth be told I think I just wanted some extra sleep haha Read more>>

Sarah Jenkins

I have always been enchanted by the beauty of stained glass art – how light dances on glass, solder lines create movement, and the saturation of glass panels change as the sun shifts throughout the day. And it was also a great mystery to me, an art medium I admired from afar but not something I thought I could actually make on my own. Read more>>

Kaiya Thomas

I learned what I know now through watching and imitating various drawing tutorials online, reading books about graphic design, and my enrollment in graphic arts at Southwest Tennessee Community College. Read more>>

Ken Powe

Developing my craft began when I took piano lessons at 8 years old, which gave me the technical background to do what I do now. Having a knowledge of music theory and the ability to read musical notation aren’t really essential to musical success, however it does make many things easier and gives musicians more versatility. Read more>>

Christine Edwards

So the first time I ever started doing ceramics i learned it in high school as one of my extracurricular classes. I stayed after school and I even became part of a ceramics club and I really became immersed in the craft. Then I started taking pottery classes in the summer of 2021 and that’s when I learned how to throw on a wheel rather than hand building. Read more>>

Manvi Ranghar

Art is skill and soul. Learning your craft needs life long awe. Love of entropy, thirst for a great phrase, greed for color. So you grow the eyes of an ant and the antenna of a Mars rover. You learn to perceive deeply, fully, intensely, like you were just born and did not know the world. Read more>>

Shelissa Johnson

Shelissa Johnson, Public Relations Officer for South Florida Band Leaders Association (SFCBLA) Band Leader for Miami Carnival JR Band Karnival Kidz Read more>>

Andrei Petrov

I learned drawing doing cereal boxes from one lower corner to the rest of the paper. Then I drew cartoon characters and later drew and painted from the model and did still-lifes. My father taught me basic skills, but I mostly learned by doing. Read more>>

George Shipperley

Mostly learned from my long time friend and tutor Marianne Grundwald Scoggin. What she taught me is and was incredibly valuable because I would not be the successful artist I am today had it not been for her insistence and inspiration. Read more>>

SHANG JUI LU

II am a cinematographer and it all started with a film project we did as undergraduates. At the time, I knew nothing about cinematography, but had the opportunity to become a cinematographer and shoot on film. After that, I was amazed at how the camera can transform our imagination, even the most basic, into something special and relevant to the audience. Read more>>

Gloria De Leon

I grew up watching Spanish-language telenovelas, and I learned a lot about effective storytelling just by watching the character arcs and plot twists. and by analyzing when creative choices worked and when they didn’t. Of course, as a kid, I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. Read more>>

Ryan Ouse

I started learning music with my father when I was young. He started showing me how to play the drums when I was about 5, and by the age of 10 I started taking it more seriously. I learned to play the bass when I turned 12 and guitar shortly afterwards. Read more>>

Rupali Ingle

I once heard from an two time academy award winning production designer who has inspired me immensely saying “Nobody knows anything”. Even at the highest level, everyone is learning so just relax. You don’t need to know a lot to be here. Just focus on getting started. Read more>>

Marcus Freeman

The creative process can be challenging and unfulfilling if you don’t have a clear objective. I’m a multi-hyphenated artist with creative and analytical skills so I have to be disciplined with the process of learning the craft. Read more>>