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.

Bob Mcgough

I’m not yet earning a full-time living as a creative. But I feel like I am heading down the path to getting there, and moving a bit quicker each year of my journey. I’m huge proponent for transparency, so I don’t mind sharing that last year I earned a bit over ten thousand dollars as a creative. Full time money? No. But not something to sneeze at either I think. There are a few things I wish I had done differently, that I think would have sped things up a bit.  First was having more confidence in myself. I started my journey in 2012, but only really began to take it super seriously in 2020. And that was because I spent most of those intervening years lacking in the faith in myself that I COULD be a successful author. If I’d had that, I would likely have started my self publishing journey several years earlier, would have been attending conventions as a guest and vendor years earlier, and would have been building my brand and followers years earlier. Read more>>

Dimitris Zogaris

My love and passion for skateboarding led me to discover ways to make my passion my job. Living in Greece a country with not much of a big skateboarding community it was very hard at first. As years were passing by and skateboarding was getting more and more popular i figured out why not try to make skateboarding somehow my job by becoming the first skateboard instructor in my country and teaching adults and kids how to become better at it, and also discover more about the magic world of skateboarding. Thats when i first came up with the idea of starting the first official skateboard school in Greece. Collaborating with a sports facility school we built the first indoor skateboard park and begin lessons there. That was something that nobody had ever done in my country since today. Read more>>

Catherine Lara

My career within the beauty industry started in my early 20’s which is when I became a makeup artist. I enjoyed the freedom and the ability to travel for what I would do. However early on within my makeup artist journey, I came to the realization that while this is fun and enjoyable at the moment, long term it can be a little tiresome. After expressing how I was feeling about being a makeup artist long term to my father, he suggested I go to cosmetology school and get licensed to do hair. If im being honest, I cannot say I had a full plan as to where I was going with this cosmetology license. All I knew is that I had a slight advantage being that by the time this came around, I was a makeup artist who had traveled within all 5 boroughs in New York City and that gave me the exposure needed to get my name out there if I just took a few models, It took some time to fully build my clientele however I knew that making a comfortable living being a hairstylist was not impossible. Read more>>

Ara Ko

I am currently an art instructor for autistic individuals. After graduating with my Master’s degree in Fine Art, I decided to move to NYC. There, I submitted my resume to the company that provides educational services to students with special needs. During the call, they asked how I would handle potential challenges that might arise during a class for autistic children. For example, they asked what I would do if a student didn’t want to participate and refused to sit in a chair. I responded that in such a situation, I would pretend to have pain in my leg and ask the child, “Could you bring me a chair so we can sit together?” Read more>>

Kristeen Waddell

After graduating from Purdue University, I worked a corporate job while doing photography on the side. My photography work quickly started to earn as much as my corporate salary. But once I started having kids, it became clear I couldn’t juggle both. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day. So, I made the decision to pursue photography full-time, and it was an easy choice. Interestingly, my corporate job was in digital marketing, which turned out to be a huge asset. I used my marketing skills to build a strong online presence for my photography business. In a market filled with talented photographers, being able to reach potential clients through SEO and online marketing gave me a significant advantage. Read more>>

Shan Benson

I have been a full-time artist for the last eight years. Being a freelance photographer has not always been easy, I think our minds are trained to work M-F, 9-5pm, that it was difficult mentally when I got right into freelancing at first. I am learning that with great freedom of being a freelancer, I also have to nourish our creative soul by embracing the time off (or slow season), to recharge, and be re-inspired. One of the many milestones was taking a leap and moving to LA without knowing anybody. The biggest blessing has been being able to start from the ground up and now have a community of friends with love and support. I don’t wish to change or have sped up the process because I am exactly where I need to be now. You have to be content of where you are now, to be prepared for what is next for you.  Read more>>

Makenzie Phipps

I have been fortunate enough to earn a full time living doing what I love: music! I have been a full time singer/songwriter/musician for going on 8 years now and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I started doing my own shows at the age of 14 and since then, I’ve grown a lot as a singer and a performer.. I love interacting with people at my shows and sharing my music with them. I am thankful to have a job that I’m happy doing as I know some may not be that fortunate. Read more>>

Matthew Killough

I haven’t, I’ve always had a side-gig or day job. I didn’t start writing music seriously until after I had finished school and started working. I doubt that I could have done it any other way. It took a long time to become the person I am now, and I don’t think the younger version of me would be as committed or capable. Read more>>

Rafael Blanco

Today I’m a full-time muralist. I travel the world painting large-scale artworks, I help beautify communities, and meet amazing people in the process… oh! and I get paid by doing what I love!!! I have never thought I would become a muralist. I was classically trained to be a studio painter for many years. I followed the academic route, earned a BA in Studio Arts, and later an MFA in Drawing and Painting. I did gallery exhibitions and sold paintings while I was teaching art at the university level. Even though I have always admired murals and large scale works, I was a very slow painter. I could take months and sometimes a year to finish a single painting inside the studio. Read more>>

Alber

For me, playing music was always the only path forward. In a way, I think that my stubborness made it possible for me to make a living as a full time artist: the sole existence of a plan B in your mind can be enough to let go of your dreams sometimes. I do treat my practice as a full time job, I like to say that 30% of my job involves playing music, while the other 70% involves communication, sending emails, showing up to events, networking, etc. Read more>>

Arda Ren

Yes, when I graduated my biggest short term goal was to get into the media scoring industry and make a living out of it. The traditional path for that is to become a composer assistant or an additional writer until you gain enough experience and connections to start out as a senior composer yourself. That also happened to be the path I wanted to take, so when the opportunity came knocking, I jumped on it! After finishing my degree, I found out that Mike Post, who is one of the biggest TV composers of all time was looking for a composer assistant and additional writer. I got recommended to him by my professor and mentor, Richard Marvin. There was a lengthy audition process where I was competing with 70 or so potential candidates. Read more>>

Powers And The People

We’re still finding our footing in that respect and all have 9-5 jobs. Of course we would love for this band to turn into something that resembles a career and right now we’re focused on building an audience so that we can get more people at our shows. I think all of us have different perspectives on what success looks like in the long term, but we’re mainly concerned right now with maintaining consistent and stable growth, both on a band level and as individuals. It’s definitely challenging, working a full time job and playing music though. A good chunk of our free time goes to the band as you’d maybe expect, but it’s worth it. Read more>>

Erika Oganesian

When I first started my business I never would have imagined that it would be paying my bills. I started out of my parents house in their spare bedroom doing sneakers as a creative hobby more so for myself given that I’m into shoes. Once I posted a pair I made for myself, people started messaging asking about it and that’s when the idea pinned in my head that I could make some money off this. The rest was history Read more>>

Raj Dave

I have been very blessed to be able to earn a full-time earning while following my passion in filmmaking and video producing. The process to get there was, at times, very stressful, but what kept me going was knowing that I really did love filming videos and producing content. Read more>>