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.

Pramita Mukherjee

It’s been a long 18 years since I have been working in the animation and visual effects industry. I was born and brought up in Kolkata, India. Right from my childhood, I loved sketching and playing musical instruments. I also learned and practiced Indian classical dance for over 17 years, but what captivated me the most was cartoons, specifically the ones from X-Men and DuckTales, and since then I have always dreamed of making animated movies someday. After high school I did a certification course on 3D animation and landed as an intern in Mumbai in 2007, doing months of graveyard shifts learning as much as I could. Back in those days, there were very few animation studios in India that were working on animated features for Hollywood. Crest Animation was one of them, and that is where I started my journey as a character rigging intern. Read more>>

Teresa-esmeralda Sanchez

Since my sophomore year of college, I’ve been working on sets, gaining real-world experience to supplement my formal film education. I spent two years at SUNY Dutchess (let’s go, community colleges!) earning a degree in Communication and Media Arts, followed by two years at Brooklyn College, where I received a degree in Documentary Film Production. After graduating, I spent a year working in hotels and hospitality while building my personal sound kit. In July of 2019, I founded my production company, Static Sifting Films. Read more>>

Felix Nieuwenhuis

I was always drawing, so the natural progression from there seemed to go to artschool but I didn’t actually know what field I wanted to work in. I then tried a tattoo machine from a friend, and after that I had a lot of people who asked me if I could do one on them, seeing as they liked my drawing. After art school I managed to find an apprenticeship, while still working in a bar. Then one day, I was working the terrace and there was no one there, I was very bored and at that moment a dove crapped on one of the tables, and I was happy I could actually do something. Right after I got a call from the tattoo shop if I wanted to do a bigger client, for some more money. At that moment I decided this was going to be it, and I quit my bar job a couple of days later. I’ve not done another job since. Read more>>

Chelsea Mccracken

Ive always been a girly girl and loved playing in makeup. Nearly 10 years ago I started being a sales rep for a direct sales company selling the makeup brand, Younique. One day I applied the makeup on a friend whom just so happed to be getting married. She loved the makeup application and approached me a few days later asking if I would be the makeup artist for her wedding. Of course I eagerly said yes. Once I posted pictures of her Bridal Makeup, I started having other Brides reach out. Before I knew it, I had a few weddings under my belt and knew this had the potential to be something bigger. After a while I was booking weddings frequently all while working a full time job in Human Resources. Read more>>

Brandon Kerr

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to pursue this passion. There is an abundance of possibilities awaiting me as I continue to dedicate myself to this craft. It’s exciting to think about what the future holds.

As far as my journey as an artist goes, it took a bit of time to completely embrace the idea of becoming one. On many different occasions, I would assist my dad and showcasing his work at the renowned Round Top antique shows in Texas, which take place twice a year in the fall and spring. I began to create my own pieces in 2022, that’s when I found out I may have what it takes to become an amazing artist. Read more>>

Mayuko Watson

My journey into achieving a full-time living with animation is unique compared to most.

When I started high school, I thought hard about how I wanted to earn a living and how I should spend the next four years. I began researching various creative roles and eventually decided on animation, because I was enamored with the pre-production process. When I told my parents I was interested in attending art school, specifically in California, they insisted I would not be able to unless I got a full-ride. So I embraced the goal, completely immersing myself into drawing and college application research. Read more>>

Craig Mitchell

Yes, in 1987 I launched my career in Stand Up Comedy. At first it was as someone suggested to me “just a way to stay fresh on stage …as an actor” But very quickly I found I had an aptitude for it. My first time on stage was at Stand Up NY on Feb 8th 1987. By the July 4th weekend I was a guest performer at The East Side Comedy Club on Long Island. By October I was booked for a week in Ormond Beach, FL to middle for Margaret Smith. My ascention to a working comic was very, very fast. In retrospect I was in over my head, but I didn’t realize or care. I had a bit in my act called “The Mechanized Comedian” that was breakthrough and a big audience please. Read more>>

Tenola Plaxico

I believe that many artists pathway to being a full-time creative is marked by the same sort of circuitous journey. After getting a degree in literature, and working in at at least five or six different industries, I returned to photography -a hobby I developed while in college- and latched onto it in hopes of making it a sustainable form of income. It was never my “invention” to be a professional photographer. That wasn’t even something I could conceptualize when I was imagining/designing the framework of what I would do long-term. But, working in a job that you despise is the greatest catalyst for moving you forward towards your passion. I’ve worked in sales. Law enforcement. Publication. Education. Non-profits. Read more>>

Matt Black

I think there’s a number of factors that need to be addressed to make a living at anything you love, 1st and foremost get used to living on a tight budget. There will be times where there’s not a lot of cash, so limit your lifestyle and overheads to keep going.

Secondly look for diverse ways of earning within your chosen path … with us our main income is gigs, but a close second income is the recording studio. Both are very different, but we love doing them equally. It really helped through lockdown too! Read more>>

Wadi Jones

I started out as a dancer from the age of 12. Got my first teaching job at 16 as a breakdance instructor. From there a continued to study movements like martial arts, parkour and hip hop. When I turned 25 I auditioned for season 8 of SYTYCD and made the top 20 as one of their finalists. From there I began to work on more shows and commercials leading me to stunts. During all this I was also building my art business which turned into a custom clothing company. Where in which we do collabs with productions and create interactive apparel. I’m now one of NYC’s youngest stunt coordinators, currently coordinating for the power series Raising Kanan and for The Gilded Age on HBO. Read more>>

Miguel “mike” Martinez

I was born and raised in Mexico and when I was 21 years old I moved to the city of Chicago to pursue my dreams of being a Stylist. I came to the city and was working for a while. Then I entered Cosmetology school and that’s where my career began.
After three years of working as a salon manager I managed to open my owner.
After a few years with the salon I started traveling with the Rojas Carpet beauty pageant, television programs etc. Read more>>

José Carreon

I still have to pinch myself typing this, but I now earn a full-time living through my creative work as a Creative Director at KERA, but my journey was anything but linear. Here’s how it all unfolded:

I didn’t grow up with a clear career path. In high school, I had a 2.4 GPA, no extracurriculars, and no real idea of what I wanted to do. When my senior-year counselor asked about college applications, I realized I hadn’t even taken the SAT. Read more>>

Leonardo Santaiti

Absolutely, I’ve been fortunate enough to carve out a living solely through creative work, but let me tell you, it’s been a journey of patience, resilience, and a lot of learning from mistakes along the way. It all started with my passion for acting. There’s something magical about being on set—it’s my happy place. My first significant gig was a lead role in an indie feature, which took me to Argentina for three months. Coming back to the States was tough; audition after audition with no bookings really tested my resolve. That’s when I realized I couldn’t just wait for opportunities—I had to create them. Read more>>

Mariana Ramirez

Fortunately, after more than 10 years living and working very hard in New York City, I can say I am making a living from music and musical projects. It took a lot of late nights practicing, many times of wanting to go out to have fun but having to stay to practice and get ready for what ever was coming next. Music has been my passion for many years. I never saw myself doing something else, so I can say I didn’t have another option. Lol. I believed in music passionately since I started. I chose music because I saw and experienced that music makes people very happy and brings people together regardless, of age, health situation, economical differences, race and gender, and I wanted to be part of that and help that happened. Read more>>

Robin Eisenberg

It took me a long time to start earning a full-time living as an artist. There were so many side quests along the way, and so many moments where I had zero idea what I was supposed to do next. Honestly, I think maybe that feeling never fully goes away (I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing a lot of the time!). It does get easier though! Read more>>

Leah Aukskalnis

My sister and I launched our digital marketing company in March 2022, focusing exclusively on serving real estate agents. Nearly three years later, we’ve built a thriving business that allows both of us to pay ourselves a solid full-time income.

One of the key decisions that accelerated our growth was forming a strategic partnership with a local Keller Williams Realty brokerage. By becoming their exclusive in-house marketing and tech team, we were able to establish a strong foundation and quickly gain traction. Read more>>

Bruce Brackett

My journey as a content creator began with less than 400 followers. I started posting and sharing my artwork on TikTok and Instagram which was a slow build. Soon after I started sharing my personal story of overcoming from mental health and addiction recovery. Within the first month of sharing these stories my TikTok platform exploded and I gained 100,000 followers. Since then I have been advocating for others going through a similar journey and I now have a following of over 1.5 Million followers across all platforms. This dedication and consistency of showing up has led to many other amazing opportunities such as becoming a certified Motivational Speaker, a published author with WILEY publishing to now being a certified life coach. Read more>>

Fred (fconthebeat) Council

I am fortunate enough to earn a full time living from my creative work. As a musician, music producer, and engineer, the road leading to this point has not at all be the easiest, but will and belief were the 2 key benefits to getting here.

I will say that I kinda had a head start, being as though I’ve been a professional musician since I was a teenager. The lead me to want to explore the other facets of the music business. I ultimately landed on creating the music that I was paid to replicate so often. Read more>>

Abhishek Hajela

Yes, I’ve been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work. It wasn’t always the case, though – it was a journey that required a combination of persistence, strategy, and passion.

In the beginning, I had to take small steps and build a foundation while working in a travel company where I started my career. Photography was something I always loved, but it took a lot of effort to turn it into a sustainable income stream. I started by honing my skills, networking with like-minded creatives, and slowly building a portfolio. There were many moments when it felt uncertain, especially in the early years. Read more>>

Bradley Blair

One day in the summer of 2018, I was wandering the book section at a local thrift store. While casually passing an isle, a book caught my eye, stopped me dead in my tracks and put me in reverse. When I backed up to look at this book, it had no real eye-catching qualities artistically. However, it did have big bold letters that read “Just jump, the net will appear”. I stood there looking at this cover for a moment or so. I didn’t even pick the book up, I didn’t need to. See, at this time, I was ’employed’ at Jimmy John’s sub shop. The weekend before this book incident, I spent working a festival with a brand-new friend of mine, David. Read more>>

Matt Weisberg

I am grateful indeed to make a full-time living from creative work.

Because I have training and have dabbled professionally within so many genres in the music business, I can generally say the following with confidence: There is often an inverse relationship between the financial scope of the project and the artistic freedom granted!

For example, doing a high-paying recording session or film score generally means there’s a lot of ‘cooks in the kitchen’; producers, directors, conductors, etc. The more opinions, the less freedom. Read more>>

Makayla Andrews

Yes, I have been able to make social media content creation my full time job since I was 17 years old. I have been posting on social media since I was around 13. I was doing it for fun and didn’t expect anything from it. When I was 17 I started taking social media seriously. I started to run it like a business, I was posting videos five times a day on TikTok. After three months of consistently posting I finally went viral. My first viral video, I wasn’t even in! I was so sad! It was a video showing my ballet outfits vs my latin ballroom outfits. They were just laid out on the floor of my room. Once I saw that video was going viral I started posting about 10 videos a day for a few weeks. I suddenly was getting millions of views and thousands of followers just in a few days. Read more>>

Josh Blake

The path to making a living in the music industry is not always a straight one. It often starts with somebody at a young age dreaming of that rockstar lifestyle, playing stadiums all over the world, and getting to share your music with millions of people. That’s where the dream started for me at least, but over time I learned that diversifying within the industry and also curbing expectations can be extremely helpful if you want to the able to make a full-time living as a musician or within the music industry. Read more>>

Ashley Cornelius

In October of 2023 I made one of the biggest and scariest decisions of my life and quit my full-time job as a manager of a peer support program at Denver Health. I worked at this hospital for 7 years, first as a therapist in adolescent inpatient psychiatry doing poetry therapy interventions, and finally managing a peer support program for staff wellness and resilience. While working full-time at the hospital I was also working part-time as a poet, doing commissions, workshops, performances, and big events. For the past 7 years I’d been the co-director of a grassroots movement, Poetry719, a Black led poetry group uplifting the voices of marginalized communities through events and art in Colorado Springs. We produce 1 to 2 events every month and lead a month-long poetry festival in October. Read more>>

Nick Norton

Longer answer: how we define “making a full time living” in a fascist/capitalist state is deeply problematic. I’m alive full time, and I work hard to dedicate as little time as possible to exploiting my own labor to support destroying the planet and murdering children. This is a moral imperative. Read more>>

Simon Anthony Mendoza

I’ve thankfully been able to earn a full-time living from all of my creative endeavors. Making that happen was a decision that I remind myself everyday that I made.

My artistic journey began as a 3-year old filipino kid growing up in Toronto, Canada taking piano lessons on a paper piano. My parents were devout catholics and brought me, my older brother, and my older sister to church every Sunday. Church music was literally the only music I was exposed to growing up and my parents had enrolled my brother and I in piano lessons. The teacher taught us by using paper piano drawings which probably explains why I was actually terrified of touching a real piano. Read more>>