Earning that first dollar is incredibly special and a moment many never forget. We asked some very talented creatives from the community to tell us the story of the first dollar they earned from their creative works.

Micah Jewel

As an artist sometimes it is really hard to put a price on your work. Artists sometimes tend to not charge enough or even at all for something they have created; Giving away drawings, tattoos or even playing shows for free. In high school i was always a drawing or would draw on my homework and a lot of people would watch me or request a sketch that i could do for them. Read more>>

GLORIA JOHN

I was a former dentist so I am really not doing this for the money. I know a lot of my actor friends struggle with money and I am lucky to not have to really be doing this for money. Only 2% of actors in the union can make a living as an actor. Which is a whole thing to be discussed. With that being said, it was really nice to have made the bigger check on the Amazon Prime show “The Consultant”. Read more>>

Adrian Arredondo

I think the first time I earned money as an artist is when I learned that i turned my passion for art into a profitable venture. My love for art started in Mexico where I attended Art School right before I ended up moving to Los Angeles I still remember those days, It feels like ages ago.. I was young and naive, always looking for the next adventure. Read more>>

Alex Jack

I’ll never forget the first money I ever made as a singer. I was attending a New Year’s Eve gig in Palm Springs and the singer lost her voice towards the end of the night. I was in an original music project with a couple of the band members and they recommended that I take over. I sang for a little while to close out the evening, and after the gig the singer who lost her voice came over and smoothly handed me a folded up $100 bill. Read more>>

SUZANNE Hughes

I started to put my work on instagram after my first year of painting. I didn’t have a website at the time and I didn’t actually say the pieces I posted were for sale, let alone how much they were. I was contacted by someone who I knew through my kids school who told me that her husband loved my art and could they come and see it when they were next in Ft. Lauderdale with a view to buying him a Christmas present. Read more>>

Sydney Bickel

This question hit home because my first art show has recently been on my mind. I displayed and sold my art for the first time in 2019 at the Red Eye in Saginaw, Michigan. At the time, my uncle Samuel Lingenfelter managed the coffee shop. I was fifteen, drawing portraits, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but he asked me to do a show. The Red Eye regularly featured local artists, and it was optional to sell the work. Read more>>

Randy Griffith

When I was a teenager, I was asked to do a commission painting of a riverboat. I completed it and was paid for the job. Many years later someone sent me a picture of it on Facebook and reminded me that I had done the painting for her parents. Her parents had since passed but she still had the painting after all those years. Read more>>

Michael Matteocci

The first time I ever seen any profit come in from my music was around February of 2021. I will never forget it. I made my first 200$ from streaming royalties accumulated over time paid out to me by my distributor instantly. That was when I realized that my music is starting to catch on and I have the potential to do what I love for the rest of my life and get paid for it. Read more>>

Caryn Clark

The first dollar (well, I think it was $250) I earned from working as a voice over talent was as a narrator for a scratch track. The client was pitching a show to The Travel Channel about Halloween in New Orleans. I started my voiceover journey by finding a coach, attending workshops, working with my coach, making demos, and auditioning on online casting sites relentlessly. This took a couple of years, in total. Read more>>