Often there is no book or course to learn how to do what you want to do – so how artists and creatives overcome such challenges? How have some of the most talented artists and creatives in the community managed to learn their craft?

Nikita Marshall

My interest in content creation mainly began as a hobby to fill in the gaps in my life while I was figuring out my career path. I had seldom regarded myself as an artistic person but tried not to limit myself to the idea that I was created for more. Read more>>

Dwayne Reed

I have learned so much in the short period of time that I have decided to make my art a full time job. Most of my learning about the music business was obtained by persistent and detailed research on the subject matter at hand with online resources available for free Read more>>

Christopher St. John

My skill in ceramics comes from a long-developed practice in drawing. Although it might be strange to attribute an understanding of the problems of three-dimensional form in clay to ink drawing, Read more>>

Marisa Rapezzi

I was taught fairly traditionally in art school, lol. I got my BFA in Art with a minor in Photography from Pace University in NYC and I just finished my MFA in Interior Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Read more>>

Darcy Ferris

I learned photography in the high school darkroom. Ironically, my mother’s photography teacher, was also mine. He was an insightful and encouraging teacher. Read more>>

Christian Chico

I owe all my learning experience to all the people that I watched/read about and worked with through countless of projects. I have learned vastly from my film professors, watching online video tutorials, reading forum posts from other grips, and my fellow peers that I worked with on set! Read more>>

Ricky Jordan II

I would say learning the craft of filmmaking can go a million different ways, and no one’s path is the same. My path has been a more hands on experience. Read more>>

Keisha Tucker

I think I always had natural talents and tendencies for acting and performing. But I definitely would hone my skills in acting classes, dance classes, driving classes, improve classes, and diving classes. Read more>>

GIL QANEIDA

It all began in the ninth grade when a girl at school offered to teach me guitar. I began writing songs shortly afterwards. Read more>>

Brandon Lin

I was able to learn the majority of what I know and do now through being on countless film sets. It all started during my undergraduate years when I volunteered on senior thesis sets as a freshman. Read more>>

Cameron Burr

I had wanted to be an animator in high school. I loved art and drawing, but I didn’t have the patience or raw talent to figure out what to do about it. Read more>>

Eric Hanson

I audited my first acting class in early 2013, when I was 41 years old. Back then I was focused on writing, and my plan was to have actors work the scenes so that I could see them “up on their feet’, and then go home and edit the dialogue. Read more>>

Caleb Pitman

Studying the history and learning the craft of Black American music is something that I’ve practiced for about eight or nine years. I spent seven of those in various academic environments and two of them on my own as a freelance professional in Dallas, TX. Read more>>

Erica Brookhyser

I decided to pursue voice acting after decades of performing professionally as an opera singer. I had many crossover skills since voice acting and opera are both performance-based and voice-related disciplines, but there was also a lot of unlearning I had to do from my years on big stages. Read more>>

Dylan Lam

I have YouTube to thank (blame?) for my interest in editing and cinematography. When I was 10, I dove hard into two hobbies: origami and Rubik’s cubes. Read more>>

Davon Rodgers

I am a part-time photographer, and I learned the craft by just going out and shooting. When I first started, I didn’t know much about photography beyond point-and-shoot cameras. Read more>>

Billy Taylor

I was attending a weekly self-help class and the person leading the class told me that she also ran a photography group and asked if I’d be interested in attending their next meetup. Read more>>

Grace Rabbitte

I’ve always been interested in drawing and making art. I would fill pages trying to draw copies of my favourite characters from films and cartoons, figuring out how to get them to look the same. Read more>>

Lizzi Trumbore

Growing up, my family was constantly listening to music or going to concerts. I was such a sponge, absorbing melodies in a way that felt very personal to me in a way that I couldn’t explain. Read more>>

Michael Piehl

Working in the fields of lighting and cameras, there are certainly many aspects, both technological and creative, that need to be understood. Read more>>

Elizabeth Gahan

I’ve been interested in making art my entire life. But, it was in college when I began to broaden my understanding of art through classes in art history and theory. Read more>>

Isha Pathak

Designer and Manufacturing at Fallacie Apparel Fallacie Apparel is a clothing brand started by artists for artists, I handle the whole designing and manufacturing end of all the products. Read more>> 

Ty Mullins

I started in photography with the family camera. Taking pictures around the various areas of San Diego and specifically the Little Italy farmers market I taught myself how to use a camera. Read more>>

Monique Elise

I’m proud to say that I am self-taught. Yes, I learned the foundations of grammar and writing during grade school, much like everyone else. Read more>>

Anton Elokuu

I feel like I’ve never been able to learn in conventional ways. The things I learned through school, classes, and books didn’t seem to stick. Instead, I’ve been trying to imitate the artists I love the most, and through that, I’ve been finding my own ways. Read more>>

Ann Rose

I think there is a beauty in not rushing things. We live in a world where instant gratification is the norm, but getting all the things we want quickly and exactly when we want them isn’t always the best thing when you’re building a career. Read more>>

KUAN-WEN CHEN

So I started my career through helping out my friend’s graduation projects and learned so much skills from him. Since then, I learned a lot of skills and first-hand experiences through projects and work. Read more>>

Deep Doshi

For me, I started out with just my android phone camera to shoot videos and had very little idea on how to use a camera or editing videos/photos. Read more>>

Caitlin Dykes

My compulsion to write songs started at the age of 10. When it came to the physical act of songwriting, it was effortless. Because when you’re 10 there are zero expectations. Read more>>

Alex Johnson

Most of what I know and do, in drumming or audio engineering, has been self-taught. I did take drum lessons at the beginning, which was helpful in teaching me how to break down drum parts, read music, and listen in-depth, but otherwise I find, almost to a level of other’s annoyance, I have always asked a lot of questions and I’m always analyzing things that interest me. Read more>>

Eddie Matus

When I was at the end of my undergraduate studies in orchestral conducting and composition, I took my first steps in learning what I do now when I entered the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay (UTU) to study guitar construction. Read more>>

Demyra B

I started doing makeup in middle school, and soon graduated to raiding my mom’s makeup bag. I researched makeup gurus on YouTube and started out with drugstore makeup. Read more>>

L.R. Braden

When I was very young, my mother read to me. Then she read with me. Then I read on my own, and I’ve been reading ever since. It’s fair to say that reading was my first, best, and most trusted teacher when it comes to writing. Read more>>

Christine Macdonald

I once heard a saying: “If you want to be a better writer, read, read, read.” Growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia in the ’80s, I had a difficult time with reading comprehension in school; it was frustrating. Read more>>