Doing things differently often leads to outsized results and so we connected with some of the most inspiring leaders and trailblazers we know and asked them to go into detail about what they do differently relative to others in their industry.

Samantha Phillips

I started photography from a young age and always had a love for capturing candid moments of my friends and family. I got my first DSLR when I was 14 and that was really the start of it all. After many years of photography being a hobby, I decided to start taking it seriously in college. I upgraded my camera and started learning the ins and outs of shooting in manual and what every single button did. Read more>>

Daniela Gomez

I picked up a pencil and started drawing when I was about six years old. I remember filling up my notebooks in just a few days. At the beginning, it was mostly copying cartoons from books or drawing outfits for my friends, but it quickly escalated to more detailed and intricate work. I was devoted to capturing anything in my world onto those pages. I would say I learned 95% of what I know by practicing. I never really took any art classes, I believe if you have a passion for art you can become a great artist, all it takes is practice. Read more>>

Romell Greene

The main thing that helped me along my journey of learning video production and just media as an art form generally would have to be Trail and error. I’ve watched a lot of videos and consumed some literature on the topic of video production and they’ve helped immensely, but theory can only go so far and doesn’t help too much with critical thinking when something goes wrong which it will ha! like a piece of equipment is missing or a battery dieing which is an essential part of a producer of any kind I think. Read more>>

Lauren Lewis

I learned to model through taking courses with my agency and practicing what I learned there by incorporating it in my daily routine. For example when getting dressed, I practice photo posing in the mirror, and when working out, I put my heels on when I get on the treadmill and catwalk; at a slow pace of course. To be honest my consistency wasn’t always there, so to speed up the learning process I would have definitely needed to be more consistent and invested a little more time . Read more>>

Virginia Vogt

I have been an actor for as long as I can remember. I did my first school play at the age of 6 and spent my entire youth on stage. Even as I pursued other interests (namely for college and getting a “real” job) I stayed on the stage as much as I could, acting in community theatre productions and singing in local choirs. So, my first introduction to the craft of acting was through those first people who organized school and community theatre for children and youths. I owe my love of the craft of acting to a magical woman named Jackie Waymire. Read more>>

Vo Vera

Each individual member of our collective has spent on average about 15 years developing their dance styles and street art crafts. That may equate to thousands of training sessions, and tens of thousands of hours. Sessions are often alone, by oneself and especially over the past two years in spaces that were not necessarily conducive to training that craft. Nevertheless, we compromise, accommodate, acclimate, and we keep on pushing forward, despite extraneous external circumstances. Read more>>

Flortcha Flow

Bringing a song to life goes so much deeper than just a catchy tune. Working on a project has thought me the importance of working across instead of up. I take those skills into every aspect of my life. Ive been fortunate to travel quite a bit this past year but with that brings the obstacle of finding groups of people with the same mindset. Read more>>

Henry Herz

There’s a lot more to authoring a children’s picture book than meets the eye. People unfamiliar with the craft may think, “Writing 500 words about any subject? That doesn’t seem very difficult.” I suppose if that’s their entire goal, they may be right. But if their objective is to create a manuscript that’s bought for traditional publication (i.e., by an established publishing house rather than self-publishing), the climb is considerably steeper. Read more>>

Hunter Yee

I learned how to sew clothing back when I was in high school. When I received my first sewing machine I was clueless and very uneducated in sewing. I spent numerous hours watching Youtube tutorials and experimenting on my machine to learn how to sew properly. I would go to the thrift store and purchase second-hand fabric to learn and develop my sewing skills. My Instagram account also allowed me to connect with other designers. Read more>>

Lesley De Abaitua

I work with a lot of power tools, and I am very fortunate to have a husband and father who were willing to show me how to use many of the tools I now use on a daily basis. However, my main tool is a scroll saw, and that is something that I was able to teach myself. Through a lot of trial and error, I was able to find what worked best for me. When I started, the biggest obstacle was the lack of resources on how to learn this tool as well as many elements of the sign making process. This is also what motivated me to create content that would help others in the areas I couldn’t find help. Read more>>

Amanda Kitzman

In 2019 I began having quite a few macrame wall hangings pop up on my Pinterest feed every day. I had been searching for a new hobby so I watched some YouTube tutorials of basic knots and designs. I went to Hobby Lobby, got some cheap rope and a dowel rod and spent that whole night working on my first piece. I was immediately hooked! At the time I had a full time job and worked a lot of over time so I didn’t really have much free time to practice macrame, so that held me back quite a bit as far as growing and learning the craft as quickly as I would have liked. I also had no idea that there was such a large community for macrame artists on social media until about a year ago, so learning about that earlier on would have benefited my growth even more! Read more>>

Jeremy Dion

According to my mother, I came into the world singing. I started playing piano at age 7, and took lessons for several years. I never did learn how to read music, but instead learned to play by ear, and those skills continue to serve me to this day. My father bought me my first guitar for my 18th birthday and thirty years later that continues to be my primary source of musical inspiration as well as joy. I took a handful of initial lessons to learn the basic chords, and from there I relied on jamming with friends and playing by ear to take me where I wanted to go. Read more>>

Cat Gomez

I have been a licensed cosmetologist for 11 years now! Time flies when you’re having fun! For the past 11 years I have specialized in styling hair only. No cuts or color. My specialty is bridal hair. After cosmetology school I started working at a blow dry bar where I learned how to do blowouts and curls. Then I met my best friend Carolina Villanueva and she took me under her wing and taught me everything I know about bridal updos! Read more>>

Eighty Spadez

As a kid, I would learn the lyrics of a song that I liked, then I’ll flip the lyrics. That was lots of fun! Later in life, I would take over for whoever was rapping by going off of their last line. As I got good at it, a lot of people were starting to gas my head up. Buying into the hype that I was untouchable on the mic hindered me more than anything. Ego. When I figured that out, it sped up everything! That’s when I feel I became great. Read more>>

Monica Culpepper

As a child my Dad would sit with me in our Living Room and repeatedly show me VCR tapes of gospel groups and choirs.Coaching me as we focused on the drummers and taking mental notes at their musicianship at the same time formed a bond between my Father and I. Honestly I wouldn’t have wanted to speed up the process and journey of becoming a successful musician because every lesson and experience was needed to shape and form me musically and professionally. My most essential skills were the ability of always being teachable and also having a hustle mentality. Read more>>

Marcus Tschapek

Growing up, my father was always tinkering in the garage, building furniture or working on his sailboat. One might think that I learned a lot of my craft from him, but that is not the case. I was never really interested in committing myself to one project at a time. I was the kind of kid that would take things apart to see how they work, and sometimes get it back together correctly. At the time, I lacked the patience and attention to detail to complete most things, including homework and chores. Read more>>

Jessica Lewis

My journey into both photography and voiceover has been fueled by curiosity. I’ve always been curious about how things work, why things happen, how to be more productive, and what to create next. I fell in love with photography around the age of 8, when someone handed me a Polaroid to snap some family Christmas photos. I was fascinated with the control I had behind the camera and loved the feel and sound of snapping the picture, the flash going off, the film ejecting out of the camera, and the long five to ten minutes it took to develop the film right in front of my eyes. Read more>>

Moira Murphy

I believe that craft is often a factor missing from conversations with creatives. The mythos around the mysterious and tortured artist, waiting for inspiration may inspire a certain amount of romanticism, but alone is it harmful to artists as they develop. Working on one’s craft is essential. The catch is that one is never done learning a craft. A painful truth I’ve had to encounter many (humbling) times in my own life. Read more>>

Ervin Brown

Once I decided I wanted to act, the biggest thing for me was finding somewhere to take acting classes. After attending Carol Hickey Acting Studio, I began to understand what being an actor really means. We have a responsibility to play characters authentically and it takes diligent work. I don’t know if there’s a way to “speed up” the development of your imagination. It’s like a muscle and it needs to be exercised but it sometimes needs a break as well. So I think you have to work at a pace that suits you as an artist. In my opinion, the learning never ends, you should always be looking for ways to improve or fine tune your craft. Read more>>

Mitch Nicklas

I’m self taught in photography. I started out with a film camera and learned by reading books about cameras and photography. It was a lot of trial and error (it still is!), shooting rolls of film, waiting for them to be developed, and learning as I went. Knowing what I know now, I would have spent time with other photographers to learn from them. Now, it’s easy to learn with the internet, but when I started it was a lot of time and patience. Read more>>

Myia Paige

My journey to becoming a visual artist started in middle school and progress’s throughout my high school career. I was very involved in the art community. I took art classes, chorus, woodworking, sculpting, home economics, and the list goes on! Pretty much anything pertaining to art or working with my hands I took a liking to. During high school in 2012 /13 my art teacher Mr.Collier pushed me and inspired me to give art my all. After high school I pursued college and that didn’t work out so, YouTube became my best friend! Read more>>

Lauren Zavala

Honestly, I feel like as an artist I am never quite done “learning to do what I do”. I think talent is completely subjective and most of my work centers on honing and practicing my own skills. I started painting, same as most of you, as a kid. I have always loved creating and working with my hands, so coloring/painting/drawing felt very relaxing. After high school, I backpacked around Europe for a semester before I started college. Going from museum to museum, I discovered a deep love of art. After I got back, I promptly declared my undergrad Art History and started absorbing as many studio art and art history classes as I could. Read more>>

Elton Tanega

Before I begin, I would just like to preface all I say with the fact that I am still learning. We as artists, or simply as people, are constantly learning. In my particular case there are new challenges that arises with every passing day in which challenge me to adapt and educate myself further in my craft. But here is everything I know of my craft as of this very moment: Read more>>

Freebird Astro-Naughty

Thank you so very much for granting me the opportunity to be here today. I will have to answer this question in different parts. Part one, I essentially was studying music for my whole life without even realizing that fact. Life was not always easy and music showed me comfort when there was none anywhere else. I had a deep affection with it and the music helped get me through some difficult points in my life. On the flip side of that, it has been there to grow with me, and was there during the good times too. The brightest days, darkest hours, and everything in between, music was always there. I had different music types for whatever was happening. Read more>>

Cameron Graves

I never really learned, I just decided one day that I was going to start painting. It kind of just happened. It’s always good to have background knowledge on what your interested in so I read a lot. I don’t feel like there’s anything that can really speed up a learning process things take time. It’s day by day. To me there aren’t really any essential skills it’s more about trying new things and non repetitive paintings. Read more>>

Finley Jaynes

I learned guitar by ear (slowly over time) and have sang for most of my life. If I knew how much practice makes perfect I would’ve done it so much more early on. Especially with guitar since there are some techniques I still struggle with because of lack of practice. I suppose the only obstacle I can really think of is other jobs. Being a local musician means you basically have two jobs, and only one of them really supports you financially. Read more>>

Susie Ghahremani

When it comes to illustrating and authoring children’s books, I learned almost everything I know about the industry from making connections with peers, taking workshops, attending conferences, and reading books. One of the most wonderful part of a career in children’s literature is how accessible it is to anyone who is interested. I’m sure I would have sped up my learning had I taken any classes on the subject in school or having a mentor in the industry when I was younger, but it wasn’t on my radar at the time. Read more>>