One of the most daunting aspects of pursing a creative or artistic career for many aspiring artists is not knowing how to learn the craft. So, we asked some very talented artists and creatives to talk to us about how they learned their crafts and we hope their stories will help you in your journey.

M. Mason

I have always been inclined to use my hands. My father is a carpenter, and the name “Mason’ refers to “a builder or worker in stone”. I think my love for creating started there. I didn’t go to an art school, so I learned most of what I know from experimenting with my hands, and different mediums. I used crayons, spray paint, pens, pencils, whatever I could get my hands on. I just knew I wanted to create something. For a long time, I felt pressured to leave art on the back burner and just treat it like a hobby. Because of this, I didn’t put as much time into my craft as I should have. Read more>>

Christopher Barker

I first became interested in magic when I was a student in college. I had my first close up experience in Edinburgh, Scotland, where I had been spending part of the summer with my brother and a group of improv performers at the Fringe Festival. One of the improv performers was a magician, and he ended up showing me a few effects with cards. After I showed some interest, he recommended a book to me and it was that book got me started on the path to wanting to learn more! Read more>>

It’s Fine

There’s really no way to speed up the learning process when it comes to this type of stuff. Knowledge comes with time, making mistakes, and an open mind. Networking is such a simple but very impactful tool and sometimes when you’re young and full of angst, that could be an obstacle. Read more>>

Kyle Countuh

I learned the craft of producing through tons of research, trials & errors. There was many ways I could’ve speeded up my workflow & process but I didn’t for a reason. Many skills were essential to me & still til this day. There’s always obstacles it’s really how you handle them. Read more>>

Derek W. Dooms

I started playing piano around 8 years old and switched to guitar at 13. From there on out I’ve been hooked on music. My grandfather was a carpenter but when he got off work at night he’d break out an instrument and show me a few licks. I eventually took a few guitar lessons from a local teacher and once I graduated high school I left to study guitar at Musician’s Institute in Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to get a gig with a signed artist in LA and we bounced around different studios working on his album with multiple producers. This gave me a behind the curtain look at not only how songs are written but also how they’re recorded and mixed. 
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Marina Kofman

Learning to be an actress has been a continuous journey for me, shaped by a combination of formal training, on-set experiences, and personal exploration. I started with acting college, which provided a solid foundation in technique and the theory of performance. However, much of my learning came from being on set, observing seasoned actors, and taking direction from filmmakers. Every role, no matter how small, was an opportunity to refine my craft. I also spent time studying films, reading scripts, and practicing scenes on my own or with peers. Immersing myself in different characters helped me understand the nuances of human emotion and interaction. Read more>>

Keyundra Thompson

Writing is something I’ve always been great at. It started as a fun hobby. Believe it or not, I wanted to be a famous singer and dancer as a kid. So I would write songs. That lead to writing poetry and short stories at an early age. I’ve always had a love for reading as well. It was my 8th grade year, and I remember wining an award for writing. It was unexpected, but that’s when I knew I really wanted to write someday. I’ve had several teachers who saw my hidden talent for writing, and fed into my love for reading. I was also vice president of the journalism club in high school Read more>>

Jess Ofelia Sandoval

My Artistic Journey Early Inspiration and Self-Taught Beginnings My passion for art, painting, and textiles was ignited during my childhood, nurtured in libraries, through PBS, my mother’s 1980s World Book Encyclopedia Collection, and individual caring teachers. These early experiences planted the seeds of creativity that would flourish later in my life. Though I am self-taught, I embraced the challenge of learning and developing my skills independently, driven by a deep love for the craft. Read more>>

Melinda Whitten

I graduated with a B.A. in Visual Arts from Baylor University and went back for a further 2 years of postgraduate work in Printmaking (Lithography, Intaglio, and Silkscreen). During my studies I fell in love with ink and paper, and the processes involved in creating art (almost as much as the subject matter of the art itself!). Currently, I work with ink and watercolor. These, combined with my strong drawing skills, allow me to use a layering process and slowly build depth within my work. I lean into detail in my drawings but inks and watercolors can have mind of their own becoming, in a way, a partner in the creative process and therefore freeing me from the need for control. Read more>>

J Tyler Pennington

The best way to learn is to do. Reading books and watching instructional videos is fine and helpful, but as the old adage says: practice makes perfect. Do it bad. Do it well. Everything helps! Looking back on my writing journey, I think that if I joined a writer’s group sooner I would have improved a lot faster. Everyone is blind to their own flaws, and having other like-minded people help your process was and is incredibly valuable. Read more>>

Moriyah Cordova

I have always loved stories. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things was when my parents would tell me stories. Sometimes they would make up stories about adventures, daring obstacles, and perilous quests. Sometimes they would read stories like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis or The Little House Books by Laura Ingles Wilder. Stories have always been such an integral part of my life. I suppose, given how much I loved stories, that becoming a writer was destined, though I used to not think it was.  Read more>>

Tod Weidner

I think everyone- EVERYONE- has a creative spark somewhere within them; it’s one of the cool little prizes that come in the cereal box of being a human. I was very fortunate to be encouraged to be creative from a young age by my parents. Drawing was my first love, but music crept in right around preschool age with a stack of scratchy old 45 records my sister and I got from my mom. I latched on to Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” right away. My other top jam was the Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Chattanooga Choo Choo”. What can I say? It was a wild stack of records. Read more>>

Jonathan Rocci

At the beginning of my content creation journey in 2020, I started with no clear goals, aspirations, or expectations. Like many, I turned to content creation during the COVID-19 pandemic—a time when options for entertainment were limited, and social distancing kept us apart from loved ones. In the midst of isolation and the challenges of mental health, content creation became my lifeline, helping me stay connected to the world. Read more>>

Serena Simpson

I am an IASTE 479 Location Sound Mixer for the film industry. I have always had alway had an appreciation for stained glass and had dabbled in creating some. Thoughts of “I could never do that for a living“ constantly swirled in my mind. During the SAG / AFTRA / WRITERS strike I found myself without a career for eight months. It was a very terrifying time, and I found myself diving more into my stained glass. I spent days and days doing other peoples patterns and mastering new skills in the process. It felt like a journey, discovering myself as a person and artist while creating my own style. Read more>>

Jaci Kjernander

I began acting as a child on stage, receiving some of my best training with Kelly Eggers and the Oyster River Players. Those early days were formative—I have the fondest memories of that crew. It was there that I first learned essential skills, like how to walk in heels as an awkward, gangly pre-teen, and how to improvise when a fellow actor forgot their line during a Shakespeare play. That experience, and Kelly’s encouragement, was a pivotal moment in my stage-acting journey. Read more>>

Moona Sanaullah

I’ve always been a creative. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been into writing, acting, singing, playing instruments, dancing —the list goes on. It was when I finally landed on my hobby of painting during high school where I found a peace I didn’t quite find in others hobbies. I was never good at drawing or sketching so being able to paint was exciting. Simultaneously, I was using foundation to cover up acne. Painting allowed me to explore the makeup world a bit more. My skills from painting transferred from a canvas to a face and it became more thrilling when that face would have such amazing reactions about how they feel with my creation on them. It’s like my canvases were talking back. During college, I worked at Ulta. Read more>>

Maddy Mullahey

I’m pretty much self-taught. My photography journey started on YouTube in 2020, going down a rabbit hole of videos on lighting, composition, software, etc. I used my friends to model and just kept shooting. I began posting my work on Instagram and TikTok to connect with other creatives. This led me to work on partnerships with Kodak and Adobe Photoshop. Building community is what really sped up the process for me. I was sharing my learning experiences online, attending photo events and gallery openings in my community. Read more>>

Rose Lu

When Rose began training in New York as a dancer, she encountered a significant challenge: the movements felt like a foreign language due to their cultural roots. Having grown up in Taiwan, Rose was unfamiliar with the nuances of these new dance styles, making it difficult for her to replicate the intended feelings before gaining a deeper understanding of the local culture. The body language intrinsic to everyday interactions of people in New York was different from what she was accustomed to, complicating her ability to convey the essence of the movements. Read more>>

Jonathan Minton

Learning my craft started as a kid with play. As the son of an art store owner and letterpress operator I had access to myriad materials to experiment with. In my childhood bedroom I was sketching, building, glueing, spray painting, melting plastic – often to the chagrin of my parents. After studying product design in college I landed the most influential and life-changing job at a museum exhibit fabrication company. It was there I learned about so many materials and processes along with mentorship that proved invaluable to my current work. Molding and casting became the most useful of all the skills I picked up and still use regularly. I always felt that I learned skills right when I needed them. If I don’t know what I need to for a particular project, I figure it out. If I don’t have the facilities or the know-how, ie forging glass or CNC milling, I find someone to collaborate with. Read more>>

Miriam Sophia Trabelsi

My journey into the world of photography began during an extraordinary time, the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many, I found myself confronted with a surreal reality, a daily life reduced to long walks in nature. These moments, despite their isolation, revealed a unique and profound beauty. Life had come to a halt, and in the silence of that suspended time, I began to capture fragments of existence—moments of light, shadows, and colors that narrated the stories of humanity in waiting. Read more>>

Jacob Gotlib

For the last decade, my career has been in arts administration, and I think I speak for many of my fellow arts administrators when I say that this is not quite where we imagined our paths would take us! At age eight, as a childhood metalhead, I obviously wanted to be a rockstar. As a teenager, I discovered that beyond playing video games, I could use my computer to create, play with, and arrange sounds — and from that moment, becoming a composer was a path toward a musical life that became increasingly attractive. Read more>>

Scott Mclean

I mostly learned how to play guitar by listening to records over and over and learning chords, solos, etc. Constantly dropping and re-dropping the needle on records. Today, there are YouTube videos showing how to play almost any song and any style of music, as well as theory, but back then, pre-internet, it took a bit more work and motivation to learn to play. The motivation was a good thing though; it wasn’t handed to me or spoon-fed. You had to want to learn. Today, that motivation keeps me learning. The most essential skill I think I learned was how to learn by listening. That is a valuable skill in any endeavor. Read more>>

Josh Veselka

I Learned too create and make music from a dark place in my struggles with life, It led me too escape through music watching juice wrld freestyle is what led me too begin the journey through music. I could have reached out and networked alot better in the beginning as well as not being as scared of what people thought of me and how I would create. The skills that were most essential were Consistent effort too craft and find my truest sound while using patience in my craft. It really comes down too passion,effort,obsession and how hard you can push yourself for the best sound. Read more>>

Autumn Kidd

I would firstly categorize myself as a film photographer, specializing in 35mm and 120 film. Having this base has led me to pursuing printmaking, which I am currently in the middle of my program. This chapter in my life has helped me reimagine my art process. It has helped me rethink the messages I am trying to convey in my work and how I find those meanings. I now see my images in relation to the printmaking process. Read more>>

Mercae Benge

I started my photography business journey very slowly. I’d dabbled with photography in high school, but it wasn’t until I started a travel blog that I bought a used crop sensor Nikon camera on Facebook marketplace for $100 so I could DIY photos. I started taking pictures with my new-to-me camera and discovered a passion for photography. I quickly became inseparable from my camera, snapping portraits of my pets, my friends, myself, and anyone who would jump in front of my camera to practice. Read more>>

Nancy Made

In my journey as an artist, chasing after nostalgia has always been at the core of my creative process. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of capturing the essence of memories and emotions through art, which led me to explore a wide range of multimedia techniques. My learning process was very hands-on; I experimented with different materials and mediums—like watercolor, colored pencils, digital art, and collage—blending them together to create pieces that evoke a sense of timelessness and familiarity. Read more>>