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.

Jacob Stieneker

Music found me early. At six years old, I was picking out Mozart melodies on my grandmother’s weathered upright piano. In middle school, I joined the percussion section and fell in love with rhythm. Next to the metronome, the drum set became my favorite part of music, the one that felt most like home. I stayed with the band through my freshman year, but reading sheet music never came easily to me. I was always drawn to sound over structure, to what felt right over what was written. Read more>>

Christian Ford

When I first started producing music, I learned by literally just playing with the DAW I was working on at the time, which was Fruity Loops or FL Studio whichever you’d like to call it. I would click on buttons and turn knobs on the DAW and see what they would do. Eventually me and my boy Frank started to figure out how things worked in the DAW. Read more>>

Christopher Spicer

I have been enamored with art since the first moment I touched pencil to paper (I still recall my kindergarten teacher telling me that I drew the best dinosaurs in the whole class). As I have grown, so too has my experience with a wide range of materials and techniques (and my dinosaurs are even better now). Over the years, I have completed projects in graphite, charcoal, ink, colored pencil, pastel, watercolor, and acrylic. And there are still so many more mediums that I am excited to learn. Read more>>

Wynne Wong

Honestly, I learned by just diving in, headfirst. Starting my Instagram account wasn’t something I planned. I had no strategy, no clue what I was doing! A friend and co-worker who shared my love of fashion and handbags encouraged me to start posting, and we both began as a fun hobby. Little by little, I learned the skills and nuances that helped improve the content: discovering what resonated, filming and editing reels, improving lighting, and engaging with the community. I watched what others were doing, asked questions, and absorbed everything I could. Read more>>

CEO STOLOW

Yoo I’m STOLOW and to be honest it took a very long time to get where I’m at now an I’m still not where I wanna be one thing I can say is stay consistent and never give up it’s gonna be people that don’t like your music it’s gonna be people who do it’s been days I been stuck and couldn’t rap but k kept trying and the better I got. Read more>>

Sarah Sawchuk

As a Stand-up Comedian, the only way to learn how to perform stand-up comedy is to get on a stage and speak into the mic. That’s it. It’s the same for performing Drag: you need to find a stage and just do it. As an Artist, we already have an idea of what we’re going to do when we’re about to walk on to the stage and perform. We have a visual of what’s going to happen, and that’s part of our craft, but not all of it. The true craft comes in when there’s that moment of silence between a joke, a bit, a song, whatever medium it is, there will always be a moment for the artist to choose how they want to treat the moment of silence: will they give the audience a window into their performer’s personality and react to the silence?  Read more>>

Sean Carlo Martini

Questions. I will never cease to consider myself a student of the game. Anyone who knows me knows that when I’m around another creative, I tend to dive deep into the rabbit hole — it can be so eye-opening to explore how other people think and work. There seems to be an unspoken stigma that curiosity nowadays is synonymous with ignorance. I feel like it’s quite the contrary. I have no shame wearing curiosity on my sleeve. Read more>>

Ahona Paul

Since I can remember, I’ve always been a self-taught creative. This was in the sense that I would always seek out knowledge in the arts spaces around me. I recall sitting in the back of the high school figure drawing class as a little 5th grader, trying to sketch with my color pencils, following the charcoal strokes of the older students. Going to art school was always a dream of mine, so when I got into my dream art university, I made the promise to soak in everything I could and use every resource disposable to me. The first year I was there, I did every shop orientation; learning how to use a bandsaw in the wood shop, new stitches at the sewing orientations, different glazes and firing techniques at the ceramics lab and much more. Read more>>

Tyler Glover

I got my start at Fricassee French Bistro in Montclair, New Jersey, under Chef Mark Papera. That experience was foundational. I began there as a food runner, and by the time I was preparing to attend culinary school, I was already working the line—handling everything from sauté to salads. Chef Mark saw that I was dedicated, and at just 18 or 19, he trusted me enough to give me keys to the restaurant. That trust and mentorship meant everything, and I’ll always be grateful for it. Read more>>

Aika Raymond

My work would not be possible without the support of others.
In glassmaking, we deal with materials heated to over 700°C, which makes it essential to work as a team. I communicate the shape and movement I envision to my assistants, and together we manipulate the molten glass to bring the form to life. It’s not something I can do alone. Read more>>

Carlos

So, it’s funny because I actually got my very first drum kit when I was 2 years old, as a Christmas present from my parents. This was in the early 70s, so you can imagine how “rinky-dink” this thing was – more of a toy than some of the real drum kits out there for kids. It still was the push to get me to learn how to play and teach myself, and practice throughout the years as a kid. My actual first real kit wasn’t until I was around 20 when I had to dish out the cash on my own. It was a TAMA kit that was made of maple which gave some deep, dark tones. Read more>>

Duke Mark

My artistic journey was largely self-taught. I gathered various materials, experimented with them, and observed how they reacted under different conditions. Through trial and error, I developed my skills and understanding of different mediums. Read more>>

Alec Norris

Through non stop studying and practicing 18 hours a day, everyday, for years. The thing about this day and age is everyone wants to find a way to speed up the process; to get to the end result as soon as possible. No one wants to take the time to develop the craft properly so they can have the unshakeable foundation that would be able to create and sustain careers similar to our predecessors we hold in such high regard. This requires a very strong patience and hunger to want to work yourself to the bone to get a fraction of a bit better everyday. Read more>>

Eric Ji

In college, I took some computer science courses for a minor. At the time, almost all computer science courses were not interesting to me – until I took Intro to Web Development! There I learned the fundamentals of building a website, and fell in love cooking up sites ever since:) Read more>>

Jan D Payne

Before my decision to write full-time, I made it a point to attend lectures given by local authors– in libraries and churches and schools–as a way to discover their ‘writing’ advice, as many of them, like myself, had retired from previous careers before deciding to write professionally. I was surprised to discover that advice, by and large, was to take as many writing classes as possible and for at least a year before attempting a major writing project like the novel I wished to write. Read more>>

Madhupriya Srinivasan

I am mostly a self taught artist and have also enjoyed learning from occasional workshops. I have worked with different mediums over the years but at this point in my career, I am painting mostly with watercolors. Interestingly, this is the medium I struggled the most with for many years! I was fascinated with the fluidity of the medium and the way watercolors seemed to bring light into the space. Read more>>

Vanessa Velib

I started painting instinctively as a child, and later took formal art classes that gave me technique and freedom to express myself. Looking back, I learned by doing. Exploration has always been the way forward for me—trying different techniques, materials, and approaches, and having fun in the process. That curiosity is what keeps the work alive. Read more>>

Tina Wall

Learning what I do now has been a lifelong, winding journey. I’ve always been drawn to creative people and admired their work from the sidelines, believing I lacked the vision to be one of them. I enjoyed crafting and had an eye for color, but didn’t see myself as an artist—though I now firmly believe that crafting is a form of art. Read more>>

Anthony Kosiakowski

I always loved drawing…as far back as I can remember, and as a matter of fact I recently found some drawings from when I was five or six in my sisters house. Drawing is where it all started, it’s the foundation of everything I do, it’ll always be my favorite part of the painting process, and in a way it’s the answer to all these questions. Read more>>

William

I don’t think there’s any way to learn how to be a standup comedian other than just going out there and doing it over and over and over again. There’s no blueprint on how to be funny, taking a comedy class could be helpful to break that barrier of never having done it before, but it won’t unlock anything for you. You have to figure it out through trial and error. Every comic you meet when you are starting out that has experience for many years and is actually funny will all say the same things, you have to get up every night and just try your jokes. Read more>>

Krysti Jerdin

I started taking pictures as a kid, with my parent’s camera. I always enjoyed capturing moments in our flower garden. In high school, I enrolled in a proper photography class, and began to learn the fundamentals of photography, exposure times, lighting, composition, and the developing process of film. Read more>>

Monica Denevan

I learned how to darkroom print when I studied photography at San Francisco State University many years ago and I continue this practice now. Learning how to photograph people in Myanmar/Burma required a lot of trial and error. I was fortunate to be able to return to specific locations and people over the years to make more portraits. I don’t think I could have sped up the learning process as it requires time to see, to learn from mistakes, and to trust one’s gut. Some essential skills are adapting to the unknown, being spontaneous, letting things evolve organically, and listening to the inner voice. The obstacles I encountered were often self-imposed like being rigid with a preconceived idea, or ignoring signs that the vision should go in a different direction, or not asking more questions. Read more>>

Yelan Tong

My journey to craft was multi-faceted. There were 3 core components: academic, on the job learning, and an unending curiosity. Like many ad creatives, I went to an school to understand how to put together a portfolio. It included learning programs and art director basics, but then once I was on the job, that was a whole other thing. This was back in the mid 2000s and I took a job with an agency who had just lost a huge client. Huge areas of whole floors of a Madison Ave agency were empty. I felt lucky to be there and I took it upon myself to do more projects, learn from people around me, and take more on. I was hungry. Read more>>

Delano Mendoza

I’ve had some remarkable mentors in my life who have helped to shape the person I am today. One in particular, Dr. Carol Krueger keeps coming to mind as I think through this question. Dr. Krueger was my collegiate choral professor who challenged me to think of learning as a lifelong endeavor rather than a means to an end. Her impact on my life Is immeasurable. Read more>>

Adriane Moreno

I learned most of what I do for my design process through watching others and then mirroring and experimenting. One of the most essential skills I learned early on was to trust my creative taste, to go towards intuitive associations and references that are sparkly to me. I learned this in an acting class with an incredible teacher, Maria Dizzia, who taught us to treat associations as strange, beautiful gifts from the subconscious world and not try to overthink or reject them by coming up with a clever conceptual idea. She led us to practice a playful, conspiring reverence for the imaginary space that offers inspiration. Read more>>

Olena Blagulyak

I began learning piano at a very young age, inspired and encouraged by my mother, who is also a pianist. Even as a toddler, I was deeply sensitive to music—I would smile or cry in response to the sounds around me. My mother recognized this early connection and began nurturing it, encouraging me to play simple tunes by ear and improvise over her accompaniment when I was just three years old. Read more>>

Austin Wilson

Having a passion for what you are doing is fundamental. I didn’t have family or friends who worked in the industry, so I mostly learned through observing on set and just refusing to quit. The last few years we’ve seen a lot more technology integrate into production, and new technology is always evolving so there’s an element of learning as you go and making sure everything you’re learning is cumulative. By staying current with new technology, I’ve been blessed to have worked on some cutting edge systems and products; like volumetric video with Intel Trueview, player puck tracking and on ice graphics with SMT, and VAR and other systems with SONY. I never felt successful in school, but have realized as an adult that I learn in a more practical way and wish I could have told my younger self that my grades weren’t going to be indicative of my future success. Read more>>