The world needs artists and creatives. Unfortunately, being needed doesn’t often easily translate into financial stability. The struggle is real for so many incredibly talented artists and creatives and so we think it’s important to hear from creatives who have made it work – there is so much to learn from the folks we’ve featured below.

Aina Kawamoto

As they say, it’s all about timing… I was working at one of the biggest retail corporate companies in Canada at that time. It was a creative role, full-time but no flexibility and the typical 9-5 job. Meanwhile, I always had a vision to work for myself one day (and when I say one day, as in once I have few kids and want to be home closer to them) doing the work I do so I kept applying for part-time roles or freelance work I could find on the side with respect to the time dedicated to this full-time job. Read more>>

Ansley Kane Oberkofler

If you were to go back in time 6 years ago and tell me I would own my own business and freelance full-time, I’m not sure I would have believed you. Read more>>

Kali Kirkland

Earning a full-time living from creative work can be really daunting at first. The first time I ever experienced the backlash of going into a creative field was in high school. When I made the decision to go to Fashion School, many guidance counselors and teachers told me that it would take years of work and I wouldn’t make that much money. They really discouraged the idea and told me that the safer option would be health care or finance. Read more>>

Stevenson Opoku

Earning a full-time living from my creative work has definitely been a journey. I first got into content creation in high school back in Virginia. My initial inspiration was soccer phenom Cristiano Ronaldo. Soccer was my life and passion at the time and I had a huge obsession with Ronaldo. His style and flare caught my attention. Read more>>

Jimell Greene

I am luckily a full-time photographer and cinematographer but that was not always the case. Early on in my career, I was a photo assistant. That allowed me to make a living in the industry I was passionate about while learning and networking with fellow photographers. Assisting opened up the photo world for me. I was able to experience the various kinds of photography and work on a myriad of sets. While on set I met a few photo editors and years later those photo editors gave me my first opportunity to photograph for a magazine. Read more>>

Whitney Winkler

I started painting over a decade ago while at home with a toddler and pregnant with baby #2. It began as just an outlet, and a way to create something for myself. Watercolor was the perfect medium, because it allowed me to start and finish something in one sitting, and walk away feeling fulfilled. I began selling my small paintings to friends– and then friends of friends. But, it wasn’t until 3.5 years later (after a third child) that I began selling more often, re-investing money from my sales back into the business, and really incrementally building something in the margins of my time as a mother. Read more>>

Frank Swisher

Yes, I have earned a full-time living from my creative work. I just wish I had more knowledge years ago and hadn’t taken the money so quickly with no thought to the ownership of my work. The difference between pushing for credits and maintaining publishing is key. That means being the boss, and when you think like an employee you get the wages of an employee. In the beginning, it was like ’92, ’93 give me a $100 for a beat. Read more>>

 

Shelly Fairchild

I started singing when I was able to talk. For as far back as my memory goes, I have wanted to make a full-time living as a singer. I started singing publicly at my church as a young teenager, and I started professionally singing in musical theatre in Jackson, Mississippi, where I was born. I played the roll of Patsy Cline in “Always…Patsy Cline” when I was 19 years old and I saved the money I made from that show to move to Nashville, Tennessee. After moving to Nashville and being prompted by my friends that were making music, I realized I better learn how to write songs. I had always been a “writer”… of poems and such. However, I had only dabbled in writing songs when I was in college. Read more>>

Lauren Luna

I decided to go full time artist without the crutch of a full time job in October 2019. I had worked very hard, establishing myself as an artist here in Houston, and thought that the time had come that this would be something feasible. The end of festival season was winding down, but I still had gigs and commissions in addition to them throughout the end of the year. Then the spring festival season was ready to start up, and COVID hit. Every one of my festivals, and subsequently the commissions, gigs, and contacts I make at them, were canceled. I was very thankful that I had decided to accept a few part time teaching positions at the local colleges. Read more>>

Roz LeCompte

After 25+ years of constantly creating, I am proud to not have a day job or a boss. I’m still amazed at the journey. It was not calculated or well planned out. It has been much like my paintings.. intuitive and abstract. I have always had the strong need to create. Read more>>

Arianna Castillo

When I started my life after high school I decided to major in architecture, when covid happened I think it gave me a lot of time to really think about what I wanted from life. When I was furloughed I was able to get unemployment, which jumpstarted my business. I worked in retail and joined a tattoo studio as an apprentice. I think that really pushed me towards making the decision between my day job and my, at the time, side hustle. I think posting on social media is really what gave me my career. I almost feel my business was given to me. I got lucky to be able to create and make money from it. I feel very blessed. Read more>>

Mauricio Benega

Yes, I make a living from my full-time creative work. I’ve been doing this since 2014 when I opened my business, called Studio Benega Ltd. Everything became very clear that I was going to follow my creative career and be successful in 1997 when a few events took place. I got a job doing freelance illustrations for the main newspaper in Curitiba, Brazil, where I used to live before moving to New Zealand. That opportunity was amazing, it didn`t just teach me how to draw fast using black ink, watercolors and gouache, but also showcase my work for a lot of people and solidate my name, helping to generate more freelance work for advertising agencies and design companies. Read more>>

Victoria Chetley

I always had a passion for photography but it wasn’t until I went to college and had a fantastic professor who told me I could actually make photography my career that I even realised it was an option. After that I was adamant that’s all I wanted and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Read more>>

Luke London

I got my start working in the salon and beauty retail world. For years, I sold cosmetics and performed beauty services for retail customers while slowly building my personal clientele and doing hair and makeup as a freelance artist on the side. Eventually I was able to network with some photographers here in Saint Louis and that’s how I got my foot in the door working on set for shoots. Doing so inspired me to pursue photography on my own as well. Read more>>

Natasha Thompson

I visualized Xpressivedesigns by Natasha being a multi-million dollar business before I even knew I could own a business. I used to look at other women who were business owners and say wow they are so blessed. I believed that status of success could only be reached by those who grew up a certain way or just had the long end of the stick. I knew I would attain that type of prosperity and recognition one day. I just didn’t know how. The older I became, the wiser I grew from life’s lessons, which allowed me to truly go within and find what it is I am most passionate about. Read more>>

Wyatt Thomas

I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to do what I love as a full time job! I started making money playing music when I was around 14-15 years old playing bass at an open mic night that my dad and a friend of his ran. That’s where I learned most of the important skills and tools that I use most often today; like learning songs on the fly, and networking. After that, I started playing in a band around the same age with a co-worker of my mom and started to meet more people in my area and just kept going up from there. Read more>>

Dan Payne

I have been very fortunate to be able to make a living from my creative work. My love of performance and the ‘demand’ of performance in front of an audience came via sports. My first career as a professional athlete awoke that relationship of connection and communication with an audience through performance. When I retired from sport, I still deeply craved that experience and traded the gym for the stage. In the beginning, it was a very difficult transition. I spent numerous years learning to achieve my personal best as an athlete but was now entering a whole new world as a complete rookie. Read more>>

Chera Creative

In March of 2022 I took the leap to pursue Chera Creative full-time. Since you now know the happy ending, let me back track and give you the journey as to how I got there. I majored in Graphic Design at Abilene Christian University because although painting was my biggest passion I thought it valuable to learn a new skill set that would only expand my artistic expertise and allow me to create artwork digitally and physically. Read more>>

Mark Bettis

Coming from an artistic family (musicians) and family business I have always been in the creative industry of some kind. Started in Design/Computer Graphics at Ringling School of Arts in Sarasota Florida. After working in Sarasota for a few years as a graphic designer I decided to move to Chicago to pursue working at larger agencies. I got a job right off the bat at a large promotional advertising agency in Chicago and stayed there for about 8 years working my way up to Creative Director within the agency. I worked with large accounts such as Target, Mc Donalds, USPS and United Airlines to name a few. Read more>>

Christina Kwan

It was becoming a mother in 2020 during the pandemic that made me truly commit to artwork full-time as the ONLY way to make a living. Leading up to that, I always had either a full-time job or a handful of freelance jobs that kept me afloat. It was a gradual transition for me to build enough demand for my work that I could actually charge enough to let go of everything else. Some years I was vending at local craft markets, other years I was focused on building particular types of clients. Read more>>

T. Cooper

Fortunately, I have been able to earn enough money to support myself doing make up in here full-time. From day one it was pretty tough. I had a career as a professional tailor, and I thought I would be able to leverage those relationships when I decided to do make up. I did a lot of work gor brands and publications, so I thought I had an advantage, but it was quite the opposite. Read more>> 

Becca Grimm

The story behind taking my photography business full-time goes back pretty far, to my early college days. When I began shooting in my first (and only) photography course during my freshman year of college I immediately knew it was going to become a lifelong passion. However, I loved learning about and researching participants in my psychology curriculum and I was fascinated by the way people develop, think, and interact with others. I pursued my bachelor’s degree and graduated from Penn State but knew I wanted to take my side hobby of photographing seniors and couples to the next level. Read more>>

Rinat Halon Neal

When people say to me ‘ Wow! You succeeded overnight!’ I answer: ‘ Yes, but 25 years is a long, long night. I’ve been making a living as a professional photographer for over 25 years, and at first, naturally, it was far from easy. If I could do it over again I would invest in a great mentor and business coach in my field immediately. Yes it can get expensive, but looking back I believe it’s the best investment in a business starting up and best possible shortcut to success – learning from someone who has been there and done that successfully. Read more>>

Israel “REALXTY” Unzueta

I became a full time independent artist / creative entrepreneur in May 2021. Up until that point, my recording studio business was nothing more than a side hustle. Since I began making music 12-13 years ago, I’ve recorded my own vocals, and attempted to learn the ins-and-outs of mixing and mastering. It wasn’t until 2019 that I started engineering and producing for other people as a job. Read more>>

Dani Woods

I am able to work fulltime as a creative through a few different ways. I am an animator fulltime, and I also do caricatures at parties. I started doing caricatures when I was in school at a theme park and as I got better another artist asked me to do a party with him. I thought it was really fun to do and started drawing at parties occasionally while in school. My first few were birthday parties, then I started meeting party and event planners who hired me for their events. I still work for many of these planners and I also advertise my own work so that anyone can find and hire me directly. Read more>>

Kai Dickson

Sometimes I compare living as a freelance creative to being a hunter-gatherer; you never know what you’re going to bring home, or if you’ll bring anything home at all. At times this can be frightening, but I’ve reached the understanding you will need to withstand a certain amount of financial instability in this industry, especially when you’re starting out. Read more>>

Nyki Nechiporenko

I fortunately have been able to earn a living and support my family doing what I love but let me tell ya, it’s been a journey! Everything has been a learning experience. I was able to be creative and “be me” in the beginning of my career but when I had started getting taken advantage of at the salon I was at, I was hired at a large well known salon in my area. Within the first year, my veteran co workers tried to have me fired multiple times saying I didn’t place color or even mix properly. Read more>>

Abigail Peugh

I’ve been doing creative work as far back as I can remember (Social media manager, creative director, nannying to celebrities, stock photos, digital products, UGC creation), but 2022 was the first year I went ALL IN doing creative work as my OWN business owner. It had always been a side hustle thing for me. But, in early 2022, my husband had 2 strokes unexpectedly, so I needed to bring in more income, and I needed to do it fast. I decided to fire all my existing freelance clients that were sucking up all my time and energy, and go FULL TIME with UGC and teaching others how to do UGC. Read more>>

Jake Morrison

For the past four years or so, yes. It was a journey similar to many others, and it started with a twenty-year old college student pushing shopping carts in the parking lot of Target for a living. I got my first gig doing small characters for a game that never got made- all the while I was developing my own IP in the form of comic books. Read more>>

Neal Eilers

Yes, fortunately I have been able to turn my creative work into a full-time living. I was at a point in my life where I told myself if you don’t try to follow your passion and what you enjoy doing, there might not be a better time to do so. My journey without even realizing it started in high school in the wood shop class. Since then, I’ve always done projects here and there but never made a push to make it a business. Fast forward to a few years before the pandemic and I found myself getting more into wildlife and landscape photography. Once I started to print and try to sell my photos, I thought of ways that would separate my work from other photographers. Read more>>

Lindsey Hanson

Yes, My husband and I have been making a full-time living with Rustic Oak Designs for 2. 5 years now. It did not happen overnight, but I do think it happened pretty fast for us. Before we did this business full time, Shane did construction (he worked for himself), and I worked full time as an RN at the Mayo Clinic. Less than 1 year into the business, we made the decision to have Shane take on full time. Read more>>

Jorge Melo

Well yes, I have made it possible to earn a living from what I am passionate about, and it was a process of many sacrifices because I had to emigrate from my native country and practically start from the beginning and redo what I had already done for years, step by step creating my students and dancers to form the foundations of my academy today, and I think there is no way to speed up the process when you talk about learning, so it was always a new challenge every day but in the end it has brought us the results we wanted Read more>>