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.

Lacey HILL

Following your dreams isint always easy but its the most rewarding. Beleiving in yourself and honouring your gifts that Creator gave you is what we are meant to do here as humans. its connected to our souls and happiness. how to speed up milestones?? well … the more inner work you do the more the outer world responds. the way you think and feel is a direct result in our personal realities. Read more>>

Sean Dillingham

Here’s the advice I give actors all the time. You have to redefine with the phrase “making it” means. Most actors have this grandiose vision of what making it means. A big mansion, big cars, private jet, millions of dollars, your choice of Scripts, etc. etc., the fact of the matter is, if you’re able to go out and do stage, TV, commercials, movies, you’ve made it. If you’re earning your living, acting, traveling, and seeing the country, you’ve made it. Read More>>

Jacob Acosta

It has taken some time, but right now I’m proud to say I am earning my living as a performer, and as an original musical artist. I’ve been performing and recording music professionally now for 17 years, and the journey has been quite colorful. When I first started earning money playing music, I was a music leader in my church, and also a music leader in a Christian-based organization for college co-eds. I mostly performed other people’s music, and had to direct other members of a band or ensemble, before evening turning 20. The pay was probably close to 1/4 of what I make now per show, when I first started out. Read more>>

Aaron Cruz

Originally, my career aspiration was to make a living as a guitarist and recording engineer. I graduated from the Musicians Institute and the Los Angeles Recording Workshop roughly 20 years ago. Although it was a journey filled with highs and lows, the most significant challenge came during the COVID-19 pandemic when my live performance gigs dried up. Before the pandemic hit, I juggled a day job in catering while gigging as much as possible at night. However, once everything shut down, I found myself relying on unemployment stimulus payments, with little to do besides playing the guitar and recording demos on my computer. Read more>>

Gina Benalcazar-Lopez

I have been so fortunate to be able to make a living solely off of my creative work. Thankfully it was during school that I started thinking of myself as a business and started really thinking about what my brand was representing. In the music industry, a lot of who you get connected to has to do with word of mouth. And although the talent is a huge part in being hired, it also has a lot to do with professionalism. I have always been very conscious of that, and have established a reputation for being dependable and excitable. I have also made it my mission to take on challenges with enthusiasm and really work towards learning things even if they seem intimidating at first. Read more>>

Gabrielle Herry

I am fortunate that my creative work is the bulk of my income, and that definitely did not happen overnight. When I first started to freelance in Colorado, I needed to build my portfolio and get a feel for the community, so I did as much work as I could find for dirt cheap! This is what a lot of freelance artists opt to do when starting out because it is an effect way to build up your skills. However, it can become very taxing and result in burnout quite quickly. While I did experience this to some degree, I was able to avoid totally burning myself out by regularly evaluating myself and my work. This evaluation and workload helped my to make 20k in my first full year of business, which was unbelievable to me. Read more>>

Adam & Beth Bedway

We started our buisiness in 2016 and we’ve been working as full time artists since May of 2018. It took us a couple of years to build our business to the point where we could finally go full time, but since we have we’ve never regretted it. We first started our business in 2016 when we both decided we had had enough of our full time jobs. We had paid our house off and didn’t have any kids yet so we decided that we would finally put our college degrees to work for us. So we began making pottery for a few shows each year, as well as teaching people how to hand build pottery as a way to raise funds and build our studio. Our classes really took off and became a large part of our business. As our demand started to rise we were able to quit our other jobs and focus on the Clayworks exclusively. Read more>>

Linda Day

I am a creative professional, yes. And I do make a full-time living from my work. Very fortunate to be able to do so. I made a few sacrifices and took lower paying gigs in my earlier years to get here — never compromising what I knew I was worth but I understood the importance of demonstrating value and when to take on projects that were meaningful even if there wasn’t a huge financial gain at the time. I think what helped me the most on my journey was learning how to balance creativity with the actual ‘business’ of my industry. It helped me keep a solutions based approach to creative work. This allowed me to give clients what they want with my creative flair versus having my own agenda. Read more>>

Sean Davey

I’ve always had an affinity for the beach, and the coast from a very young age, so it seemed with so much Aussie culture based in and around the beach, it was inevitable that I was going to gravitate toward surfing, which of course, I did. I started photographing it in my mid-teens and was submitting my photography to Surfing magazines within just a couple of years. I climbed the publishing ladder there in Australia as well as in the US, Japan, and the UK, to name a few others. By the mid 90’s I had met my future wife in Hawaii and moved to Hawaii permanently in 1997. I continued with great success, till just after the turn of the century when the internet became more important than magazines and so the decline of publishing began. Read more>>

Erin Gilliatt

For the past couple years, I have been earning a living solely off of my creative work. It has been a gradual journey through the years, but I knew well before high school that I had a love for photography. About a year before high school I began looking at the four-year programs they offered, and it wasn’t long until I landed on photography. Within the photography program I learned the technical skills behind the camera, the various aspects of studio lighting, the execution of a project from start to finish, and much more. After high school, I attended the University of North Texas and entered the College of Visual Arts and Design. At first I pursued a graphic design degree, as it appeared to be more practical than photography. After the first semester I couldn’t deny that photography was the thing I was meant to do. Read more>>