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.

Niela Callanan

I currently earn a full-time income from my creative, but it hasn’t always been like that. During college I worked three jobs, one in a restaurant, one has an event planner for my apartment, and the other was a server at Pear Tree Estate a venue that hosts events, has in house catering and planning. I also had an internship at Pear Tree Estate worked their full time my senior year of college while I had enough credits to be a part time student. During this time I would also come home on the weekends and assist Clover Events in Chicago, a wedding planning company. Prior to graduation I got a job at Urban Allure Events. When joining the team I was a part time assistant, but I quickly moved up to a full time planner 2 months after joining the company. From that point forward, I got more and more lead weddings and still do to this day! Read more>>

Ramzeez Reed

I feel that I am on a path to eventually being able to make a full-time living off of my creative work due to the amount I know about so many different creative fields. I had digital art classes in high school and I’ve been modeling, as well as making music videos, producing music, making YouTube thumbnails, and content creating in general for well over 5 years at this point and these large chunks of experience that I have in all of these areas are slowly coming together to form a whole. When it is all together, I feel that It will be more than enough to get to that point. Read more>>

Adeyinka Otunba

While I haven’t yet transitioned to earning a full-time living from my creative work, I’ve started to see meaningful progress. Early on, it was more about sharing my journey and connecting with others than generating income. However, through consistency and a growing understanding of my audience, I’ve had opportunities to collaborate with brands and have done a few gifting collaborations. Recently, I earned my first significant income from creating content, which felt like a major milestone in my journey. Read more>>

Sean Lanusse

I have been professionally tattooing for almost 18 years now. I think the biggest thing to remember when trying to make a living on being creative is to branch out. I’ve always had some sort of side hustle that I can relate to my job. I’ve made and sold paintings, prints, tee shirts, hats, and mugs. I’ve learned how to make tattoo pigment and tattoo machines to sell. I have taught continuing education courses on tuning and maintaining tattoo machines. All of this furthers my knowledge of my craft while also providing income. Read more>>

Shelley Moench-kelly

In my last long-term corporate job, I realized that decades of work in corporate America just wasn’t working for me anymore and that I wanted to become a freelance creative. I stayed at that job for 10 years and, in the last three years, worked on ramping up my writing portfolio so that once I branched out on my own, I’d already have established contacts and work to show prospective clients. A dear friend and co-worker from that last job had contacts at an international travel publication, and that served as my first freelance client for about a year. My husband and I then moved from Los Angeles to New England, a few hours from Manhattan, and I took on a remote job as a project manager/writer for a Manhattan-based ghostwriting agency. I continued to build my portfolio of freelance clients even while I was working full-time for this agency, and had enough clients at the end of one year that I could fully break free from working for a boss to becoming self-employed full time and being my own boss. Read more>>

Robert Bentley

Well, it’s more of a question of sustaining your work. Most creative people know, at first, that you’ll most likely be doing a job you’re not passionate about to sustain your life as an artist. This often, unfortunately leads to the creative, backing off of their passion because ya know, the bills don’t pay themselves. I’ve done all kinds of odd jobs, made my way through the service industry, even got my foot in the door as a sushi chef for 6 years. I went to college for art, but I’ve spent most of my adulthood doing a job that only requires a high school diploma. Luckily that job was screen printing, and I majored in printmaking in College. For a decade I’ve been in the commercial textile printing trade. Worked my way up from the bottom. Read more>>

Justin Murta

Yes, I have been able to earn a full time living from my creative work. It was hard for me, because there is not really a clear blue print to making that happen. I had an opportunity that at least covered cost of living and travel as we perfected our performances. It was very hard in the beginning, but once you are liberated from one career and find your path in the new, more opportunities started presenting themselves. Our first major milestone, was simply making it past the first leg of our first “tour” and then the next step was making it to the next year. I don’t think we really could have sped up the process, especially at that time. If we had the resources we have today, we would have been able to become more successful, quicker. Read more>>

Francesco Valente

Yes, I managed to make a living doing creative work. There were many steps involved, and it wasn’t a straightforward path, but an ambition that started when I was a child. First and foremost, I began imagining, as a child, what my adult life could be like, and from there, I set out on my journey. I navigated through a sea of ideas until I brought everything to life in adulthood. Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of being a rock drummer. By the time I was in high school, I was already very skilled and writing songs—that was my world. During my university years, I dropped out of school and started touring with already-established professionals. As an adult, I had gained a lot of experience in this field, and to clear my mind, I enrolled in university again, studying a different type of music and multimedia arts. This process gave me a new perspective on my creative work and opened the door for me to take on new projects, composing music that spans different genres, and entering the teaching field. With a different kind of awareness and confidence. Read more>>

Whitney Robinson

I’ve been full-time living from my creative work for about three years now. I decided I wanted to be a watercolor artist at the very end of 2019 and had been praying for an opportunity away from my two jobs to be able to commit the time I needed to paint my first collection and get it into the world. It just so happened that right after my dad passed away in late January of 2020 that I was also furloughed from both of my jobs and stuck in my small apartment with nothing but food, my rabbit, and my paintbrush and given about 8 weeks at home to really explore art as income. I worked on my first collection of paintings as well as found a local art printer to help me get cards and prints into the world. When I launched this collection it nearly sold out. I worked two jobs on top of art over the next year to make sure that art would sustain me, and ended up going full time with my art after buying all I needed to start selling successfully at markets around Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee. What has really helped me make my watercolor art a full time job has been listening to my customers’ suggestions. I don’t take all of them, but if it weren’t for customers asking me if I could design their wedding invitations, tattoos, or teach them how to paint I would never have diversified into teaching monthly classes or taking commission work, which have become major sources of revenue for me! Read more>>

Lloyd Anderson

I received my first check playing drums at church when I was 6 years old. It was an annual Men’s Day service that they do at my church and I was compensated for the rehearsals as well as the performance! The check was for $400 so at 6 years old back in the 90’s you couldn’t tell me I was rich! Only to have my dad put it in the bank for me haha. It was at that very moment I knew I wanted to play music for a very long time. It came easy to me and didn’t really ever feel like work.. My parents were musicians too and more so, my mom was a drummer so she worked with me at a very young age to perfect my craft very early. Very grateful for that. Read more>>

 

Una The Mermaid

I do not earn a full time living off being a professional mermaid. However, since the start of the pandemic I would say my creative work now makes up 50% of my yearly earnings. I started mermaiding as a hobby back in 2011, and slowly over-time this hobby evolved into one of my professional businesses. I first started mermaiding as a means to cultivate relational bonding with my young daughter at that time. As a trauma survivor of family abuse, I struggled with knowing how to connect and play with my own child. I found that mermaiding was a healthy activity that fostered creativity and connection for both of us. Mermaiding began transitioning from personal hobby to public entertainment after I was given an opportunity to set-up a mermaid cove at a local pirate festival. Read more>>

Nicki Degeneffe

Rock Hill, South Carolina based Artist, Nicki Degeneffe, has been creating art for most of her life. Since 2012, she has mainly focused on pottery. In 2020, a friend dropped a kiln off in her carport and she bought a new pottery wheel for her “She Shed.” She then decided to leave corporate life in 2021 and get back to her art roots. When the pottery started to overflow from the shed into the house, it was time to get a bigger space. My 1st studio was in an old cotton warehouse in Sharon. Now Spinning Out Pottery Studio is in the back of the Sharon Community Center. But I am planning to move downtown York soon to 26 North Congress Street. You may see me throwing pots in the window. Read more>>

Melisa Bonetti Luna

I have been working as a full-time self-employed classical singer for about 10 years. If you want to work in any field, creative or not, I believe you need one of these two pillars to get there; education or connections. If you have both, then you have the upper hand. I did not grow up with any connections in the world that I ended up working in professionally. I had to educate myself in the classical music field. Education is crucial to pursuing something that you know little about. After finishing my degrees, I proceeded to apply to various Opera residency programs throughout the United States. Being able to work with high level companies as a resident artist was a form of continuing education as well as building professional experience. From these opportunities, more began to grow. I built a network from every production that I was part of. I saw each performance as my next interview. Out of one job, I was offered two more, and so forth. I think another important component to having full time work as a creative is to have both a niche, while also being versatile. Read more>>

Iesha Vincent

Through my work as a content creator, I’ve been able to earn a full-time living through growing my business to have multiple streams of revenue. When I first began as a creator, I focused solely on securing brand partnerships with the brands that connected to my niche. I soon found that as the industry grew, many brands began looking for more and more new creators other than returning back to ones they had worked with before. And even though I continued to work with some of the same brands throughout the years, I knew that I needed to expand my business revenue streams in order to maintain my business and grow it to a full -time living. As new trends began to emerge, I stemmed out into developing virtual and physical products – including an e-course and coaching to aid emerging and established creators called The Influencer University – and also developing a passive stream of income through affiliate marketing on both my blog and social content. It all came down to creating organic content that would relate to my followers; because not only did it bring it affiliate revenue, it also has continued to attract brand partners to maintain and grow my brand partnership revenue stream. Read more>>

Fabio Marinho

Yes, I have been able to earn a full-time living from my creative work, but it wasn’t an overnight success. My journey with art began when I was very young, sketching cartoons on walls and constantly challenging myself to recreate them with colored pencils. Supported by my family, I often drew portraits for my relatives, earning small rewards. However, as I grew older, I followed a corporate career in technology and education, moving away from art for many years. In 2015, after the end of a significant relationship, I felt the urge to reconnect with art as a way to process my emotions. I painted a portrait of my ex-girlfriend, which helped reignite my passion for creation. A few months later, when David Bowie, one of my idols, passed away, I felt compelled to paint a tribute to him. I posted the painting on Facebook, not expecting much, but to my surprise, someone from Scotland reached out asking to buy it. This was my first art sale, and it marked the beginning of my journey back to the art world. Read more>>

Eric Mitchell

I’ve been making a self-employed living via Eric Mitchell Audio for over a decade, now. This was never the intended destination, but ultimately where my path lead me. My original goal within music as a career was as an artist and for the first decade or so of that journey, I was strictly a guitarist in a band writing songs collectively. Teaching myself solo songwriting and thus all the other instruments, singing, production, engineering, etc. was all born of necessity along the way because for me it was more efficient to put the time into learning those things myself than it would be to put the time in working jobs I hated to make the money to pay other people to do it for me. Fast forward a couple decades later and here I am making a living from music as was the original dream, just filling some alternate roles. Read more>>

Tom Cabrera

My life as a musician started formally, when I began drum lessons in 1964, at age 9. I had always been drawn to the drums from as early as I can remember. I studied with various private instructors on and off, through high school. I played my first payed gig at 15 and played with anyone who would let me, as often as possible. I’ve always loved to practice (and still do after 60 years behind the instrument). But when it came time to consider college/music school, I wanted no part of it. I hated school and the thought of further education, even in music, wasn’t for me. Instead, I accepted an offer from my uncle, to work for him in his photo retouching studio in New York City. He would teach me the trade and I could make a decent living. I began working for him right out of high school. I continued to play a few gigs here and there but by age 21, I was married, working full time and stopped playing the drums altogether. Read more>>

Alejandro Roldan

I have been successful in earning a full-time living as an actor and singer. I started performing professionally in 2011 when I auditioned for ‘Once upon a mattress’ in Evergreen Colorado. The first couple of years of my professional performing I was trying to pad my resume, so not all shows paid what I wanted. In 2014-2015. I found an audition posting for the Boulder Dinner Theatre, which I had heard great things about since I started working in Denver. They were looking for 2 male swings for their production of ‘Forever Plaid’ – after my audition i was taken down to the dining room and offered the job on the spot. That single audition led to my 8 year career at BDT Stage (Boulder Dinner Theatre). I was in over 16 productions in my time there- Some standouts were; Footloose, Forever Plaid, Something Rotten, Rock of Ages, Joseph and the Amazing technicolor Dreamcoat, Throughly Modern Millie, Motones vs Jerseys, Ragtime, Mama Mia, and The Buddy Holly Story, Unfortunately last year BDT stage closed after being open since 1976. I was kind of lost with my main source of income closing, but the universe had other plans for me. Read more>>

Kaylee Anderson

Earning a full time living as a tattoo artist was not a swift nor easy task to gain but probably the most rewarding journey! It takes a lot of commitment to your craft, that means a lot of sacrifice short term to gain long term freedom and stability. When I first started out as a tattoo apprentice there’s not much money to be made or expected within the first year or so, you’re working 100% of your free time busting out free—little to no cost tattoos because you don’t have the experience or value yet! It took a lot of dedication to learning, practicing, sacrificing a social/family life and any/all personal time while also working other jobs on the side to make a living at first. It took about 2 years of that process to gain a solid and steady clientele that allowed me to sustain being a full time tattoo artist, that and lots of advertising, word of mouth, networking events, business cards and utilizing social media! Knowing what I know now being a tattoo artist for 5 and a half years is I wish I would’ve learned to use social media sooner because it’s the best tool for exposure and growth! Read more>>

Marcus Stukes

Yes, I have been able to earn a full time living from my creative work. Started out going to college for physical therapy, after 1 year with a D average and not liking my major I went back home took a year off. During that summer break, my older brother recommended I go to school for film making being that’s all I was doing during that summer break, watching movies, no job, not in school, just kind of trying to figure my life out. Being a film major NEVER crossed my mind, I knew I loved movies, but I just thought you had to be a famous director’s son to even pick up a camera and learn filmmaking. Once my bro recommended film school, I did go to a community college to take basic core classes and intro to film classes then transferred to another school to further my film career but got denied into their film program. With being denied I then transferred to another school where they had an open film program. Took me 6 years to get a 4-year degree, I now have a B.A in film production. Read more>>

Bobby Norfolk

I was a National Park Service Ranger at The Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis and The STL Storytelling Festival began there at the museum. I did not seek storytelling-it sought me. I was a standup comedian in local niteclubs and actor at The Black Repertory Company on the side. Read more>>

Ric Reitz

I didn’t always want to be an actor/writer, as it was a ‘one or the other’ type of proposition according to others. But once I really got into my career, I found both aspects of artistic expression helped me compete on a higher professional level much more quickly. In fact, it enabled me to actually make a full-time living early on, whereas writing and acting individually would have made survival much more difficult. Read more>>

Zachary Weber

My first financial breakthrough with my work began two months out of undergraduate school. I showed my work at a friend’s home/studio and was immediately connected with a gallery. Since then, I have built and relied on my professional career through the relationships I have with others in and outside of the industry. What is vital is the connections with others and simultaneously maintaining a consistency in the studio. Balance has been integral towards my success. Read more>>