Do you remember the moment you realized what you wanted to do professionally? Was it magic? Was it scary? We wanted to hear from some of the most talented artists and creatives in the community and so we asked them to tell us the story of the moment when they knew they were going to pursue a creative career path.

Noah Daniel

I think the first time I really knew I wanted to pursue a creative path was when I stood on that stage, guitar in hand, playing my own songs for the first time. It wasn’t just the music or the performance—it was the way people listened, the way my words and melodies connected with them. I’d always loved storytelling, from writing little stories as a kid to acting and singing on stage, but this was different. This was raw, personal, and completely mine. I had spent so much of my life thinking about performing in one way or another, but in that moment, I realized that songwriting—telling my own stories through music—was what I was meant to do. Read more>>

Sangho Han

I met a friend when I was 9. I spent a lot of time with him, and he moved to a different neighborhood. When I was in my first year of middle school, he came back to the area where I lived, and he was obsessed with drawing. I still remember vividly – he was drawing a samurai character on A4 paper in front of me – I copied his drawing for a while, and I hung around with him, drawing and talking, and then I followed him to the art academy he went to. Read more>>

Jay Vlone

I knew from a very young age that I’d want to use my words to craft masterpieces. I’d say first or second grade, I’d write poetry and one of my teachers got me published. That encouragement brought me a long way. I didn’t know it would translate into me making music but I’d say that’s where it started. Read more>>

Yangzom Gama

My journey as a graphic designer has always been rooted in understanding the interplay
between visual expression, cultural identity, and emerging technologies. Having grown up
on the Tibetan Plateau, I was immersed in an environment rich with natural beauty, ethnic
traditions, and a visual language deeply connected to place. Over time, I realized that these
early experiences formed the basis of my aesthetic sensibilities—an inclination toward
organic shapes, vibrant hues, and intricate patterns that carry both personal and cultural
significance. Read more>>

Mary Lee Painter

I’ve written most of my adult life. The first book I ever wrote started in a park while my sister and I watched our kids play while we were deciding if our stories could actually turn into a book anyone would want to read. I’d always thought of stories, but didn’t know if I would be able to actually write a book. While that first story was not good, I became addicted to writing. The process of developing a story and creating characters in my mind is like a high. I love that process so much and if I had a wish, it would be to have endless time in front of my laptop. Read more>>

Bhu$$

I truly wanted to pursue being a consistent artist a little after graduating college, which was in 2022. Read more>>

Sydney Storm

To be honest, I didn’t. I was a typical working woman, married with two kids and just trying to make a better life for us. I was never much of a writer to begin with. I mean, I scribbled a few words here and there, but it wasn’t something that garnered my full attention. My daughter was the one who got me started. I was doing something, and she came to me and said, Mom, you look bored. So, I headed to the nearest thrift store to find a book to read. Oddly enough, the three-book set of Fifty Shades was there for three dollars. I bought it and sat to read it. Read more>>

Ayrin Ghaibpour

By the time I finished middle school, I knew. Though enrolled in Tehran’s best academic school, my heart belonged to art. The moment school ended, I’d rush back to my drawings and violin. Realizing this, I changed schools, attending a conservatory and then Tehran’s art university. Read more>>

Bella Dontine

I have always known I wanted to be in the arts. I loved performing since I can remember. I used to put on shows around the house and force my mom to introduce me and if she didn’t say exactly what I wanted her to say I would make her do it over again, I was three. I also used to put on shows for the neighborhood and charge a dime for people to attend that way I could say I was getting paid. My mom used to think I was just a star struck kid and it wasn’t until I was eleven that we went to see the movie Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. I walked out of that movie and I was talking to my mom about how it was great the way Drew fell up the steps and did you see her face when she was hit in the face by the door. Read more>>

Rashabh Butani

I have always been obsessed with sci-fi and fantasy films for as long as I can remember. There was something about those surreal worlds that always drew me in the way they made the impossible feel real. Even as a kid, I was constantly making up my own stories, inventing games, and letting my imagination run wild. I didn’t grow up in a particularly artistic environment, but creativity was always a big part of me. Read more>>

Elsian Atienza

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue a career as a musical artist was when I performed in front of my entire school for a talent show. I played the ukulele, and as I sang, I felt a deep connection with the audience. At that moment, I knew I was meant to be on stage, and it was one of the first times I felt like I truly belonged in this world.

Fast forward to college, I was at the University of Washington, struggling to figure out who I was and what truly made me happy. While cleaning my room one day, I came across my ukulele, which I hadn’t played in a while. I picked it up and starting playing again, and that moment was like rediscovering a part of myself. I decided that I wanted to get back into music and started watching tutorials on YouTube on how to produce and began recording my own songs in my bedroom. I posted some clips on TikTok and to my surprise, people started noticing and enjoying my music. This was a huge moment in my journey and the beginning of LCN! Read more>>

Briana Fitzpatrick

I became a full-time artist in June of 2021 and actually to be honest I didn’t even know I wanted to pursue an art journey until one month before that! I mean I definitely enjoyed drawing and sketching all throughout my childhood, but painting was not my thing until something sparked in me in May of 2021. I used to be a professional dancer and pursued that career until the worldwide lockdown closed the performance industry for a while so I had to get “regular” jobs for income. I learned a lot through the multiple jobs I worked and I think the biggest lesson learned was I knew deep down these jobs were not meant for me long term, but I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to pursue or do next with my life. I deeply missed performing and being creative and expressive. Read more>>

Catherine Kuzma

It was unexpectedly in college. I felt circumstance, pressure to survive and make a living, was shutting the door to my creative self. I felt bad that I couldn’t afford to go to art school at the time but unexpectedly while taking a few Drawing classes at Rutgers along with my required classes , the flames of my creative self were fanned and brought to life. I had amazing teachers there for painting, drawing , and photography. They let me be myself, create my own independent classes, and really reconnected me back to my inner/creative self. The support from the teachers was amazing. For the first time I felt like this is really me and I can not turn my back on this part of myself ever again. I felt deep inside that this was something I would pursue professionally no matter what, Read more>>

Adam Bullock

Ever since I was a little kid, I always had an obsession over watching or experiencing things that had amazing stories with interesting characters. So much so that I would use my free time as a kid to imagine and re-create the things I experienced. Whether it was from all watching my favorite TV shows or even sitting in the audience and watching a live theater performance, I was glued into what they were showing me. It truly was a wonderful time in my childhood to witness such greatness in front of my eyes. I mean it really made me love characters as a whole. Read more>>

Veronika Paderni

I started considering a career in the art world after doing numerology readings for my friends. I realized that numbers and symbols carry a deep energy that can be translated into visual form, creating meaningful and powerful artwork. This connection between numerology and art became the foundation of my creative journey.” Read more>>

Marlena Sloss

Growing up, each morning before school I’d pore over the local newspaper, The Juneau Empire. I loved getting to see a slice of what was going on in the community just by looking at a photograph – seeing both beauty and information contained in a single image really drew me in. The newspaper just felt magical to me. In college I studied psychology and became really interested in people and how they think. I considered a career in therapy but the photography bug had stuck with me. Photojournalism felt like the perfect balance of understanding people and their stories and getting to share them through the visuals of photography. Read more>>

JMD Reid

I was in the seventh or eighth grade and reading some great fantasy books. Robert Jordan, Tolkien, David Eddings, and others. I found myself wanting to tell imaginative stories, too. To create fantastical worlds, especially like the worlds I read about in Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman’s books. So I started writing my own. They never went anywhere, but it was my passion all through school. Read more>>

Ayodele Nzinga- Damu

My first memory of being asked what I wanted to do when I grew up started my pursuit of the arts, but it was seeded earlier.
I have told the story of the Christmas Pageant so many times that it remains vivid in my mind decades later.
I lived with my maternal grandmother as a preschooler. Grandma was a member of the Church of God in Christ and her church presented an annual Christmas play. When offered a chance to participate in Sunday school and expressed interest in playing the role of Mary Magdalene. Read more>>

Grace Bishop

I think the most repeated answer to this question lies in the childhood of most artists–and I am no different. When I was little, I would spend most of my time writing stories and drawing characters. As I continued to develop my characters’ designs, so did I develop their stories. I began to draw my own comics, utilizing pencils and pens in sketchbooks. Soon, my interest developed from little characters into copying animals, flowers, and people, trying to make it look the most realistic. As I continued drawing, I began to take art classes inside and outside of high school. My work continued to strengthen and I began to delve into more conceptual artwork. My pieces started to investigate human psychology and confronting the viewer of each piece. I was anxious to apply to undergraduate Art schools as a senior in high school. Read more>>

Madison DeHart

My entire life, I’ve been drawn to creating. As a kid, I loved to draw on anything I could, and even tried pottery at one point. However, as I grew older, I felt discouraged to pursue art as a career. I am autistic, and in high-school my art was deemed a distraction to my productivity.
I ended up pursuing other careers that are considered “normal” careers. I worked as a veterinary assistant, waitress, bartender, CNA, and receptionist… and always felt like something was missing. I always felt like I couldn’t fit in anywhere I worked, and like I was a fish swimming upstream. Read more>>

Claire Casanova

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally was when I started learning to play the clarinet in 6th grade. I was lucky enough to go to a performing arts middle school where I not only got to learn how to play an instrument in an ensemble but also perform on one of the major stages in Philadelphia, The Kimmel Center. It was something about being on that stage that made me feel like I wanted to keep doing this, which led me to The Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. There, I got to hone my craft, continue performing at the Kimmel Center countless times, and explore different routes of professionalism in music. During my time in high school, I joined Project 440. A nonprofit that focuses on teaching young musicians how to be entrepreneurs. Read more>>

Miida Chu

The path I’m on today began the day I screened my first film for my family at age 11. It wasn’t the standing ovation that set this journey in motion. It was my mom’s scathing critique: “Oh, this is so childish.”

I didn’t think much of it until three years later when, at 14, I asked my mom to upgrade my gear. I was fed up with running Premiere 2.0 on a PC with only 256 MB of RAM. But instead of agreeing, she said, “Good movies aren’t good because of good gear; they’re good because of good storytelling. Your stories are childish. Focus on the stories you tell, not the equipment you use.” Read more>>

Bernice Shaller

As a child, I was always drawing, painting and writing poetry to cope with my experience of living in my house. When I did my art, all became quiet and peaceful in my world. I could function more easily and deal with the trauma that was always present in my house. Read more>>

Rosa

A context that I’m sure rings true for many, many creatives — I was an awkward kid. I was full of big feelings that I had difficulty communicating, so I just didn’t. I spent most of my time hiding away, usually in the corner of the school library with one book or another. But my relationship with stories and art was primarily escapism and my only goal was distraction. So I viewed reading and art as primarily passive, solitary acts. But that changed when my aunt gifted me a collection of old Nancy Drew books, the first thirty from the original series. I wish I could say I was good and started from “The Secret of the Old Clock”, but I picked the book I thought had the coolest cover: “The Ghost of Blackwood Manor”. Read more>>

Kathryn Erskine

In middle school, I wrote an essay that was published in the school magazine and thought, “People actually want to read what I write?” It was a great feeling to have my voice heard. Until then I’d only written diaries (which were mostly fiction to make my life seem much more exciting) or stories in class that people enjoyed but they weren’t in a publication. I decided then that I’d dedicate my first novel to the head of my school because she (we were sure) had fought in the resistance in World War Two. However, I figured I had to support myself so I’d be a lawyer and wait for retirement to indulge my writing but … you can be somewhat creative in briefs and memos, but it’s not as satisfying as writing your own stories. Read more>>

Nicole Rutledge

I knew that I had a love for interior design at a young age. Starting around middle school I had an obsession with rearranging my room and my parent’s log cabin magazines. I discovered the Sims game (hello dial up internet and AIM) and would spend hours recreating the floor plans from the cabin magazines on the game. Would I also create and marry my crush on the game in said house? Absolutely. Read more>>

Jillian Renee Siefert

Like many others, after college I pursued a ‘typical’ 9-5 job in corporate America as a means to an end; I was drowning in college debt and this was my way out. Being a creative in the very un-creative field of insurance I had a very challenging time trying to balance my yearning for creative expression and the grim necessity of paying bills. After years of trying to fit a square block into a round hole the universe stepped in and I was unexpectedly laid off from my corporate career. This was such a pivotal moment in my life where I could choose to jump back into a world I know I didn’t enjoy or I could forge an unknown path forward into a more fulfilling creative career. Read more>>

Christa Forrest

I was always creative. However as adulthood took over, my ability to be creative become less and less. When my son was a bit older, I was reintroduced to art when I took an art class. The feeling of that was intense and overwhelming. I knew that that was where I wanted to be. I was currently engaged in a 20-year career in finance that made really good stable income. But my passion wanted to be front and center. I hired a business coach and began to make arrangements to find and pursue that passion. After many years of planning I eventually quit that 20 year career to become a full time artist. At the time I didn’t have a true plan of how I was going to make a living at it but I was doing what a loved. Read more>>

Carmen DeLeon

I think I was in elementary school when I learned that I love performing on stage. I used to try out for the school plays and musicals and talent shows. I never landed a lead role, until my junior year of high school where I was cast as part of the main cast for a musical. But even so, I loved performing, especially if it was a focus on comedy. I remember in fourth grade, I auditioned for a school play and was really hoping for the lead female role; I didn’t get the part, and instead got cast as the comedic interlude character. I was pretty heart broken back then. But to this day, I still can recite my monologue like the back of my hand! Read more>>

Nicole Maurice

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue a creative and artistic path professionally wasn’t just a single moment—it was a slow, steady realization that creativity was the lens through which I made sense of the world. But if I had to pinpoint the spark, it was when I found myself not just interested in ideas, but in building entire ecosystems around them—whether that meant structuring a team, crafting a narrative, or shaping a visual identity. Read more>>