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.

Olga Prepis

I think the seed was planted early on, even before I had the words to express it. I was four years old the first time I touched a piano. I still remember it, the feel of the keys under my fingers, the way the notes echoed around the room. At the time, my family had just moved from New Jersey to Cyprus, and music became this bridge between my two worlds; familiar yet new, grounding yet expansive. Read more>>

Abhilash

The precise moment I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally wasn’t a sudden flash, but rather a gradual realization that crystallized with a particular article I stumbled upon. Growing up in a small town in India, films were my escape, my window to different worlds. Weekends were sacred, dedicated to whatever movies were telecast on national television, as easy access to films like we have with Netflix today simply didn’t exist then. I’d eagerly await those moments, completely absorbed by the stories unfolding on screen. Read more>>

James L’Etoile

I hadn’t planned on a creative path, writing commercial crime fiction, until later in life. It wasn’t until after I retired from a twenty-nine year career in California’s prison system that I took a leap into a very different world. I served as an Associate Warden in a maximum security prison, a hostage negotiator, and after that many years, you’re exposed to trauma on a scale that can’t help but change a person. Read more>>

Tiffany Badillo Jiménez

For me, the desire to bake and decorate cakes professionally was there from a very young age. I remember being a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old, helping one of my paternal uncles and my only paternal aunt make doughnuts, cakes, muffins, breads, and other delicious desserts. I always felt so entertained, challenged, filled with curiosity, and loved, that I knew this was what I wanted to do until my last breath. Read more>>

Joseph Kotten

I’ve been creating music since I was 14 years old. For the longest, the expectation of me was to find a career that could pay my bills. It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I came to the realization that music could become this career path. I started my college education as a finance major, but after a year and a half I did my research into music careers and realized I was wasting my time learning about something that wasn’t my passion. I then did research to find music production programs to help me gauge my ability to create music in a professional sense. Ended up graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Production from Full Sail University, this is when I knew it was truly possible for me to pursue this path. Read more>>

Brandon Stoliker

Growing up I have always been fascinated by music, how it’s composed, performed, etc.
So throughout my childhood, I had developed a knack for music, the timing, keys, Melodie’s and from there I was able to understand the elements of writing my own music. It wasn’t until I turned 21 when I started to take it more serious, taking online courses, buying equipment, and just going for it. Read more>>

Tennah

I have generally have always had this ache to be seen or create something I was proud of… I always was working on a thing; painting, drawing, especially writing.

But to really pursue and put my soul into, that was stand-up comedy.

The first open mic, was in a college town, of a college I didn’t attend. I was just a townie who was working as a home health aide, going from day to day

One of those all arts open mic, musicians, poetry, rappers, and a stand up… Read more>>

Emmanuel

It started back in college — not with fancy gear or a massive audience, but with a borrowed pair of headphones from my sister and a cracked version of DJ software on my old laptop.

By day, I was in class, doing what I was supposed to do. But at night — and especially during the holidays — I was in my dorm room, teaching myself how to mix, blend, and create something that felt like mine. I didn’t have a big dream at the time. I just knew I needed a creative outlet, and I found that in music. It gave me a sense of purpose, a release — a place to be free. Read more>>

Ethan Leischow

As a kid, my fondest times are spent making people laugh while having fun with friends and loved ones. I have played sports my whole life from when I could walk, and always loved being a part of a team, winning of course haha. I believe I also deeply loved performing in front of people, entertaining them! I ended up performing in multiple plays with my friends and classmates and even did the talent show – danced and sang to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”! I still love that song and do the dance we performed whenever it comes on haha shoutout Luke McCann especially. Then, in highschool, I got to emcee our class’ Prom! It was so dang fun and an amazing experience that plays a huge part in my journey of creating and entertaining! Read more>>

Nick Snow

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue music was the first time I was born. I can not remember a time when I was not a musician. I remember being a child and experiencing really big emotions, and not truly knowing what to do with them. Now that was also exactly the time when my mother told me to take my feelings and turn them into song. I was only a child and had yet to truly feel all that life had to offer me, but I wrote and wrote as I grew and grew. Music became my vessel for telling my story then, and still is to this day. The logistics and professional instinct came upon me later, but music and its story sit at the core of all that I do. Read more>>

Yuliia Dudchenko

I’ve always wanted :) I was born this way haha. Thanks to my parents, they put me in dance classes.
But as life goes, it was little bit different, but I made my own choice when I was already grown – I was almost 21. I think the most important things- it’s never too late and don’t wait for any acceptance. Your people will always find you and support your art along your way. Read more>>

Brennan Cooper

I knew I wanted to do something with the arts since I was a kid but the defining moment that made me realize that it was actually possible and that I was good at my craft was when my superintendent came up to me after a play I did for school as the lead and told me that I had made him cry. My family had been having problems with him regarding other matters and he did not like my family very much but the fact that he was able to put that all aside and let me know that I made him feel something really solidified for me that this is the path I am supposed to take. Read more>>

Tricia Lopez

My mom loves to tell this story: when I was little, I’d write stories about a spider. Full-on plots, drawings, I even made little books for her to read. Even then, storytelling felt like magic to me. As I got older, I’d rewrite the endings of Zoey 101 episodes or create new storylines for my favorite shows. It wasn’t just fun—it was a way to build a world I wanted to be part of. Read more>>

Haris Jaganjac

My artistic path of development is an unusual path. I started off just writing lyrics to the beat of songs that I’d hear on cartoon network. I was already introduced to hip-hop early on (around 5 years old or so) when my parents would play “The Real Slim Shady” by Eminem on family trips. Something about the sound caught my ear and mesmerized me. I kept writing lyrics throughout 5th grade and then just gave up randomly. I started up again when prompted by some friends in 7th grade to join a rap group. The grpup didnt last very long, nor did we release any music, but it reinvigorated my love for writing lyrics. Read more>>

Rebecca Ritz

I remember my mom taking me to a movie when I was five years old. I pointed up to the screen and I said, “That is what I want to do when I grow up.” My mom, looking at the actress said to me, “Do you want to drink coffee?” I said, “No, silly, I want to do what she’s doing up there.” My mom sweetly said, “No, honey that’s Acting and that is for special people.” She didn’t mean to hurt my feelings; she was a school teacher and wanted me to get a good education and a consistent job. Read more>>

Zhihao Cao

I went back to China after spending 7 years in the US finishing high school, college, and a year working in the Bay area in sales. I moved back to China and started working in Shanghai. Hiphop was getting really big at the time, I started clocking in in Shanghai, and as i gained more experience in the workforce, I had a urge to learn music from scratch. I wanted to understand how music worked, and i had an artistic vision to be an international artist, leveraging my command of both English and Chinese. I wanted to make music that are both harmonically soothing, as well as rhythmically invigorating with conscious lyrics that tell a meaningful story in the spirit of Hiphop. Read more>>

Angelfaith

My journey toward pursuing an artistic career goes way back to when I was just five years old. I remember sitting with my grandmother, watching Mexican telenovelas and Filipino movies , those where the shows that would be show in our local channels. Even at that age, something in me clicked. I didn’t know the how, but I knew the what: I wanted to be an actress. Read more>>

Lilly J

Honestly, I think I always knew deep down. But the first time I really let myself admit it out loud was when I was sitting at my engineering job, feeling completely numb. I had checked every box I was told would lead to success. I went to college, moved to NYC, and worked a stable job. I was good at it, but I didn’t feel purposeful. Once that realization hit, I put in my two weeks’ notice and traveled across the ocean with nothing but a vision, all while still unsure how I would be perceived in the food and fashion world. The turning point came when my health started to decline and I had to use food as a way to heal myself. I couldn’t let go of my fashion and modeling background, so I found a way to incorporate both in a way that nourished me- both inside and outside. Read more>>

Michele Emmons

I’ve known since childhood that I was meant for a creative life. I was constantly drawing and painting, and in high school, my passion expanded into fashion design. I was offered a full scholarship to SCAD, but at the time they didn’t offer a degree in fashion, so I began my studies in Madison, Wisconsin. There, I quickly realized sewing and textile science weren’t my true medium. I transferred to SCAD, where I earned my BFA in Graphic Design with a minor in Fine Art. Read more>>

Rijah Banerjee

Growing up in a family of artists and creatives, music has always been in my life. The first time I performed on a stage was at the age of three, and I always knew that I loved to be up there. I went to a performing arts high school as a Music/Audio Technology major and I learned about the various career paths within the music industry. This is when I gained the confidence to be pursuing music as my career. Read more>>

AKOSWA ART

I first knew I wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally as early as the age of seven. I just knew I wanted to be creative. I started out in the music industry but I always used drawing, sketching and painting as an outlet. I moved into a more serious path after realizing corporate America; you know, the typical 9-5, was just depressing. I felt trapped. Having spent years navigating the corporate landscape, I ultimately realized that my true calling laid in the world of art. Making the bold decision to leave my desk job, I embraced dual roles as a business owner and a full time artist. The epiphany came about during the Covid pandemic, I had more time with myself to be more creative and turn my passion into a full profession. Read more>>

Marcus Adams

It was 2016 and I had just gotten married and had an amazing job making almost 100,000 dollars a year selling phones at US Cellular in a small town named Macomb, IL. Now I’ve always been a movie person. As a kid I can remember my entire family packing up in the car to go to the drive-in theatre. That’s where my love for film started. After I got married, I just had the mindset of working and taking care of my family. I did that for a while and I was doing a good job at it. When I would come home from a long day of work most days I would either play my video game or watch tv shows and movies. Read more>>

Uddin

I was thirteen years old when I decided all I wanted to do with my life was make movies.

Up until then, whenever folks asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I’d say, “I wanna work at Toys R Us.” Let’s be real, hanging out with toys all day seemed like a pretty sweet gig.

Then, towards the end of seventh grade, my dad showed me the movie that would change my life — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I know what you’re thinking. Of course, what a great movie! Who could forget that legendary soundtrack? You can’t look at George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte without hearing The Dream Academy’s haunting rendition of The Smith’s “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” Read more>>

Bailey Cole

I feel like I’ve always had the dream of becoming a “Superstar,” but I was pretty shy about it until a few years ago. When I was around six years old, I was obsessed with music videos—singing into a remote or hairbrush in my bedroom mirror, listening to songs on repeat, copying the singer’s style to learn how to sing. Everything about performing fascinated me. Something in me has always believed I could pursue it. Read more>>

Heather Christianson

I knew I wanted to be an artist at a very young age! But I didn’t start to think about it in a professional way until I was in college. The other people in my art classes, who quickly became my best friends, inspired me to try graphic design, animation, and digital illustration. When I took my first graphic design class, I found out I really enjoyed creating logos and branding, so I decided to make a logo for myself. This kicked off my journey as a self-employed artist who still re-designs her logo and branding almost every year! Read more>>

Delia Baum

It was clear to me early on that I would follow a creative path. As a child, I preferred to spend hours decorating my plate rather than eating straight away. At school, I particularly enjoyed the creative subjects – not because I was only ambitious, but because they just felt right. But I was a bad photographer when I was young, i remember my father was shocked about all my blurry pictures. Read more>>

Akena Hightower

“The first time I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path in music professionally was when I realized how deeply it connected with people emotionally. I had always loved music growing up, singing around the house, writing little melodies—but there was one moment that stood out. I shared a song I wrote with a friend who was going through something tough, and seeing how it helped them feel understood made me realize this was more than just a hobby for me. That’s when it was clear that music is my purpose, and I want to use it to tell stories, heal, and inspire others. Read more>>

Aniyah Kolen

I’ve always known I wanted to pursue some sort of long term career in an art, whether that be as a back-up dancer or team director, and most of the things that usually appeal to other people. But I didn’t actually realize that I wanted to pursue a full-blown creative career until recently. I decided to go on a mental journey, learning myself, diving deep into what makes me, well me. I went on a search to find my purpose, and find the things that make me feel whole, it wasn’t until then that I discovered what creating meant for me and how to go about it. Read more>>

Roxanne Grooms

I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be an artist. In fact, I was in first or second grade when my grandmother recognized my talent. She encouraged me by always having art supplies available for all my projects. I remember making a lot of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards. I experimented with construction paper, watercolors, colored pencils, and crayons. It’s probably where my love for mixed media started! Read more>>

Kinga Kudelska

I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. Even as a little kid, I knew I wanted to do something creative — something in the world of art. For years, I imagined myself working for Disney or becoming a fashion designer. That was the dream.

But everything changed when I got my hands on a tattoo machine for the first time — I was only 15. The moment I tried it, I felt it instantly: this is it. It was like all my passions finally clicked into place. I had found my medium. Read more>>

Emma Stuart

I was a senior in high school when I locked in my decision to study music in college, but my love of music is almost as old as I am. I started classical piano lessons as a seven year-old and even before that I was writing my own songs in a little notebook (not good ones). I’ve always been drawn to music and the way it makes me feel emotions that I can’t find anywhere else. But there was an inciting incident where I realized that I could, and wanted to, compose music professionally. It started with a video game called Undertale. In 5th grade, I was super into telling and writing stories, so the game was one of my favorite things in the world. Read more>>

Jace Heyman

I remember being different when I was at school. I didn’t care much for being part of a group or crew, I loved football but I didn’t care too deeply for not getting picked for a team. I would come home from school and just watch videos of Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Usher and Justin Timberlake and I would copy their moves and sing along. All of that was understanding and developing a love for this craft called entertainment, at a young age. When I met a producer from Los Angeles, DG, a guy who believed in me from just a singing contest, I knew that this could be a path to something bigger. Just imagine being at work, a job you don’t enjoy so much, with someone in the industry saying you have the skills and passion to make it, and that you may just have to take that leap. Read more>>

Shawn Rene Graham

I group in a household where I was surrounded by arts and culture. Both my parents had musical backgrounds, so they were taking me and my siblings to concerts, museums, and other live performances. They took me to see The Wiz on tour when I was eight or nine years old. It opened up a whole world for me. The theatricality, spectacle and, most importantly, Black bodies on stage, but not just as a band performing (my very first concert was The Jackson 5 at five years old). It was about language and movement and story telling. It was then that I had a huge interest in performing and thought I would become an actor. I had also learned to play the flute and took dance lessons. After which I attended a performing arts Middle School. That cemented my aspirations and I continued exploring my creative instincts. Read more>>

Patrick Cuaresma

The moment I truly knew I wanted to pursue music came when I had the idea to create a special song for my girlfriend’s birthday. I wanted to do something meaningful and personal—something that would express how I felt in a way that words alone couldn’t capture. I reached out to my best friend, Stract, someone I’ve known for over a decade and had always shared a musical bond with. As soon as I told him the concept, he immediately caught the vision and was just as excited as I was to bring it to life. Read more>>

Antonio Denis

I started drawing when I was just a kid. Most of was stick figures, but I was surrounded by cartoons, comics and anime at a young age. I religiously watched The Simpsons, Cartoon Network and SpongeBob Squarepants (and still do) while ingesting a flurry of comic strips like Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine, Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County. I really wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist; but in hindsight given how strict, censorious and conservative newspaper funny pages are I feel like I dodged a bullet. But looking back at it, what really started my path to being a cartoonist was reading Captain Underpants books (religiously, too! See a pattern?) and wondering how much I could get away with. Dav Pilkey was a major inspiration to me as a kid, as well as Gennedy Tartakovsky, Rob Renzetti, Craig McCracken and Barbara Slate. Read more>>

Meet Kenzie Howell

It wasn’t a single “aha” moment—it was more like a slow unraveling. I grew up immersed in the entertainment world, so storytelling always felt like air to me. As a kid, I’d sit with my dad watching the movies he considered must-sees—usually classic ’80s films or ones he swore everyone had to experience. We’d dissect the plot together, scene by scene, talking about what made the film work—or totally flop. It was our thing, and looking back, it’s probably where my love for storytelling first took root. Read more>>

Jackie Bristow

I’m Jackie Bristow, a singer-songwriter originally from the small town of Gore, New Zealand — often called the country music capital of Aotearoa. For me, becoming a full-time creative was never a decision — it just happened. It was a very organic path. I fell in love with music from an early age, learning guitar at my primary school in Gore where we would sing hymns in class. Music was in the family — my Nana was a piano teacher and played the organ at church, and it was her cousin, Mr. Walter Hailes, who first taught me how to play the ukulele and guitar. My mum, who was a teenage bride and young mother, didn’t get the chance to pursue music professionally, but she’s an incredible artist. She loved music too — she used to sing to us and play guitar at home. Read more>>

Ting Han Lin

When I first picked up a bass guitar at 15, I honestly thought it was just another instrument to dabble with ,so I could play in my church band, nothing more.
Little did I know, it was the start of a lifelong obsession, or dare I say, a calling! Read more>>

Henry O. Arnold

When my dad was cast as Don Quixote in a production of “Man of La Mancha,” he thought his wayward son might benefit from having an experience on stage. In my underdeveloped, idiot brain, Dad’s coolness factor was deficient, but he cast me a lifeline and got me to audition. In spite of my being solidly mediocre (the bar was low), I landed the role of Paco, muleteer #5. Read more>>

Mike McCarty

I think speaking for both of us. Mike D McCarty and my brother James Knight. It’s something we always wanted. We started as kids with a deep love for film and moviemaking. In the case of Mike McCarty, he started learning from books and videos that he could be creative and artistic in the world of makeup FX. As for James Knight, he was used by his brother at an early age as an actor and sidekick in makeup FX. Every good effect needs an actor to sell it and the brothers sure had their share of fooling the parents or the neighbors. These are the kinds of things that would never “fly” today. People these days are quick to get upset and one brother looking like he’s killing another on the front lawn would definitely not go over well. LOL Read more>>

Elgin Harris

My name is Elgin Harris, and I’ve been modeling since I was 16. I started out in print modeling after a guy spotted me while I was working at P.F. Chang’s. He asked if I ever thought about modeling, and I had, but hadn’t taken that next step yet. I ended up doing three photo shoots, and from there, things started to build. Over the years, I’ve traveled to over 50 cities for modeling—print work especially—and it’s grown from something casual into a serious career. Read more>>

Mahima Pundir

Growing up in a small town in India, I felt like I was stuck in a Bollywood movie, minus the songs. It was full of drama, emotions, and a whole lot of action.

But my love for animation was always there. I’d take apart my toys, turn them into puzzles, and then get lost in my own little world.

When my mom introduced me to ‘Toy Story,’ it was like a bolt of lightning. Watching those toys come to life was amazing and it ignited a passion for cartoons that i didn’t know existed. Read more>>

Shaman Harsha

Until I was 16, I was convinced I’d end up building robots. I had chosen Science in 11th grade, planning for a career in engineering, something structured, logical, and grounded. But around that same time, my dad, who has always had a quiet love for photography, brought home a new Sigma zoom lens for his SLR. I still remember holding it for the first time, the way the world shifted when I looked through the viewfinder. Everything felt more alive, more composed, more intentional. Read more>>