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.

Christopher Wealth

When I was in college for Fashion designing a photographer asked me to take my picture because of my style. She liked the way I dressed and stated that I should become a model. Now I never wanted to be mode (I always wanted to be a stylist) but I always love clothes, like seriously in between of going to different classes I would always go shopping and find some nice pieces and put them together. Now the second time I saw she wanted me to be apart of her project, so I did. Read more>>

Keem

The moment I realized I wanted to pursue being a professional creative was when I recorded my first song. It was something about hearing my voice on a beat for the first time, I felt addicted and instantly wanted to create more. You know how most people can’t stand hearing themselves coming through speakers but it was never like that for me. Read more>>

Jennifer Monteleone

I grew up in Houston, TX and after graduating from the University of Texas and living in Austin for 5 years, life took me to Chicago for a brief stint. During this interlude away from much of the Texas community I grew up with I met our first artist partner. What began as a friendship in a foreign city ultimately planted small seeds that would one day grow into the first ideas for Mont Art House. As we got to know one another I learned about her creative process, the time she invested into her work and the tension that existed between creating AND selling art. Read more>>

 Abigail Milawski

Growing up, I had always known that I loved creating art. While most kids dreamed about playing professional sports, becoming doctors, or being scientists, I had always dreamed of creating art that was impactful and made the viewer feel something. My senior year of high school, my AP Art teacher encouraged me to apply to the Savannah College of Art and Design. After I applied and had gotten in, I began classes in the fall of 2018. I went in undecided, because while I loved creating art, I couldn’t decide on one singular medium. Read more>>

Mahalia Jae

I grew up a creative. I was always interested in the arts and aesthetics, it was a vital part of my childhood. I’ve expressed my creative side in many ways throughout my life, from being a professional dancer, a make-up artist, a painter to personalizing random items that I own. As I got older, I realized that nothing in this world make me happier than creating. In January 2021, I discovered influencing and content creating and knew it was my calling. Read more>>

Jessye DeSilva

I’ve been making music since I was a young kid, growing up in the church. My Dad was a minister and when I was young, our household was pretty conservative and I was only allowed to listen to religious music. I found myself really drawn to Amy Grant – I really sensed the intimacy and vulnerability of her songs from an early age and I knew I wanted to provide that sort of space myself through singing and playing piano. Read more>>

Two Lanez James

I knew I wanted to do music professionally once my friends and family said I should go for it. They told me I was good enough. They said I had a voice that needed to be heard. My teachers in class would say I sounded like I could be a narrator or a storyteller one day and in a way I suppose they were right. One day I went from poems and creative writing to freestyling and rhyming in circles with other lyricists. Read more>>

Tracy Kennedy

All my life, I have dappled in creating… crafts, and just about anything I could do to make, to hold and see when I was finished. I enjoyed the process, the end result, and especially the calm meditative nature of making something. It was a big way of how I spent my free time outside of work. I had always wanted to spend more time on creative outlets and less time in my day to day work. However, with a Masters Degree in Organizational Development, I felt tied to my profession and obligated to put my degree to good use. Read more>>

Yz DREAM

After I wrote and recorded my first verse. Seeing my friends Reaction after playing it back for them let me know that i can really pursue this. I was 10 Read more>>

Ben Lee

So, when was the first time I wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally? I always like to joke, “As soon as I could pick up a pencil.”, but really, it was more in my mid-teens. Comic books have been a part of my life since I was a kid, capturing my imagination with the art and stories. But thinking about if I could create comics for a living? Definitely in my teens. Researched how to submit to publishers, even looked into how to self-publish, and what that would take. Read more>>

Avery Campbell

I’ve been writing stories and poetry for as long as I can remember, but the defining moment was when I had a daycare teacher that was also a DJ bring in his equipment one day. I was around the age of 7 or 8. He had turn tables, drum pads, microphones, like everything and I was instantly in love. He explained how everything worked from creating beats to adding loops to songs, and how to record. He even let us create and record a jingle for a local restaurant. Each kid got two bars and I was nervous so I just said “okay, what’s up.” Haha, but this is when my passion for music started. Read more>>

Abigayle James

I actually didn’t know I wanted to pursue and creative career path for a long time. I remember when I was younger I always loved hair and makeup and taking pictures but it never occurred to me that I could make a living out of that. I actually was planning on going into the medical field for most of my childhood up until about 3 years ago when I decided to switch my path to cosmetology school. I have done modeling for about 4 years now and I always figured that would be a side hustle for me but as I’ve gotten older I’ve fell more in love with it & began taking that more serious along with my cosmetology career. Read more>>

Shadab Wajih

I don’t think I ever made it as a decision. It just kinda happened. I was art-oriented even as a kid, doodling and illustrating on my textbooks. I have always kept moving from one art medium to another. When I was in high school I wrote my first comics. Later I was doing my bachelors in business management but would do graffiti for night clubs as a side gig, which never really paid much but I had a blast doing it. Read more>>

Kam Franklin

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue my artistry as a full-time career, I was 5 years old. It was the first time I was handed a microphone. I was at church singing with the children’s choir, and the pastor put the mic in front of each child to sing in a call and response type of way. When he came to me, I didn’t want to give the mic back. It felt like my own lil concert. I fell in love with that feeling in the moment, and I knew it was the life for me after that. Read more>>

Jason Cohen

I wrestled in high school and college. I always loved being in the moment. Wrestling helped me deal with my anxiety growing up. It was the only cure. While Wrestling in a match you cannot think about anything else in that moment or you’ll get taken down. It is a very mental sport. Just like life. Wrestling to me is an form of art hence the name martial arts. When my wrestling career was coming to an end I was always interested in being in the moment still. I never had so much mental and personal growth in something. Read more>>

MK Kopp

Dance was my introduction to performing, peewee dance to be specific. Little toddler MK enjoyed the classes but was obsessed with the recitals that came with them. My parents tell me that I’d confidently do the wrong moves with a big ‘ol smile. I remember after one performance (where I bombed but felt I slayed) gushing to my family about how desperately I wanted to be onstage for the rest of my life. So it began. Read more>>

easydrigo

For me music has always been in my pocket , i started off fully focusing on becoming a student athlete , at the same time i was playing saxophone . As things were going good in Football so was the music but it was something i put to the side . As life happened i drifted away from sports and attended college but felt somewhat empty . My mother was a big influence on me continuing music because in my break my mom was always planting a seed of my musical talents and how i shouldn’t waste them . Read more>>

Christopher DeGraw

For me it something I always wanted to pursue. I don’t remember the exact moment but the first creative path I wanted to take was as an architect. That is one I never actually pursued though. But as far back as I can remember I was always drawing, writing, creating a different world using my imagination. I could always see what wasn’t there and create a world around me that was different. But I knew there was never going to be another option for me, creativity had my heart from the very beginning. Read more>>

Jennifer Elaine Peete

God revealed my passion and natural talent of painting in the summer of 2015 after my ankle was fractured in three places making me immobile for 8 weeks. While I was healing, I decided to teach myself how to paint and develop my craft. It was like art therapy: comforting to the bones and soothing to the soul. I have always known how to draw and sketch, but it wasn’t until I picked up the paintbrush that I fell in love with creating masterpieces. Read more>>

Curtis Paige

After I self published my first book “Small Keys Open Big Doors” I truly felt accomplished and it was in a positive way the feedback from the community let me know I was walking in the right direction Read more>>

Patricia Frazier

I have been dancing since the age of two years old, won my first dance contest at age 10, dancing to Michael Jackson, Beat It, in the 5th grade. It was that moment I knew I wanted to dance and create dance routines for myself and others. I was in countless dance contest coming up all through junior high and high school. My freshman year in high school, I was asked by my band Director, Mr. Cook to create a dance routine for our 150 piece band for our new coming out look in the Spring Band EstravaBANDza….. So I made up the dance routine, and for two weeks I had to come to each band period and teach and tweak this routine to fit the different group of band members according to what instrument they played. Read more>>

Deborah Esher

I am a revivalist—one who promotes revealing Jesus Christ through demonstrations of His Holy Spirit. All my work exists to fulfill this purpose. My art is interdisciplinary. My medium identifies itself in its own season. There have been seasons where Holy Spirit stirred me in writing (poetry and prose). Other seasons, he stirred me in visual art (painting, drawing, fashion, modeling, etc.). In this season, God is stirring me in music (singing, songwriting, producing, etc.). As a creative person with multiple expressions, the question about my “discipline” always challenges me. Read more>>

Nouvèl

For the majority of my childhood, I didn’t have cable. If I wasn’t outside playing I was in my room reading a book or listening to the radio. I would listen to the radio all day and I remember being fascinated by the music. Not necessarily the lyrics but instrumental, melody, and vocal ability of the artist. I would sit and wonder what it would be like to be able to have such talent. I ended up taking piano lessons but only for a couple weeks. I moved on to playing trombone in the school band. Read more>>

Amanda Page Cornett

My love for music started pretty much from birth! I think I started making up songs before I could talk! I started writing original songs down and recording them at home at 9 years old. Writing and singing were just a part of me! I performed in singing, dancing, acting groups as soon as I was able! At age 13, I got the opportunity to sing an original song for the first time in public. It was at a youth retreat at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. I wasn’t a strong enough guitar player, so one of the counselors learned my song and played it for me. Read more>>

Michael Seib

My parents knew I was creative very early because I had no interest in coloring books drawn by someone else. I always wanted a blank page to draw my own figures, to be colored or not. I drew planes, cars, monsters and weapons, filling huge books of coding paper turned inside out from my Dad’s work. I believe I have talent from both sides as my Dad Pete drew with clean lines and spatial awareness and my great-grandmother Opal was an accomplished oil painter. I can remember sitting outside with her as a five-year-old and asking her to draw a deer. Read more>>

Xavier Bell

When I was 5 years old I always came up with lyrics while in the shower or as I was playing. Sometimes I would write these lyrics down and try to create what I thought was a song. I remember when I was younger I would always have my cousins, classmates during recess, or friends reciting the lyrics that I wrote or performing choreography that I came up with. It wasn’t until I was 9 years old and I had received my first iphone and I would record voice memos of me freestyling, and my aunt (who was a musician at the time) had instrumental’s downloaded on my laptop. I remember the instrumentals so vividly, it was “Knockin’ da Boots” H-Town and “Feel it in the Air” by Beanie Sigel. Read more>>

Bridget Olson

Back in elementary school, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. I was constantly taken out of the classroom to do extra work, summer school, and testing. I learned very early on that I was not going to excel as a mathematician or become an engineer, so at a very early age, I began to pour all of my free time into art and animations in MSpaint. On top of struggling in school, I had a lot of peers and adults looking down on my career path, which only fueled my drive to get a job in the arts. I’m quite thankful for these struggles and I wouldn’t have changed anything. Because of these early challenges, I’m able to work alongside great artists and designers at Serenity Forge. Read more>>

Yasmin Bratcher

I’m a busy mom with two young kids, and a supportive husband. Like so many, I was looking for a creative outlet while staying at home during the pandemic. After long days of virtual learning, a teaching degree and years of experience did not prepare me for the realities of online learning with my own child. That plus taking care of a toddler and running a household, I wanted, NEEDED something for myself. Read more>>

Anna Laven

I think I’ve always known I wanted to pursue a creative path. Whether or not I associated it initially with it being a profession or that I could make a living from it one day, I don’t know. From an early age I loved art and soon after I realized I had a love for photography. Still, I never really thought about pursuing it professionally until much later. As far as finding work went and needing to make money, I went right to retail while finishing school for business. Read more>>

Sterling O’Ray

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a creative individual. It is the largest characteristic that overrules my existence. If I didn’t have a paintbrush or pen in my hand, then I had a camera. If I did not have the camera then I would have eyeliner and vice versa. That is the way it was, and that is the way all these years later it has evolved. Growing up, I never saw myself becoming a doctor or a dentist like others my age. Read more>>