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.

Steven Middleton

Growing up inside a rural landscape I was very removed from the hustle and bustle of cities, and city life. My two constant companions were films, and music. I watched movies voraciously! Going to rent movie or flea markets to buy old movies became my favorite hobby. I watched everything I could find from westerns, to Samurai films, to the ever mind expanding works of David Lynch. While I lived in a rural area these works took my mind to places that I could never travel to. Slowly I started to become interested in music. Read more>>

Alexandria Bishop

I always knew I was artsy, ever since I was a kid. I always had a pencil in my hand and would much prefer spending my time quiet and drawing vs socializing or participating in class. I would have sketchbooks taken away by teachers and I was told by a math teacher once, “You’re going to regret wasting your time day dreaming when you enter the work force one day.” Read more>>

INTERNET FAMOUS

I didn’t know it as a kid but there was always visions I had growing up over the years that seem to have turned into a reality. Not having much most of my life other than my imagination & the will to create something from the tiniest amounts of resources I could gather had played a major role in my creative/artistic path in general, but definitely for making & playing music. Read more>>

BARBARA Fisher

As a child, I always saw myself as an artist. I would spend hours alone in my room drawing and making up stories. My family was quite conservative, however, and didn’t think art was anything to pursue beyond being a hobby. I was a good student and went to college initially as a Philosophy major. That didn’t pan out, and after two years I dropped out to pursue art, much to my family’s chagrin. In my 20’s, Read more>>

Linda Nickell

I have always wanted to create and pursue an artist path. Life has taken me on a journey of using my creative talents in many different ways. First of all, I am an arts educator so for many years I pursued the arts through creatively engaging students of all ages. I enjoyed drawing them into the world of seeing, looking, exploring and self expression through the arts. I also worked as a graphic artist and used my artist talents in the world of advertising. Read more>>

Mehnaz Ranmal

I began my journey as an aspiring mehndi artist at a very young age. Back in the day mehndi was applied with a simple needle. A much more tedious process as you can imagine. But that never held me back. I truly believe this was something I was born to do. Like many artists have mentioned – art can truly become a form of meditation. And that’s what it always was for me. A place to practice my creativity – that just so happened to also become my very own business. Read more>>

Abigail Fierce

My whole life, and especially as a kid, when times get tough, I would revert into my imagination. It was a safe place to be whoever I wanted to be, especially when I didn’t feel that safety in other places in my life. I love the escapism that comes with reading books, watching movies and plays and listening to music. I’ve always been writing *something* (whether that be a play or a eulogy for the dead bird I found in my backyard in 1st grade), but I started writing music in middle school. Read more>>

Jessie Crystle

Art has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was little, my grandmother, father, or aunt would teach me how to draw certain things, mostly animals. As we lived in the Philippines, surrounded by animals, it was the perfect environment to build my skill with art. Being in a family with creative visual artists and cooks, I naturally fell in love with creativity and its possibilities. I remember watching Disney’s Hercules for the first time and feeling fully immersed in the colors, art, music, and story. Read more>>

Ludivine Stsepaniuk

I grew up in a middle class French town called Nîmes and became an artistic swimmer at age 7. Thought my siblings went into studying sciences, I would always cherish some alone time to play some music and just “ move and let me body feel the music”. My swimming got me out of my small town and I moved to compete at the highest level which got me a ticket to the Paris National team training center. After competing for 10 years, I was still finding some alone time to “move and feel the music” so I decided to try out for a show. Read more>>

Linda Fields Steelman

I grew up loving to read, perform, and make people laugh. It was assumed by all that I would study theatre arts in college and take education courses as a ‘back up,’ After college, I did enjoy performing onstage for a while, but once I got a chance to do some substitute teaching, I knew that a hidden passion within me was awakening from sleep! I even got to teach drama classes for five years! ANY good teaching requires a lot of creativity! Read more>>

Jackie Romero

I always loved art and painted for years just for fun throughout my childhood and young adult life. As I got older I started having a love for makeup especially helping other people with products and what colors/looks would fit them best. I also started using makeup and hairstyling as a creative outlet when doing my own but never considered it could actually be a career. Read more>>

Michael Dika

I have always been interested in art even when I didn’t realize it. I used to play around in the neighborhood a lot taking empty cans, and then, we’d recycle that into a little car, make little clay figurines out of mud, and just play around all day exploring one material to other. I didn’t know what I was actually doing until I got to high school and college. Taking art classes felt like a revival of something I’ve been doing since childhood. Read more>>

Jenee Satterwhite

My childhood was filled with experiments with whatever art supplies I could find. At summer camp I was that girl making keychains and necklaces from colorful rope and beads. I felt energized when I made art and I loved it. Although I took art classes all through high school, my career path after graduation was uncertain. I never imagined my passions would become anything more than a creative outlet. Read more>>

Jamario Battle

I wanna say, the year 2009 was the actual year I wanted to pursue the DJ pathway. It was summer 2009, I moved back to Rocky Mount, NC from Greenville, NC to live with my mother & stepfather. My mother had a laptop that she gave to me. I believe it was a Toshiba. At the time I was collecting music and I came across a music software called “Mixx.” Read more>>

Jami Messuri

For my 10th birthday my aunt and uncle bought me a book by the worldly famous makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin. His book, “Making Faces” has images of The Who’s who of Hollywood and many others that inspired his creativity for creating some of the most iconic makeup looks of our times. In this book he had illustrated drawings of how the makeup should be applied. Read more>>

Brandon Caldwell

I knew I wanted to pursue A professional career as a hip-hop artist when I first saw performances from the BET/BET hip-hop awards show. I used to watch the hip-hop awards all the time as a kid and they always left me in complete amazement. Because all the performances would be so elaborate and so well put together that I would just get inspired. Read more>>

Beki Bi

After years through my youth being certain I would make a career of creative writing or comic creating, my mother tried to steer me into finding a career that would be a “for sure” way to earn money, but still encouraged my drawing and writing as a hobby. Read more>>

Maria Alejandra Mata

I was always drawn to different forms of creation since I was little, but I didn’t get into photography until my last couple years in college, back home in Caracas. I wasn’t very good at the time, but my photography instructor encouraged me to keep going, so I did. Music photography specifically was something I stumbled upon, when a good friend asked me to come over and shoot his band’s concert when the photographer called in sick. Read more>>

Justyn Cairo

Ever since I joined middle school chorus, music has been an integral part of my life. Like many others, I grew up in a negative environment, so music became my escape. Whether I was listening to Future or singing in choir, I realized that music can be comforting to people who are dealing with struggles. I decided to become an artist in order to give back and help people realize that they are not alone. Read more>>

Kamali Claros

As a new business owner with a passion for aromatherapy and the transformative power of candles, I was eager to get my products out into the world of e-commerce. However, I was at a loss for where to begin until I stumbled upon an Instagram post about a pop-up shop event. Intrigued, I began researching similar events and booking them to showcase my products. Read more>>

Stella Cheeks

Plan 9 Burlesque was born out of frustration and a desire to be more creatively free. We were working with a now-defunct company that profited off nerd culture without caring about the fans, audience, or fandom in any way. So we “enacted Plan 9” and left and formed our own company eleven years ago. Read more>>

Miko Reed

I started writing after a traumatic experience in my childhood. It was 1988/89, I was around 14 years old and in the middle of my 9th grade year at Hines Jr. High-in Washington DC. There was an after school creative writing program that I signed up for and the first two weeks the focus was on poetry. I wrote my very first poem called “Life” Read more>>

Jequan Hall

I always have an eye for fashion. I never knew I could make a full-time living off of being a fashion infilencer/content creator. I remember looking at other bloggers and in my mind I was thinking, I can really do this. It was the Lord that gave me the desire to persue fashion. I am praying that he takes me far because I know he could do it and I believe I could. Read more>>

Sophia Wang

It was back in high school, my favorite art teacher convinced me and said I got the talent, so I decided to give it a try and pursue my dream. Read more>>

Titan Lightfoot Carrillo

The first time I knew it was possible to accomplish my dreams – in the way that I wanted to accomplish them – I was in my early 20s. I was advancing well in my Army career, having moved from Germany back stateside for the first time since joining at the age of 17, and independent publishing was just growing out of its infancy as a legitimate publishing platform. As soon as I found out that I could maintain as much – or as little – creative control of my novels as I wanted, I was sold on independent publishing. Read more>>