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.

Ellie La Gringa

As a young kid, I always loved to sing and perform. Really anything that got me on a stage. I always said I wanted to be a singer and an actress, as I think many kids do. Once I got older though, I left a lot of that behind. I started to get a bit more shy, a bit less self-confident. I didn’t get a part in a play I really wanted, and I remember being so upset about it and hard on myself. Read more>>

Susanna Tung

I have always been interested in art and design since I was little. Beautiful artworks, stylish wears, anything visually engaging attracts my attention. Resigned to the fact that I went to a medical college, there weren’t any design related courses for me to take, but that changed in my senior year during college. Read more>>

Anna Luena

When I was about 6 or 7 years old we lived in a condominium near Aurora, CO. There were many kids that lived there and I was friends with most of them. One of my best friends had an older sister, she had braces and I thought she was the coolest person I ever saw. We would play together often at her place, they had all the best toys and one day her older sister gave me the CD “Spice” by the Spice Girls. Read more>>

Ray Mendoza Landa

I can honestly say that I can’t remember a time where animation didn’t interest me in some way shape or form. Aside from wanting to be a Power Ranger when I was younger, I always wanted to make cartoons. I still remember my dad introducing my brother and me to Dragon Ball Z. We were super into characters, the stories, and the action! It definitely lit a fire in me and I just started drawing all of my favorite characters trying to figure out how to make them move like they did on tv. Read more>>

Verroti

It happened the first time I went to a music studio, before then I was just writing and writing. I enjoyed every bit of the process, then I visited a friend at his studio, that was in 2013, then he let me freestyle on a beat, he loved it and actually produced a song for me, that was when I knew this is what I want to do, and it’s been going great so far, learning and growing. It’s crazy really. Read more>>

Daniel Caprio

I’ve wanted to play guitar probably my whole life, I was just drawn to it. I didn’t start learning till I was 13 and didn’t start taking writing music seriously till I was 17 or 18. Read more>>

Michael Snow

When I was in high school I started dealing with depression. I had one teacher who really saw me. I had written in one of my papers that nothing really mattered, that everything was meaningless. She told me to look up this phrase “l’art pour l’art.” It basically means art for arts sake. It came from a philosophy that art was the only thing done for no other reason than for it to exist, it was its own intrinsic value. After that I knew there was nothing else that I could dedicate myself to other than to create. Read more>>

Malika Blessing

It all started when I was a little girl and my mother said as a kid, the teacher would tell her that I read with expression. So my mother knew that there was something special about me. I remember when I was in the 6th grade, and I wanted the lead role in the Christmas play which was the role of Santa Claus, and I was told that was a male role. I didn’t allow that to stop me and I campaigned to be able to audition for the role, which I did get an opportunity to audition for and LANDED the role. Read more>>

Coyanne Granderson

I would say that I knew I wanted to do art professionally since I was in kindergarten when I realized that my favorite show, Clifford the Big Red Dog, started off as a children’s book. That spark continued to drive me throughout my life and got me into practicing animation at Sheldon High School where I really felt like I was on the right path towards a career in animation. Read more>>

Séraphine ….

In my first year of university fine art studies, I was introduced to a new paint, acrylic. Prior to that, everyone used only oils. In the humidity of Louisiana Cajun country, oils just did not dry. Sometimes it took two years for an oil painting to “harden” enough to call it dry. Acrylics, because of the humidity worked very much like oils except our paintings would be dry by the next day. Read more>>

Chyna Norman

I knew I was different at a very young age. I never really “fit in” it didn’t matter who I was around, what friend group I came into, I always was the “odd one out” when I was younger, I didn’t really understand, I thought it was me. I felt as though I would get criticized a lot for my outgoing personality, my way of thinking, how my presence could just shift a room. Read more>>

John Kayacan

My love of photography first started off as a simple class I took in high school. Snapping photos of anything that caught my eye, as time went by, and my focus on photography became more obsessive, the pictures started to look better too. Over time it evolved into a purpose. Read more>>

Daniel Barrington

I first picked up a camera in early high school. It was a GoPro here 3 and my brother and I would run around making fun videos over the summer break. I soon realised just how much I loved editing and creating short videos that I tried to discover how I could make a living out of it. Drawing inspiration from content creators on social media, we strived to shoot content full-time. Some of the guys that I used to look up to, I now call my best mates and we work together in a content-creating group. It’s funny how life works. Read more>>

France Garrido

When I was in Middle School, my class went on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I found myself in front of Dali’s, ‘Crucifixion’. It was that distinct time, that I felt as if I was enveloped into the painting that cemented a desire to become an artist. As I gazed at the painting, everything around it and me dissolved, the only thing that existed was myself & the painting. It was magical! Read more>>

Jeffrey Ashkin

My drama teacher in high school told my class a straightforward rule when it came to pursuing a life in the performing arts. She said, “If anything else in the world makes you happier than being in the performing arts, do that instead.” Her words stuck with me for years since I found myself going from job to job while pursuing acting and writing on the side. Read more>>

Laura Plouzek

I discovered I had a proclivity for painting during my sophomore year in college when I moved away from home, and for the first time since I was 14, didn’t have a job. This idle time allowed me to wander through some artistic pursuits and I fell in love with painting. I switched my major to fine arts my junior year, without ever having taken a single art class. I spent several years post college teaching high school art (my dream job!). Read more>>

Hannah Lee

Metalsmithing is very easy to become passionate about. As I learned different metalsmithing techniques from college courses, the excitement followed me into my free time. Eventually, I did show my creations to friends and family. That was when I knew I could monetize my efforts and pursue metalsmithing professionally. Read more>>

Peyton Shay

For many of us, being a singer or working in entertainment has been a dream of ours from the start. When I was nine years old, I enrolled in a local theater program as an after-school activity, I quickly fell in love with the art of performing and storytelling. After shifting from musical theater, I went into acting for most of my childhood. I learned so many key values that ultimately shaped the artist and person I am today. Read more>>

Jamahl Thomas

I was about 15 when I first realized I wanted to do music. I spent that summer going into my junior year of high school writing a lot and it just became an escape for me. I had a friend named Kevin in high school who’s brother (Brent) made beats. One day Kevin told me his brother was looking for people to rap on his beats for a project and I gladly accepted that offer. The project never seen the light of day, but they decided to do a project for me and from there things became more real. Read more>>

Patrick Ditzel

I think a part of me has always known. I’ve always been fascinated by music. My parents put me into piano lessons at a young age, so music was second nature to me. I was already writing songs when I was in grade school, and eventually, it led me to pick up the electric guitar to pursue being in a rock band with some friends in high school. Since we were on a low budget, Read more>>

Bree Vaz

When I started college, I was a business economics major at my parents’ request. Knowing I had a love for movies and cinematography, I snuck and took a few film classes as well. Well, I ended up failing my business classes and aceing my film courses. After that, I changed my major to film and minored in photography, and I’ve never looked back! Read more>>

Amaya Santos

I have been singing my whole life, As a teenager, I remember my parents would let me and my siblings spend most of the summer break at my grandparents house. I would spend my days planning a performance with my 2 cousins so that we could perform it at the end of the summer break. I always loved singing and performing and while I always wanted to pursue it as a career path I was always too shy and too afraid of failing to do so. Read more>>

Armand Unique

I’ve always wanted to incorporate art in whatever I decided to do professionally. But along the way I was discouraged by mentors and educators , who I’m sure had my best interest at heart. Realistically it can be difficult to make a full time living off of your art alone. It takes a lot of work to build upon your craft as an artist , finding your voice and building that clientele on top of that can take years. Read more>>

Adrienne Kinsella

There were always undercurrents of art for me. However, during grad school, my desire to pursue a creative path professionally was completely solidified. For years I felt like I had wings I didn’t know what to do with. I had always been inclined to the visual arts, but the full emersion environment of my MFA program where I had a studio for the first time, experienced the synergistic collaboration within my cohort and to to work with amazing faculty, is where I learned how to fly. I haven’t looked back. Read more>>

Carrie Anne Hudson

“Mom and Dad, I’m going to be an artist.” The creative itch hit me early in life. As a child of the 90’s, I had a wild imagination – creating my own characters and worlds through anything I could get my hands on. While other kids hated them, I loved school art and craft assignments. And with only Microsoft Word and MS Paint on our home computer, I would spend hours typing up short stories and doodling across the screen. Read more>>

Mayu Nakaya

It was around 17 years old I met many of Japan’s leading contemporary dancers and choreographers who had dedicated their lives to dance, admired them, listened to their stories, and narrowed my daily choices and life choices to a lifelong commitment to the arts. And when I graduated from college and I decided to move to New York City, one thick my way was already in place, but I decided to enjoy living this way. Read more>>

K Larabee

My first foggy indication that there was *something* for me in creative work is when I was 18 years old, while working as a day care teacher in the toddler room during the summer break after my freshman year of college. (Okay, I DID win a coloring contest in kindergarten, but that likely is because I colored in the lines, and THAT is a conversation for another day.) Read more>>

Avinne Elias

Jumping into a new career can be frightening. You have no idea what to expect but you have to give it your all. I knew I wanted to persue being a makeup artist when I saw my whole family believe in me. After their encouragement I knew at that point I had nothing to loose. Read more>>

Ian Knox

Music has been in my blood for most of my life. I’ve been singing since I was 8 years old which was when my mother sat my older brother and I down at our grandmothers kitchen table and started singing to us. She started singing “Don’t drink no wine, Whiskey is good and it’s easy to find”. Read more>>

JD McGibney

I first got into playing music when I was fourteen. I discovered Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath and my heart fell in love with the guitar. It wasn’t until I discovered Killswitch Engage that went down the path of making music my career. Read more>>

Kylah Cotharn

Since I was a very little girl, I was always singing and dancing picturing myself on tv. I just pictured myself being an entertainer, or in fashion. My favorite thing was watching American Idol and dancing in my mothers shoes, so it’s been a passion. As I got older I realized these dreams aren’t so far as I thought, so it became a goal. So I’m at the point where I see how easily these opportunities can come to me. I can now see myself really being a fashion model for a living. Read more>>

Michaela Yoro

For as long as I can remember, pursuing art was never a question. Whether or not I understood how to practically make that happen is another story. There were other interests I considered when entering college, but none seemed as appealing and fulfilling (and challenging) as pursuing an artist career. I truly knew nothing about what types of art careers exist, the path to those careers and which one(s) my skillset or interests would align with. I simply felt deep down that no other career would be as rewarding as art. Read more>>

Bryard Huggins

Up until my senior year of high school, I never considered doing music professionally. It was always just a hobby for me, ever since I was 4 years old. In fact, I wanted to become an architect with my forever interest in design and cities and skylines. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school when it came time to apply to colleges did I decide to pursue music full time. I recognized that I was given this gift by purpose and design, Read more>>

Alexandria Singleton-Smith

When I was a little girl, my mother sold Mary Kay, and I would sneak into her makeup bag and take the makeup samples. This is where my love for makeup began. I then started to do makeup on my classmates and friends for school events. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to pursue makeup professionally. Read more>>

Nate Shy

Definitely after graduating high school. I always took music serious since the start even if it sounded horrible in the beginning. Writing was my therapy and still is to be honest. If you really listen to what I got to say you’ll know what i’m talking about. Read more>>

Xiaojie Liu

I think it was when I was in high school. At that time, I was faced with the first choice in my life. If I chose this path as an art student, it meant that I had to stay away from my hometown and my parents, and learn painting. At the same time, I had to prepare for the college entrance examination. My parents and I thought about it for a week, and I told them that I really wanted to take painting as my lifelong pursuit, although they were worried about whether my material life would be guaranteed in the future, they agreed. Read more>>

Christopher Badillo

I was always a very creative person, even at a very young age. I absolutely loved watching movies and tv shows, reading books and drawing. It was just something that has always been a part of who I am. But, it wasn’t until joining my first video production and drama classes in high school that I knew I wanted to pursue a path as a creative. It was then that I began to realize that creating and telling stories, like the ones I watched on screen or read in books, was something I could do as a life’s passion. Read more>>