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.

Kimberly Pham

My family has always been enthusiastic about Art and Creativity. My uncle was an architect who introduced me to sketching, my dad was an Electrical Engineer but he always encouraged my artistic interests. And my mother is a Nail Technician, I grew up watching her draw designs. I’ve been blessed with a family that loves my creative spark. So I’ve always known I loved Art. Read more>>

Be Steadwell

I spent many years wrestling with imposter syndrome. I thought to myself, I’m not good enough to be a musician. I don’t know enough about music. I don’t play instruments well enough. I don’t have enough vocal agility. Who cares what I have to say? If you’re a Black, queer weirdo kid like me-imposter syndrome is sort of built into our existence. I constantly told myself and was told I don’t belong here. But I love music and creating. And in spite of my doubts, I couldn’t stop creating. I made music and performed for years because it brought me joy, and eventually I realized I belong here. My story, my voice, my weird style is healing for someone. It is affirming for someone. I always knew I wanted to pursue music, but it took me about ten years of creating and performing to own it. Read more>>

VITA

It seems that many creative people view professionally pursuing their craft as nearly impossible, terrifying, and unapproachable. Society, schools, and home-life often beat the idea into us that art is a hobby and that a formal education and “real job” is the only way (a decade ago, this was truer than it is now) – and I certainly internalized this as a teen who was very interested in expressing their vision. I chose to pursue an education in the sciences in San Diego, where I regularly saw people who lived locally and spent their days enjoying themselves as they pleased, breaking the traditional mold of a 9-5. Read more>>

Lauren Lowe

I’ve known since a very young age that I wanted to pursue art as a career. My earliest memories are of being an over active child that was hard to deal with. I took great solace in art. At the age of three I vividly remember art being one of the things that helped me sit still and focus. I’ve always had an overactive imagination and within art there was a freedom and stability I couldn’t find with anything else. I knew from that time forward that I wanted to find a way to make my art my living when I became older. Read more>>

Spain Hines

I knew that I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally after about a year or two of not being able to get a job within the field. I actually ended up falling in love with furniture design by chance when I came across it as a path in college. I graduated in late 2019 and began job hunting in 2020. Nobody was hiring (or at least not hiring me) so I turned to making and refurbishing furniture on the side while I worked package handling jobs. I found it to be completely fulfilling in every way to the point that I knew I had to figure out a way to make it my full time, every day. Read more>>

Lisa Anita Wegner

As a young child, I was always organizing and performing in plays. At age eight, I went into my school principal’s office and proposed using the auditorium for a play I had in mind. After the performance, a teacher – who knew that I’d organized the whole thing as well as performing – remarked to me that I should just keep doing what I was doing, and eventually someone would pay me to do it. Even at such a young age, this resonated with me and felt right. It wasn’t until later that I realized that – since I had cast the show, made the costumes, prepared backing tapes, and handled all other logistics – I was naturally a producer even then, and could use my abilities there to further my opportunities for performance. Read more>>

April Bachman Leonard

A part of me has always known that the creative professional life is my way. Since I can remember, I have admired those leading a dynamic, artistic life and have wished that for myself. I also have an entrepreneurial spirit and a wide skillset. What took a bit, was for the courage and belief in myself to align with the know how. Read more>>

Seven Nance

I First knew around middle school my teacher Ms.Hope always told me I was great at stories writing prompts descriptiveness and creative language getting a perfect score on my writing for our Florida testing. Followed By my cousin Kayla Moore Having a label Po Folks Production where my peers Clvssic & Macknificent was artists, being around them in the in house studio and passing out cds promoting in parades I knew exactly this was what I wanted to do knowing I can use my words to share my life experiences to help those who think like me. Read more>>

Christine Blanchette

I can’t remember not having an interest in media, though it became my passion after working at a local television station and seeing firsthand how the stories were created. I began writing a running and fitness column in 2005 for a weekly newspaper, learning early on it’s about relating stories that could inspire people to get moving. My column was picked up by the Sherbrooke Record, which is Quebec’s second-largest English language newspaper and close to my home town of Richmond, QC. As a natural extension of writing, my attention circled back to broadcast media, having had training at Rogers TV. Read more>>

Robin Reynolds

As far back as high school I remember having to come to terms with the understanding that a career as an artist meant struggling to pay the bills. I still decided to pursue a double major at my liberal arts undergrad; I accepted that my economics degree would be the one to get me a “real job”, whereas my art major gave me the training and knowledge I really craved. After graduation I fell into an endless cycle of these “real jobs”: finance, furniture sales/designer, copy editing, marketing consultant, waitress. Playing into this traditional path gave me no creative satisfaction and very little free time to pursue my art. Read more>>

Larry Vienneau

I knew that I wanted to be an artist at a very young age. I struggled with school but always did well with writing, drawing, and sculpting. I grew up in a beautiful coastal town in Massachusetts. I had dyslexia before it was known as a condition and, of course, I had attention problems. I went to a Catholic school and was subjected to my share of abuse. Needless to say, I did not like school. I had one teacher who understood that I was a bit creative and allowed me to use modeling clay during reading and math class, I fashioned animals with the clay, and it helped me focus, I actually looked forward to class. When I was sixteen, I broke my neck when I dove into a swimming pool. About a month before the accident my mother had bought me a Scrimshaw Kit (the art of engraving whale teeth as practiced by 19th-century whalers) during a vacation on Nantucket Island, MA. Read more>>

Tyler Burr

Honestly I’ve always wanted to do something with music. I decided I wanted to rap around 6th or 7th grade, but I remember being a kid in like elementary school & I would take songs that were already out, replace a few words, & act like it was my song. I wanted to be in a band, I used to act like I was performing in front of crowds, all of that. Its always been what I gravitated most toward. Read more>>

Kimberly Butin

I would say that I’ve known I wanted writing to be a huge factor in my life for as long as I can remember. I actually started writing poetry around the age of nine. At the age of eleven I won a contest and had the opportunity to have my first published poem. Having that experience at such a young age – it stuck with me. Being able to move people with words is something I believe I’ll always wish to pursue. Read more>>

Krystal Rodriguez

At an early age I knew I wanted to be an artist. It was a subject that came natural for me, and since I attended Conchita Espinosa Academy, a school of the arts in Miami, FL, it nurtured my passion. I was involved in the visual art club, a designer for the Conchita Magazine, and participated in Spanish dance, jazz, and ballet. It undoubtedly gave me a strong foundation in the arts, and made the idea of being a professional artist in adulthood feasible. Read more>>

Natasha Spitzer

I grew up in my grandmother’s small garment factory, playing hide and seek between rolls of fabric and falling asleep to the sewing machine’s buzz. While drawing and painting have always been a very important part of my life, I never realised it could turn into a career until I was in college studying Fashion Design (my first obvious choice). I remember saying out loud ever since I was 12 I would become a fashion designer and have my own fashion brand. It was a bit of a surprise for myself when at 20 years old I found out about textile design and being able to combine all my passions at once. Read more>>

Brandon Blackwell

From a tender age, I felt a strong pull towards the realm of creativity and artistry. However, my defining moment arrived during a Sade concert in June of 2011. The entire experience, particularly the captivating sound, left an indelible mark on me. In the aftermath of that concert, I was gripped by a burning curiosity about who was responsible for orchestrating such an awe-inspiring auditory journey. While the exact role remained a mystery, I embarked on a quest for knowledge online. This quest eventually led me to the world of sound engineering. Read more>>

Michael Neufeld

In middle school and high school, playing trombone was one of the few main things I was interested in. Most of my friends were in band, and it was an environment where I felt like I could accomplish something that was personal to me, not just a grade in a class. I think my parents knew I was going to be a professional musician before I did: they watched me constantly in county, state, and even sometimes national-level honor ensembles throughout 7-12th grade, but it wasn’t until 10th grade that I had the moment of clarity for myself. Read more>>

Michael Arinze

Growing up, I always had a interest in photography, enjoying those moments when I could freeze time with a single click. I found joy in capturing the little details that others might overlook. However, life got busy, and while my love for photography never waned, it was relegated to the sidelines. The lockdown provided an unexpected silver lining: time. With hours to spare, I delved deep into online courses, honing my skills and refining my technique. This period of introspection and learning rekindled my passion in a profound way. Realizing the potential of turning my lifelong hobby into a career, I made the decision to pursue photography professionally. Read more>>

Stephen Moody

As I sat in my broadcast journalism class, the passion inside me to pursue the arts erupted. I worked hard in a photolab and ran my own portrait studio during college, knowing that if I didn’t graduate, my mother would be very disappointed. Graduation came and I was offered a job at a local TV station, for a quarter of what I was making from my portrait studio – but without hesitation, I thanked them and kept on creating portraits. Read more>>

Hannah Sulak

There almost seems to be this universal feeling for creatives… this fluttering rush in the chest of jubilee and gulping fear.. that they might be called to be an artist. For most creative kin that I dig deep into conversations about this with, the seed of their artistic path started to take root in them as children. I can echo that narrative. As children we often walk in creative freedom. It’s how we learn to interpret and learn about the world we’ve been born into. We study the color wheel, we memorize songs, we draw, we run around the backyard in imaginative play, and we watch movies or shows that teach us how to put category to our laughter and our tears. Read more>>

Brielle Von Hugel

As soon as I performed in front of a live audience! I can remember as far back to the age of 4 in dancing school, just getting this overwhelming feeling of comfortability on stage. I never wanted to leave it! I felt most at peace when I was up there and as the years went by, I did everything I could to be entertaining as often as possible- with dreams of it one day being my career. At the age of 9 is when I first began seriously booking jobs. Read more>>

Nathania Pasila

I was first introduced to music when I was three years old. My mom, who’s a piano teacher, taught me how to play piano. I still remember how proud and happy I looked when I managed to play C major scale for the first time. I knew at that moment that music is going to be my career because I fell in love with it. I thought that dream was going to change considering how most of us found something we love more later in our life. However, in my case, I couldn’t find something that excites and moves me more than music. This solidifies my dream and finally, I told my parents that I want to pursue music and go to a music school when I was in seventh grade. Read more>>

Jermain Hollman

Growing up I was always drawn towards story telling through books, poems and especially movies and television. I would love to immerse myself in a great TV show and or movie. I would dream how cool it would be to be on TV. But like many dreams I thought it would not be an obtainable goal. I went to college and studied Communications Art with a concentration of TV & Film production and Journalism. But it wasn’t until my junior year when took a screenwriting course and film making course where we had to write scripts and act in them that really felt a spark for both acting and film making. Read more>>

Jennifer Mullins

I come from a family of extremely talented artists and knew I was always drawn to artistic adventures. However it was not until high school that I knew I really wanted to seriously pursue a career in the arts. While taking photography classes, my teacher never inhibited my creativity even when my ideas were not always the most accepted for a public high school setting. He encouraged and celebrated my unique viewpoints and pointed out my innate sense of composition which I never had thought about. He always asked “just because you can edit a certain way, should you?” And this really made me stop and think, about how I was approaching my art. I didn’t ever go in with a set viewpoint but rather let my mind stop when it felt right. Read more>>

Koushik Chattopadhyay

I have always been very passionate about acting. Ever since I was a small kid. I would watch movies and wonder how it would be to act in those movies and to play a character. I would impersonate other actors and play characters out of a movie. Movies transformed me to a dream land to a world of imagination. I loved it. Although I had to pursue a Ph.D. in Human Genetics due to family pressure, the moment I got the opportunity, I jumped back into acting quoting my job. Read more>>

Kaden Gardner

From a very young age I always knew I wanted to pursue something artistically. But i’m sure as many others had heard when they were kids, that becoming an artist or a musician etc. would be very difficult, and the term “starving artist” was always thrown around a lot. In today’s day and age though it has never been easier to become an artist or pursue anything you’re passionate about. Thanks to social media and the internet, things such as instagram, youtube, tiktok, twitter, facebook and many more have made it easier than ever to get your work out there and seen by the masses. So i’m very glad I grew up in the time that I did as an artist. Read more>>

Steven Bejma

My dad was a horror movie guy so that made me one too. He always said that when I was 5 years old my father and I sat down and watched Frankenstein on Halloween and he said that within the first 10 minutes he knew I was hooked on horror movies. Read more>>

Sade & Renay Moore

We have always been creative growing up as children and intrigued with entertainment ranging from singing, acting, and modeling since the age of ten. I remember hearing this performance art school was auditioning from a advertisement on radio disney we both beg our mom to take us to the open casting. We were so excited she took us we received great feedback and the agent selected us but we never got the opportunity to attend because of hurricane Katrina . This didn’t stop us though from here we started to do school talent shows , and fashion shows around the city got sign to management and even did television work and earn degrees in communications that open up others opportunities for us to work in the entertainment industry as journalists and beauty influencers. Read more>>

Nori & Barbie Kelley

Nori – I started playing the guitar when I was 11 and started doing paying gigs when I was 13, so I began early and sort of continued on from there. I started writing when I was 17, doing recording sessions when I was 20 and recorded my first album at 21. Barbie – I started playing piano and flute around age nine. In high school I played flute in the marching and concert bands in 9th grade. Then switched to trumpet in 10th and was in the marching, concert and jazz bands through 12th grade. I also sang in the concert choir in 11th grade. Read more>>

Katie Heady

Growing up with two older brothers was super helpful for me. It showed me a lot about what I should avoid and what I should try. I remember when I was eight years old, I decided then on that I wanted to pursue art. Seeing my oldest brother, Chris, acting on stage, making his own plays, and creating all sorts of content in school. It was so inspiring to witness that as a kid. And my older brother, Mikey, ultimately shaped what I chose to focus on in college. My brothers showed me what could be possible and showed me the power of creativity and the art of storytelling. That’s why I pursued my career as an Animator. Read more>>

Daijone Dillard

I think for me I have always known this path was for me growing up at a very young age I have had this burning passion for music my mom brought me my first karaoke machine when I was 2 years old and from that point forward it’s all I ever knew/did I couldn’t see my life without it. Read more>>

Tazito Garcia

Since as long as I can remember. My goal has been to bring as many smiles and as much entertainment to my family and as many people as I can all over the world, Whether it was telling my grandmother exaggerated stories about my experience at the carwash, talking the ears off random passengers that sat next to me on a flight or performing in every school drama assembly I can sign up for. The goal was to pursue a performer path professionally, which eventually led me to pro sports. Read more>>

Arthur Monroe Tsatoke

I come from a well known family in the Kiowa tribe. My grandfather was an original member of the Kiowa five, now known as the Kiowa six. Monroe Tsatoke was a well known Native American artist. I am named after both my grandfathers, who are brothers, Arthur Monroe Tsatoke. Growing up, I always liked drawing. In the third grade, I was asked to draw a cartoon for the school newspaper. I took that task seriously and my cartoon made it in the edition of the school newspaper. I was very proud. Read more>>

Sophia Rivera

In the first year I started making jewelry and running a small business I was simultaneously working as a manager at a jewelry store and going to school full time to get my bachelor’s degree in animal science. Truthfully, I struggled a lot with academics throughout my youth, especially in conjunction with maintaining my mental health. I realized halfway through college that I was not only in an unhealthy environment but that I wasn’t nearly as passionate about the sciences as I once was. Starting my career in the jewelry industry as the manager of a small town, small business, I never would have assumed that that’s where life would take me. Read more>>

Courtney Hart

I sang in church choir and always loved singing, I was writing jingles for commercials (in my head, not professionally) and songs about boys on the playground for as long as I could remember. Weirdly, creativity started for me young, and I’ve really never viewed another path for myself. In high school, I was in mock trial and my teacher said my closing statement was so theatrical, she suggested I try the drama club. I had no desire to try drama club, until it was given to me as an art class in high school. My very first play, I was awful, I mean AWFUL, but even being awful, I felt like it was where I was supposed to be and I started studying acting in theatre and eventually method acting and acting for film. I would say my earliest memory of singing or pretending began at 5 and I have never looked back! Read more>>

Jetty Nieuwenhuis

Actually in my late forties. I am definitely a late bloomer. But, a but here, as a Law School dropout in Amsterdam at 20, I got into some office jobs. At 27 I decided I wanted to become a Makeup Artist and went to school in Amsterdam. I loved it. At 29 I moved with my Dutch husband to Canada and bought a farm. We got 2 boys, and I was a stay-at-home mom up until 2018. That’s when I went back to school (46 years) to become a Health Coach, Personal Trainer, and Nutrition Coach. I started my Instagram business Trujetty and coaching clients. In 2020 I realized that I wanted to be a full-time Creator/Influencer and Model, and stopped 1:1 coaching. In the meantime in 2013 I had done an Image Styling course in NY, but never got anywhere with it. Read more>>

Jantzen Peake

When I was in middle school I was taken out of class because of my learning disability and placed in room with a single block of clay. I wasn’t told what to do with the clay so just started sculpting things like dinosaurs, hamster cages and more. This was the time when I discovered the freedom of art and how accepting it makes my feel. Something I never felt in public schooling. This was a way I connected with my peers and how I best processed information. Read more>>

John DAcquisto

I started my quest in art back in 1996. I had no formal education in art Accademia at all. I started with pencil sketches and the advanced my medium to paint pens, color pencils, then watercolor and acrylic paint and some oils. Then later on as years past digital became the craze. I bought an iPad with procreate and began creating some pieces just as a hobby. Then it happened…some wanted to buy a piece of my artwork. I had no idea what to charge or what to do. I got through it with the help of some very good friend that where artists as a profession and also educators. who told me I should pursue my dream and create some pieces for sale. Read more>>

Faith Abraham

From a very early age, I can remember falling in love with the arts. Any style of live performance (theatre, dance, music) sang to my soul. There was something so beautiful about the freedom it allowed people and I was instantly hooked. I knew that I could never survive a corporate job while the art world existed, there was no 9-5 that could compare. Read more>>

Andrew Cooper

My mother has a book at her home from when I was 7 years old of a picture I drew that shows myself painting a canvas with words underneath that say “I want to be an Artist when I grow up.” She still has this after 24 years. I am now ironically doing the same thing in the photo that I was doing then. Read more>>

Brigid Morrissey

I grew up creating in all kinds of ways, but I gravitated toward drawing. It was always in the background of my life, but rarely in the foreground. Becoming a published author and illustrator was a goal of mine since early childhood. My mom likes to joke about the time I told her that I wanted not only to pursue that, but I also wanted to play in the WNBA and be a veterinarian in the off season. Read more>>

Carla Falb

As a child, I was deeply involved in music. At school, I was a band kid, playing the flute in my school’s marching band, orchestra, woodwind ensemble, and jazz band. At home I spent hours practicing classical piano and even auditioned to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra. My playing was very expressive, but unfortunately not entirely accurate! I decided to make a shift from music to art classes as a sophomore in high school because I thought visual arts would allow me more freedom to creatively express my identity and explore existential questions. By junior year, I became so passionate about making art that it was all that I wanted to do! I decided to submit my portfolio to the University of the Arts (UArts) in Philadelphia for early admission, was accepted, and began studying art in college at sixteen. Read more>>

Misaki Saito

I have always been profoundly guided by Albert Einstein’s timeless quote: “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” These words have guided me on my journey through various art disciplines and my professional start as a classical pianist. After a post-high school solo recital in Japan, I became close with an audience member with a passion for music who would later be one of my strongest supporters. He even acquired a piano which could record and reproduce my own playing just so he could continue enjoying it while I was abroad. Read more>>

Shmuel Eisenstein

The first time I wanted to take my passion for fashion into the world of creating was during my first semester of college when I met one of my now best friends, Kaz. Kaz and I met during our first semester of college in our Fashion Fundamentals class. I had just moved to Kent, Ohio, a few days late, and missed the first-year orientations to meet other students, which made me eager to make friends. Our teacher posted a discussion board to introduce ourselves and our favorite brands. Kaz posted about the brands he liked and linked his Instagram account to the post. So, I reached out to him, and we instantly became friends. He introduced me to his friend group (almost all of whom were also fashion students), and we all clicked. Read more>>

Jabria Anala

I knew that I wanted to pursue my artistic path professionally once I decided to quit cheerleading after 12 years. I thought cheerleading was my passion until I kept being unappreciated and unseen in so many ways. Even with having a high-level skill, I was still overlooked. After I quit, I decided to start back painting in my free time. Sometimes you grow out of things and that’s okay. I understood that God wanted me on a different path in this time of my life and I kept moving forward. I’ve always been a creative, talented kid growing up. My mom would buy me fashion kits to design clothes, paints, a guitar, braiding dolls, color pencils, and canvases all the time. Read more>>