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.

Lauren Nossett

The first story I remember writing was in third grade when I penned (or crayon-ed?) the tale “The Specialist Key.” This was before I learned superlatives and the story was about a “most-special” key that allowed a little girl entrance into all sorts of magical worlds. Ever since, I’ve written creatively. It was my secret hobby. As a professor, I was analyzing other people’s literary works for my “day job,” while I was secretly writing my own novels as a hobby. Read more>>

Ryann Lanel Redman

This sounds so cliche but for as long as I can remember I knew I wouldn’t have a typical 9-5 job and I also knew it wouldn’t be conventional. I wanted to pursue my dreams of being a creative in the fashion industry as soon as I started picking out my clothes as a child. Read more>>

Yagiz Oral

I have had a great interest in music and film since my childhood. However, the real moment of impact was when I joined a professional polyphonic choir while continuing the journey I started with guitar in my high school years. I had already been playing guitar for a few years, and a concert we gave in Paris with this professional choir I joined really impressed me. Read more>>

Jan Shapiro

I loved singing as a child. My mother played the piano and taught me to sing songs with my little sister. She noticed I could hum melodies back . When she would play instrumental songs ( classical, or popular songs) my mother said I was 2 years old and would be playing but humming portions of a melody she had played on the piano. Read more>>

Susan Shorter

My mom has had me in galleries since I was three years old. I have always loved drawing, and always knew I would be an artist. It was just in my bones. Now, whether or not, I would be able to make a living at it was up in the air, but even if I had to take side jobs, I always knew art was my path. In grade school, I poured over those “How to Cartoon” and “How to Draw” books trying to learn more every day. Read more>>

Kevin Blake Chandler

The arts have always been something I enjoyed since I was young kid. At the ages of 4-5 years old, I would perform scenes at gatherings for friends and family from my favorite movies. I would dance to Michael Jackson trying to copy his moves as well. Anyway to express my creative side at all costs. Once I was introduced to the game of basketball, the sport definitely took precedence but my artistic side always remained apart of me. Read more>>

Kaylee Hamm

I have been a creative person for as long as I can remember, drawing on anything I could get my hands on. My school crafts reflected how ambitious I was as a creative individual. I’d often have to take them home to finish them because I would pour my heart and soul into a purple minion rather than a yellow minion like my classmates. In high school I often broke the rules, going against what my art teacher instructed us. Read more>>

Sandra Villacis

When Chris Brown started my artist Career. Read more>>

Brittney Anderson

I knew that I wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally once I did my first professional photoshoot. I enjoyed the process of getting my makeup, hair and nails done and finding the perfect out. When I got on set I found myself feeling like I was in a whole new world, a world and creative environment that I had been missing out on. Once I completed my first photoshoot I knew that being a plus model & influencer was for me. It was meant for me to do this professionally and not look back. Read more>>

Laydee Lyrix

Ever since a young age, I’ve been driven to express my spiritual nature through music whether it be on stage, on camera, or in the studio, I have been singing and dancing my whole life, I even acted in a few productions when I was 10. Growing up with an undiagnosed, unnoticed learning disability I always had trouble communicating with people and comprehending what I was reading. I found that music was the only way to connect with my peers and even relate to my elders. Read more>>

Elisha Marchan

I believe since I was in elementary school. I wanted to be on Disney channel, and I wanted to be on Nickelodeon. Being in front of the camera I knew I had the voice and the personality for it. Sitting at home with my moms and my grandmother watching television talk shows like Ricki Lake, Sally, Oprah, hell even Jerry Springer sparked my interest of wanting to grab the microphone. Read more>>

Loren SoReal

Interesting enough, I did not realize nor recognize that poetry or writing was for me. I used to write just to express my emotions and I did not know it was a poem. I dealt a lot with mental health issues. I often would write about my life and it wasn’t until 2013 when I first realized I can use my poetry to shed light. Read more>>

Clara Chou

I’ve always known that I wanted to do something artistic as a career, but I didn’t expect myself to be a filmmaker, especially not an animator! It was my love for acting and my love for photography brought me to the journey of animation. I wanted to be an actress but didn’t have the courage to purchase the dream when my parents didn’t support it. Read more>>

Henry Torres

I knew that I wanted to be a writer professionally in 2006. I was studying Journalism and I presented a project of life with some lines of the book that I was writing. All my classmates and the teacher strongly recommended me to publish the book. I will never forget that day. My teacher cried when I was reading the fragments of my document. It was a sublime moment. Read more>>

Yolanda Thomas

From a very young age, like most creatives, I had no other desire to be anything else but a ROCKSTAR. Read more>>

Damon Brown

From a very young age, I had an innate inclination towards the creative arts. It wasn’t a sudden realization but rather a gradual understanding that I had a unique ability to communicate and express myself through creativity. I recall moments from my early childhood when I would spend hours drawing, writing stories, or experimenting with different art forms. Read more>>

Travis Barnes

In high school, I was part of a group project for an English class that required us to organize an event for a non-profit organization. We chose the Make-a-Wish Foundation and brainstormed various ideas until we finally settled on a talent show. Our talent show was unique because we combined all five smaller schools in our high school (Olympic High School in Charlotte, NC), which had never been done before. Read more>>

Rachel Moody

Since my early teens when I first started to bead I realized it was my happy place. I spent any money I had collecting treasures and realized I needed to make it my job to continue to support my habit. Read more>>

Amanda Chase

I first knew I wanted to pursue a creative path when I was just 15 years old. It happened quite unexpectedly. I stumbled upon a copy of NYLON Magazine while waiting for my mother’s nails to dry at a nail salon. As I flipped through the pages, I was captivated by the world they had created within those glossy pages—a world filled with culture, art, photography, design, and a style I had never been exposed to before. Read more>>

Mike Greene

That eureka moment of wanting to pursue music professionally I believe fully took shape after I released my first EP under Orno called ‘Ascend EP.’ Read more>>

Bill Rude

When I was about four years old, I had wandered out of the house on my own and got picked up by the Police. While they were tracking down my parents I spent the time entertaining everyone at the station by drawing pictures. Read more>>

Lily Smith

My junior year of college at Northwestern University was the moment I realized opera was going to be my life’s endeavor. Like many undergraduates, I decided to study abroad during the fall semester. I chose an opera program in Milan, Italy, and went there for four months. I lived with a host family who only spoke Italian, and took lessons with a professional opera singer, an Italian soprano. Read more>>

Joshua Rich

For Joshua, he is a self-taught pianist who began playing, singing and composing at the piano at the age of eight. He always knew he wanted to be a professional musician. Kari was playing clarinet and singing with jazz bands on the streets of New Orleans at the age of 9, and throughout her academic career, where she learned piano, composition, voice and how to play all of the instruments in the orchestra and how to conduct, she was likewise drawn to a career as a professional musician and performer. Read more>>

Matt Chiaravalle

Probably at around the age of 10. As soon I understood the concept of how the records I was hearing on the radio were made, I knew I wanted to be a part of that. Read more>>

Koliano T Jonez

Since I was Kid I was always influenced by Music my Mother was married to one of the band members from the legendary group The Delfonics out of Philly Read more>>

Rogerio Maudonnet

Music has been a significant part of my life since childhood. I’ve played guitar in various bands and pursued a solo project. However, once I secured a position at an audio production company, it became evident that my true calling was in composing and producing music. Read more>>

Chris Battle

During one of my first visits to Disneyland as a young child of 4 or 5, my parents bought me a little flip book from a souvenir shop that showed Donald Duck striking out while trying to hit a baseball, and they explained how cartoons were made of of lots drawings — This would be my first clue that actual people made some of my favorite forms of entertainment. A few years later, when the original Star Wars came out, and blew every young Gen-X kid’s collective minds, my parents gave me “The Art of Star Wars” book, which showed me just how many artists (of all different crafts) it took to create the magic on the screen. Read more>>

MANAMI LINGERFELT

I moved to the USA in 2002.I had a dream to become a successful artist. I met someone, who said he would support me, and asked me to marry him. Shortly after he became strange and abusive. Within a year of moving to America, I was already homeless with two children living in a battered woman”‘s shelter. Read more>>

Bo Park

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue this path was back in 2010. I moved to New York City to be an international student at Broadway Dance Center. Growing up in Asia(South Korea), I was under pressure from my parents to find “stable” jobs and never had a chance to do something I wanted to do. Which was learning, training as a dancer. The first class I took in my life was in New York City, I finally came to a realization that I would love to do what I love and follow my heart. Read more>>

Erin Remington

Ever since I was a child, creativity and art has always been my passion. I was obsessed with Trading Spaces in the early 2000s as a kid and would think of all the ways I could re-decorate my bedroom. Usually, it ended up with me moving furniture around every few months just to feel like I was changing up my room. I don’t think I consciously thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I was always doing a project or something to fuel my creativity. Read more>>

Alex Cole

I’ve always been a performer. I was a singer before I became a guitar player. When I was very young around 5 years old my dad bought the first videocamera and I remember I was performing in front of the family in front of the camera which was connected at the TV, and i felt good watching myself on tv. When I was 12 years old I started performing in clubs singing songs by Blues Brothers, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richards etc. Read more>>

Terre Moshe’

I have alway had an artistic/creative side even though I pursued a career in the Health care field with animals & people. Read more>>

Chloé Caroline

Since my early childhood, I knew my purpose was to use my light and love to connect people and ensure no one ever felt alone. I always made friends with the new kids and the misfits, even though I didn’t know they were, and always tended to be a “floater” in different kinds of friend groups. I never quite felt like I fit entirely into one place. I started writing songs at 6 years old, especially as I began to learn piano, and was far more entertained creating my own melodies than the piece the teacher was trying to have me memorize. Read more>>

Nicole De La Fuente

When the pandemic first started I was a junior in highschool. This gave me a lot of free time and motivation to creative videos and start posting on social media. I’ve always had a passion for the fashion industry so it was very natural to frame my concepts around fashion. After a few months of posting regularly, my following began to grow and I realized I could create a career out of something I loved. Read more>>

Fernando Silva

I have always been interested in drawing. I think I owe that to my mother, she is a doctor but she always loved drawing especially anatomy sketches. Read more>>

Terrill Carter

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the age of I won my first citywide talent show! The event was held at the centroplex downtown Baton Rouge. The stadium was packed and I went up against 25 other acts and won 1st place. That was the day, I knew I loved the stage and a music career would be my life long pursuit! Read more>>

Tara Adkins

As a child, without an ounce of talent, I was always drawn to art and dance. I remember drawing stick figures with circular heads (that were terrible) but we’re hung up proudly in our living room. Art classes were always my favorite moments at school and summer camps. Read more>>

Neon Nash

I knew that I wanted to be a singer ever since I was a little kid growing up in Tampa, Florida. I’ve always had a passion for music and was practically singing every chance I could get. I was obsessed with musicals as a kid and attended voice lessons when I was 11. And I’m really thankful for that time, I really feel like it helped me hone my skills enough to pursue singing professionally once I was older. Read more>>

Patrick Everett

When I was in high school a recruiter came in and showed us what I thought was just a photograph but turned out to be a drawing. I was so captivated and knew I wanted to pursue art as a career. Funny about that story is my art style is far from that realistic style. Read more>>

Collin Deatherage

I don’t know that I ever made the conscious decision to pursue a life as a creative professional, it’s just something I woke up in the middle of. I was always a little ball of emotion and I rarely had a logical approach to anything growing up. I think as long as I can remember it was just understood that this was the path I was on be it for better or worse. In contemplation I’ve always come to rest on the idea that you can’t change who you are so why fight it. Read more>>

James Picard

I’ve always been creative. I started drawing my mother said as soon as I could hold a pencil. I did not grow up in a creative household, as a matter of fact, creativity was frowned upon. My father was a violent alcoholic, and drawing and painting, became my escape from my every day life I always loved music and art, and followed both with a passion. Read more>>

Detra Payne

When I was about 5 years old the Electric Company was a television program that used to air, we would watch it in my first grade class. I saw Morgan Freeman performing Mr. Reader – he was teaching us children how to read – and I thought, that looks like fun I want to do what he is doing on tv. I also watched Sesame Street and knew I wanted to live in New York, many years later I lived in NYC for graduate school and got the chance to meet Morgan Freeman. Read more>>

Kyrsta Morehouse

I was a kid who always kinda new I would do something in the creative world! I was an artsy, creative kid from day one and in seventh grade started attending a performing artists school. From them up through highschool I thought I would be an actress and knee I would never thrive as a lawyer, doctor, or insurance agent. I needed to make art, diversity in what a “day at the office” looked like each day, and a chance to create something new! Read more>>

Reina Hidalgo

I first knew I wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally was when my best friend Asiel Hardison and I meet the cast of dancers from the movie From Justin to Kelly. They were shooting the film down in Miami and a friend of ours at the time was casted as a dancer. He brought us out to hang with some of the dancers one night and we had all these questions about how they got to be in the movie and the perks of what they do. Read more>>

Beck Black

I knew I wanted to be a professional artist when I acted in a film and created the musical theme “I’m Just a Sailor”. I played the role of both the sailor and the muse in the short film directed by David Lynch’s nephew. This acting role and song is what sparked my interest to perform theatrical art. Having the song, “I’m just a Sailor” becoming the cinematic theme, exuded the confidence to write more songs based on characters. Read more>>