Getting started sounds so easy – but for millions of aspiring artists and creatives, the uncertainty of the path forward presents a very real challenge. So, we wanted to gather some artists and creatives we admire to open up about their experience and how they think about whether they should have started sooner or waited for a better time.

James Rauff

I think I’m right where I need to be at my creative stage in life. I’ve had a few creative projects before Recirculation Art. Previously, I was doing stain-glass/old window frame art in San Diego. Previous to that I focused a lot more on just poetry and in college I was on the editorial staff of a poetry magazine. So I think what I do now is a great combination of all my past creative endeavors. Read more>>

Devon

I definitely wish I started sooner. I started pursuing comedy in my 40’s. WAY late for the entertainment business but I knew from a very young age that I wanted to do 2 things, make people laugh and feed them. Comedy and cooking are my life’s blood. I spent a lot of my life trying to fit in the regular boxes we are all told we belong in, but I was never happy. It led to bad decisions, depression, and struggles that were all alleviated with the right creative outlet. Read more>>

Kai Ming Yang

In retrospection, I harbor a wish for an earlier start to my creative career, occasionally envisioning an alternative trajectory that might have led to different professional standing today. Yet, I’ve come to realize that dwelling too much on such thoughts is impractical. Read more>>

Jon “King ROSS” Sanford

To be completely honest, I don’t wish I would’ve started any sooner or later than I did. Read more>>

Jasmine Lambatan

If I could go back in time, I definitely wish I had started doing nails earlier in life and not been such a procrastinator! I actually began doing nails in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic started. During that time, I was also waxing eyebrows and working at a bar/club. The idea of doing nails came to me when my friend brought her nail kit to my house and challenged me to do her nails without any practice or prior experience. Surprisingly, I took on the challenge and did it. Read more>>

Sofía Bragar

I wish I had started my creative career sooner. I’m very grateful that my parents put me in dance and voice lessons growing up; but in general, I believe I needed more artistic exposure. I mean, it’s not their fault that we lived in a country with little artistic exposure, with not many school performance opportunities, no theatre/acting workshops, or really not many casting opportunities available. Same thing when it comes to the existence of musicals, plays, or access to networking events; as a Chilean society, we lack of them. Read more>>

Kelly Zirbes

I wish I had taken the music in my life more seriously at different stages of my life. There were many times when the opportunity to do so was right there in front of me but I think I chose not to pay attention because I believed music would always be there for me. I had taken it for granted. As I get older I see so many around me unable to do music because of health and family and I will not take it for granted anymore. Read more>>

Lillian Aleece

I’m pleased with my journey but I wish I would’ve recorded more songs sooner. My first solo recorded song was terrible and I didn’t record new songs until 2 years after. It was only released it on SoundCloud just to reach friends and family. My two year gap stunted my recording artist growth because I was waiting till it was “perfect”. Read more>>

John Treanor

I wish that I had started writing songs earlier in life. I was always drawn to music and immersed myself in it from an early age. My parents had me take piano lessons, but I always wished I could play guitar. When I got into punk rock at 15, I did write a couple of songs with a friend, and attended many shows, but became derailed with substance abuse. Read more>>

Olga Basanta

I have learned that things happen as they have to happen, but if there was a back button I would start training as a composer and producer much sooner. Over the years I have discovered that the more tools you have in music your chances of success will increase. Read more>>

Kwesi Mark

There are definitely times when I wish I had started my photography career earlier. This is a career where you learn things as you go along doing it. And sometimes I think alot of those lessons would of been so beneficial if I started off earlier in my career. But this might all just be coming from hindsight. I try to still myself everything happens for a reason and the idea that you should be in certain place’s and spaces in your life at certain ages isn’t a real concept. Read more>>

Shuwan Chen

I reckon the timing of my creative career was just right. Every moment leading up to it contributed to my unique perspective and artistic approach. I wouldn’t change a thing. Read more>>

Brett Cassort

I started to take my art career seriously as a profession later and that really has worked for me. Although I’ve been creative my entire life, drawing from an early age and then moving into other mediums and paint later on allowed me to figure out who I was and what I wanted to say. I got a great piece of advice from an artist that was making a living at it and that was simply, “There is no single blueprint for success in this business, every path is different.” I’ve coupled that with another great piece of advice I’ve gotten, “Just stay in your lane”. Read more>>

Rambo

One of the biggest changes I would make to my creative career would be starting sooner. I wish I would’ve had the chance to create when I was in college and push my brand around the campus. There was so many opportunities that I missed because I didn’t know the ability I had or what the outside perception would be of my music. I should have taken the leap sooner. Read more>>

Rian Jenkins

I knew as early as sixth grade in 1992 that I had a gift for using words to capture an audience. Along with writing poetry, I would write short stories and novellas that my friends would pass around during seventh and eighth grade. I treasure that time of entertaining my peers in middle school because it would come full circle later. Nevertheless, I never considered publishing until 2003 after performing two years at various open mics on my college campus, Winthrop University and Charlotte, NC. Read more>>

Ashley Noelle Edwards

I became enchanted by wedding photography when I was searching for a photographer as a bride myself in 2010. I had always been an artist, even since early childhood, but also always had a fascination for weddings. I would spend hours as a little girl carefully cutting out pictures of wedding gowns and flowers from magazines and pasting them into journals. I would even cut and paste little photographs of stand mixers and china sets from catalogs as my pretend “wedding registry.” Read more>>

JL Schwartz

My love of art began in preschool when my mother signed me up for classes at the Tampa Museum of Art. I continued my formal artistic training throughout college.. However, I decided to pursue an alternate career path in information technology while continuing to create artwork as time permitted. The main reason for this switch was my lack of confidence and fear that I would not be able to support myself as a full-time artist. Read more>>

Jensine Baltazar

I believe that there is a creative bone in each soul. Sometimes those creative seeds are planted at an early stage or later in life, but it is dormant inside of us. For most individuals, our corporate careers are part of our identity. So we forget to find another meaningful outlet outside those bounds. My spiritual journey that lead to the creation of The Alchemy Craft came at a time that is destined for me. Read more>>

Elio Borjas

As everything good requieres time, it began with the contemplation of the spectacles of sunrises and sunsets, then that led me to try to give perpetuity to those moments and for that I needed a tool. It was none other than my small Kodak camera. It was a challenge for me, since every day I aimed capture more beauty in each of my photographs, then over the years my interest in always having ART present blossomed. It was not only about demonstrating beauty anymore, but also trying to put my works in a different plane, with more substance and depth. Read more>>

Marquez Price

No way! Muhammad Ali ued to say, “My train is on schedule.” That’s also the title of my first book (“My Train is On Schedule.”) It debuted as a #1 seller and bedtseller in 7 categories on Amazon. I trust divine timing so I believe I started when I was supposed to start. Read more>>

Nikita Budkov

I would not change anything. I decided to become an artist when I was a teenager and was blessed with parents who supported me. Soon after graduating from art school, I sold my first painting in the art show at 22. Being young and having extra time really helped me to invest my energy into mastering the craft and I don’t have any regrets about that. Read more>>

Salva Alba

Although I’m happy how things turned out and I believe everything happens in a perfect and divine order beyond our comprehension, I do wish I would have started believing in myself earlier in life. Read more>>

Grimstyles

I love being a rapper creating music is all that I ever think about; however, I wish I had started my career a little sooner. I recorded my first song in the Spring of 2010, but I wasn’t comfortable with putting it out for people to hear until two years later in 2012. In hindsight I feel that delaying my first song’s release hindered my development of a social media presence. Read more>>

Daniel Holland

I wish I had started it sooner. In a world of technology and social media, content creation is still a somewhat new thing, but it evolves so quick. I figure if I would’ve started my creative journey sooner with other platforms rather than on TikTok where content creation is the only way of communicating on that app. Maybe I’d be farther in my journey. Read more>>

DelCo Spidey

I wish I had started sooner. It’s been beyond a blessing to put on the 🕸 suit and reach people’s imagination. To create a moment where one will instantly smile. If I’d been more confident in the idea and myself, maybe I would have. But to be able to have the successes I have empowers me to want to do more. Read more>>

Brittney Renee

I absolutely wish I started my creative career sooner but I feel like there was a lot I would have never known about myself had I never left New England. It was financially tough for me to leave and I didn’t know how people moved across the country until someone I took a makeup course from told me that people rented out rooms to single people moving from all over the world! I had always wanted to pursue an arts career or path (if you will) but growing up in New England I felt like opportunities were limited and most of the region were not the most open minded. Read more>>

Ray Chang

I find value in the work and experiences I’ve had thus far. I’ve worked odd jobs, internships, studios, and agencies – all of which have informed my creative work today. Some jobs may not have anything to do with my passions, but I draw from my past and believe I started my creative career at the right time. Read more>>

Tanya Thamkruphat

Yes and no. Yes, because I think I would have had more time (and energy) to commit to learning about poetry, about writing non-fiction, etc. I’ve only seriously invested into my poetry career later in life at the age of 35. Sometimes I wish I could have gone back in time and majored in creative writing as an undergrad and gone on to get an MFA. Read more>>

Classique

Man if I could count all the “shoulda, woulda, couldas” I’ve asked myself over the years about starting my creative career sooner, I’D BE RICH!! But at the same time, I’ve learned one very crucial and important thing, everything happens for a reason in divine timing and not a moment sooner. Therefore, the path that I’ve taken to reach the space that I am in now is absolutely perfect and I am grateful fo all that I have learned along the way. All of the wishing and hoping to start sooner was part of the process that led me to this very moment. So essentially, I am glad that I began when I did. Read more>>

Denise Antonietti

I certainly wished I had started sooner. But that requires a little explanation, for those who know me might claim that I’ve been writing my entire life. Which is also true. So what’s the deal? Well I wish somebody had told me earlier that what I did could actually be a job and that to become so, it needed studying and work. I regret my amateurish approach of the early days, I could have got at the point where I am at much earlier. Read more>>

John Idalis

This is actually something I think about often. Sometimes I think I should’ve started putting out my music sooner. I’ve been writing songs for years. I started posting clips of my songs on Musical.ly when I was 17, but never any full uploads of my work online until I was 20. It was ingrained in me from an early age that since I do not have musical talent, I shouldn’t pursue music as a career and should rather focus on acting as it’s a relatively more “realistic” career. Read more>>

Brayden “Jinx” Lopez

I started writing music at 8 years old, I used to sit in my dads living room in California and just write, when I went back home to Michigan I wrote more, I didn’t start recording until I was 17, and I’m glad it took me a while to start, I got to have a childhood, I got to experience life Read more>>