Are artists born or made? To help answer this question, we asked some of the most artistic folks we know to tell us about how they knew they were going to pursue an artistic or creative path. We’ve shared highlights below.

Shannon Clark

At a young age , 3rd-4th grade I had an interest in writing and creating music . It started with having a Mother who was a well-known radio Disc-Jockey in our area of Dayton, Ohio . Being around music and I remember sitting on the control room floor coloring why she would spin records . I knew I loved the energy I felt from music . Later it came natural to me to start emulating the sounds and music I heard . Eventually that led to playing music . My first instrument was a harmonica followed soon by a keyboard. Read more>>

Eriq Troi

I started on drums at 5 years old. I would sneak and play my uncle’s drums. By the way, how do you “sneak” and play drums? I know..LOL.. He heard me from up the street. He would sit at the top of the side door of my grandmother’s house and just listen. Mind you, I’m sneaking to play drums. That’s when he started taking me to his band practices and jam sessions. He’d let me play with the big boys. They would begrudgingly indulge him but then their faces would change as I’d count songs off with the confidence and authority of a drummer who’d been playing for years. (that’s how my uncle would do it) Read more>>

Ellisa Barnes

I’m not sure there was any one moment. Growing up, I constantly fluctuated between not knowing what I wanted to be when I got older and wanting to be everything. When I was a kid, I would make up stories and write them in my little notebooks. I lived in these imaginary worlds of my own creation where I could be anyone or do anything. I started writing full-length novels when I reached high school, and it was in those years that I first tried to get my stories into other people’s hands. Read more>>

Ashlyn & Madison Imel.

Madison and I were always creating something as kids. Growing up we were often crafting with things found around the house and designing barbie houses, outfits, and anything else that we came up with. We both had an interest in art, but in different mediums. Madison would create elaborate invitations, thank yous, and other holiday cards using paper. I would experiment with watercolor paint, oil paint, charcoal, oil pastel, and anything else I learned in school. In high school we were in the National Art Honor Society where we would work on large scale projects and just spend extra time being artful. Read more>>

Lauryn Auguste

I started my first cosmetology program during my junior and senior year of high school trying to follow in my mother’s footsteps as a hairstylist, but I quickly learned during my experience that doing hair was not something I was passionate about which was super shocking because I remember how excited I was when I first told my mother I wanted to start learning how to do hair. I knew I still wanted to be in the beauty industry but like my mom said I just hadn’t found my place yet. Read more>>

Dylan Bradley.

I definitely knew when I was a little kid but it blossomed over the years. My grandmother bought me a guitar when I was nine and I knew from then I wanted to play forever. It wasn’t until middle school then I started to sing and I really found joy in doing that as well. Through high school I was playing and singing and then I started a band my junior year, November Blue. Read more>>

Camal Pugh

I didn’t see myself wanting to pursue a career professionally as an artist until my mid twenties. Growing up sports was a main thing in my family so no form of arts were exposed to me. I start dabbling in dance in college but had to sneak to do it because I was on track scholarship. The more I dabbled in it the more interested I became in wanting to dance. I didn’t know you could have a career in it until post college when I began to train more in dance and meet people who were doing it full-time. Read more>>

Jessie Clark

When I was in high school, I always had the plan to continue to college and get a degree. I never knew exactly what I wanted to do, but I felt that it was expected of me to follow the footsteps of everybody else. At the time, I had horrible skin and used makeup as a confidence boost, but soon started to fall in love with the artistry aspect of it. I was watching hours of YouTube tutorials and using the money I earned from my first job to buy any makeup that I could afford. I remember one day asking my sisters friend what she wanted to do for a career and she told me she wanted to be a wedding makeup artist. Read more>>

Anthony Catchings

Anthony’s creativity started in elementary school with dancing! Dancing was his beginning connection to the world of music. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t listen or bust a move in the house. Creativity started with choreography, somehow Anthony found himself teaching others, (siblings/cousins) moves He envisioned. Overtime, house dancing turned into public dancing, with Anthony entering dance competitions at the schools He attended and won! In addition to dancing Catchings also wrote music in a journal, specifically, love/gospel/inspirational music. Read more>>

Sydney Brown

I’ve had the blood of a creative since I was small. I would spend my lunch money on colored pencils and gel pens. I would steal the tags off clothing at the mall that had the best design and packaging. Every year, I self-published my own zine on art and animation. But once I discovered graphic design during a trip to the National Printing Office, that was it. I knew what I wanted to do moving forward. I was eleven, and completely unfamiliar with the advertising industry or how to make billboards or a logo. Read more>>

Stephanee Grosscup

I started skating in 1969 at the iconic outdoor ice rink in beautiful Sun Valley, Idaho. I had trained as a competitive skater for approximately 7 years when I decide to take a trip to Sun Valley for the summer, get a job working as the skate rental girl and begin skating in the Saturday night ice shows. The directors of the ice show saw the passion I had for performance. I became a regular Saturday night soloist in the show as well as skating in all the ensemble numbers. It was then that I understood that I wanted to be in show business. I skated competitively for one more year. After that I kept my skating up in order to skate in the show during the summer. Read more>>

Claudie Pierre

The first time I knew I wanted to start pursuing my creative side professionally was during the pandemic. I had a hard time realizing my potential and the pandemic was the first time I realized it was possible. Growing up in a Haitian household I was told that the only way to be successful was to go into the medical field. I have always been a creative person, but I had no option to pursue it. I loved taking art classes, I took photography in high school which gave me the opportunity to do an art show. Even though it was doing those things at the time I didn’t think I was creative. Read more>>

Alanna LeBlanc

So when I was young, I always felt like I was gonna be an artist. In what capacity is just what I didn’t know yet. I remember being bright eyed watching Britney Spears, Hannah Montana, The Cheetah Girls, The Jonas Brothers and other pop stars of the likes thinking that was it for me. I even spent tons of time writing popped up love songs, like I knew what any of that was about at the ripe age of 6. I also spent a lot of time writing short stories and even plays when I was younger. I had even casted it on the playground, but the attention span was not there for the cast, which is okay, being as we were 9. Read more>>

Heather Carroll.

In February of 2016, my best friend, Julie, made an 108-bead chakra mala bracelet for me while I sat with my dad in hospice. I found so much comfort in that mala as I began working through my grief that I added it to the tools (yoga, meditation, therapy, self-improvement studies) I was already using on my journey. Read more>>

Sarah Deacon

I have always loved making things from the time I was a tiny quiet girl drawing over a hundred detailed paper dolls in my room and making my sister memorize their names (Sorry, Jenny.) I spent hours practicing lettering and handwriting and when I found out that my junior high classmates wanted me to write the names of favorite rock bands on their binders, my obsession with lettering and calligraphy began. Read more>>

Lee Johnson.

Hi , my name is Lee Johnson, better know As ( Boss Tripp 4tre). Birthday January 31 , Im a artist / barber / promoter / engineer/ manager/ jack of all trades from the east side San Antonio. Where I grew up in a two parent house hold , my mother and step pops, i also gave a lot of siblings I’m close with, they keep me grounded and motivated to keep striving for what I strongly believe in and passionate about which is music. I been around music all my life. My older brother k9 da head banga who is now facing 30 years in the pen , was one of my biggest inspirations as a rapper. Read more>>

Etherio Noon

I knew I wanted to explore my creative path when I was like 7 years old, watching Michael Jackson perform and looking at his music videos and listening to his music inspired me the most. I know how to dance and sing so I would always imitate Michael Jackson moves and sing his songs while doing it. I also grew up in a house hold of different eras of music and that was inspiring as well to hear so many different types of music that all resonated with me. I would tell myself that I’m gonna be in that stage one day and everyone will know my music as well. Read more>>

Pinpoint

I think for most of us in the group, we knew at a fairly early age. I knew in middle school that I wanted to be an emcee and make music. The LOX was my final push, when I heard their music in the late nineties I went home from school and write 3 raps verses. 2 of them were for my best friends who never expressed interest in becoming a rapper, and they also had no idea I was preparing that song for all of us. Read more>>

Quon J Helm

I would describe my childhood as eventful, love, and music. As a child I was always adventurous, and had a huge imagination. I was a huge talker as well, all of my teachers would say the same thing on my report cards and progress reports “she gets all of her work done but she is talkative”. As a child I didn’t think that was considered to be a bad thing, so I would go around and sit with the older folks to soak up as much knowledge as possible. Read more>>

Dana Calandrino.

I have been creating art in various medium for my entire life. Acrylic, watercolor, fiber, beads – if it could create something reflective of the best parts of the world and the human experience, I wanted to feel it in my hands. My happiest, truest, most-contented and well-rested self has always been found in the act of creating. Read more>>

Nikita Gupta

In 2013, I gave birth to our first child and decided to go back to work expeditiously. I had taken on a new job in a new city, but I truly longed to be at home with our baby. I loved my career, but it was demanding, and we had no family nearby. At the time, my husband and I were both in sales and the best of the best, top 5 % in our fields. He traveled globally, and I had to travel up to 50 % of the time. Ultimately, we both knew something had to give for our child, and so after a year, I resigned. Read more>>

Kristen Casey.

Most of my answers to “what I want to be when I grow up” as a kid were science-related. I went from volcanologist to marine biologist to meteorologist and so on, because I was always a kid that loved to learn. The idea of traveling around the world and learning about how things worked has always been fascinating to me — and it’s partially why documentaries are some of my favorite things to watch on TV. Read more>>

Yuki Osada

As long as I can remember, I was always drawing something – whether it was something I saw and wanted to replicate or something visual I wanted to create. Drawing always kept me occupied. My dad would bring home used reams of paper from work so I always had plenty of surfaces for my drawings (this was the 80s and the 90s when businesses used lots of paper). I lived in Japan for six years as a child and it was long enough to introduce me to anime and manga, this heavily influenced my work then and now. Read more>>

Olivia Frances.

Growing up with my Mom being a writer and both of my parents having a deep appreciation for art of all kinds, creativity was always encouraged and rewarded. I remember when I was 4 or 5, my Mom and I would sit together and color the afternoon away with a rainbow range of colored pencils. Read more>>

Jonn Nicholson.

I have lived in grown up in Nashville most of my life. So music has always been kind of a part of my life without me necessarily realizing it. Growing up I was classically trained in theater/music and Performing Arts and went to school for such as well as communications in radio and television. After spending years in that field I returned to Nashville to kind of start fresh. And that’s when I discovered the music scene in nashville. Read more>>

Bartley Chavez

When I was fresh out of college, I was working at a large fitness center. I had just earned my degree in communications and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Facebook had just rolled out business pages and my dad suggested I start working for companies and helping them with their social media. At the time, I knew nobody with a social media career. It was all new. I quit my job and opened my own social media business. I started with one client and grew my company. Within the first few years, I was working full time and had a handful of women working part time for me. Read more>>

Taurean Cavins-Flores.

My parents divorced when I was five years old. At that age, a child doesn’t really know what is happening, let alone the reasons behind it. All I knew was that my mother and father were mad at each other and we weren’t going to be living together anymore. I was devastated; I had branded us as “A three family” and even though they were divorcing, I could still feel an overwhelming shared love between us. Unfortunately, that isn’t always enough to keep two people together. Bouncing from house to house, I found my safe place within movies. Read more>>

Arif S. Kinchen

It was in 6th grade, at Carthay Center Elementary School. It’s been a pretty nice career I would say overall, but in 6th grade it was just about hanging out after school and being amongst friends and as always… a pretty girl.
The play was The Music Man and I was an “Iowa Townsfolk”. I had to learn some dances, some songs, where to be on stage and I got a couple of laughs. I believe that’s when it really “clicked in” that this might be something I could do. Read more>>

Kaybree

Honestly, it’s something that I’ve always wanted, even as a child. My family used to gather in my aunt’s backyard and I’d stand on this platform in front of everyone and just be myself. I was always outgoing as a kid and extremely fearless. All of my life, I’ve been surrounded by risk-takers so it was kind of natural for me. Read more>>

Madonna Yoder

I’d always thought that I would be an engineer or scientist, so when I first considered doing origami as a career that was the side I considered realistic. I was taking a Geometric Folding Algorithms course at the time and seeing all the cool things going on in the world of origami as it intersects with medical devices, deployable devices like solar panels and emergency shelters, mathematics, and other engineering applications. Read more>>

Michael Ubaldini

I always new. When I was a small kid round first grade I just knew I was supposed to write songs and play songs -It was real natural -I did not choose it , It chose me -Beatles ,Hank Williams ,Creedence,Ray Charles ,I was already listening to that and singing and learning guitar.I knew I was supposed to before I could do it.knowing I could do it.I wrote stories and won awards .I didn’t know what that even meant -Music and writing was something that was as natural as breathing to me. Read more>>

Michelle Boulden-Hammond

Well I have been singing since the age of five. In school I was in several musical glee clubs, choral clubs, and theatre plays. Then as an adult I song and led praise and worship in the church. However during the pandemic I was turning 50..I decided that I wanted to follow my dreams and record a song. It happened suddenly the benefit was that I had a poem that I turned into my first single. I now have advanced with songwriting and producing my own music. Read more>>

Heather Hailstones

Painting began as a fun hobby for me, a way to relieve some stress and unwind after long stressful days at work. The more stressed out I was, the more time I spent painting. As I immersed myself deeper into my art I started to realize it was the only thing I wanted to do. When I was at work I could hardly focus on anything because I was just thinking about going home to paint. About three years ago I was in a pretty toxic workplace and knew I needed to move on and find another job soon, but when I thought of my future I couldn’t see myself sitting at a desk any longer, I just saw myself painting. Read more>>

Andrea Reina

Since I was little, I have always liked to draw, but I never thought of any career related to art, I wanted to be a surgeon. My parents who saw other qualities in me and seeing that I spent my time drawing one day took me to see a local artist to ask for his opinion. We went, I showed him my drawings and he told me that I had talent. I was not convinced, for me I was not good enough. Then marriage came, children and different jobs, nothing related to art or creativity. I started painting two years ago or so and due to a dream, but my search started much earlier. Read more>>

Omari Johnson

I first knew that I wanted to pursue the creative lifestyle once I recognized how much it helps me as a person, while also influencing and having an impact on others who are familiar with my artistic outlets. In the beginning I started off painting; self taught, nothing but a canvas, paint, brushes and a cardboard box uses as my pallet. This helped me to express my suppressed emotions through visuals and also became something that others can interpret and relate to in their own way. Read more>>

Juan R. Ramírez Hernández

Born in a small town in Mexico, I was surrounding in my home by great music, coming from a large family of ten children, I was recipient of a great musical environment. I knew than that music was my right path to take. I am number 9 of 10 brothers and sisters. I believe that talent is important together with a great environment, just as a planted seed germinates in a soil with the necessary and right nutrients. Read more>>

Ricky Versetti

When I was in high school I was invited to be a part of the senior talent show. I had never performed in front of a real crowd before and up until that point I had only showcased my musical ability at parties or in front of friends. But for the first time I was going to actually be on stage. I remember the curtains opening up the night of the show and seeing and feeling the crowds energy. Read more>>

Rina Chanel.

Music has always played an important role in my life. I went to a gifted school for the arts for K-12 in kindergarten (New York) and then attended the Governor’s School for the Arts. I also attended college on a voice scholarship in Opera. I have always been involved in chorus, musicals and performing groups all throughout school. I have been interested in music since age 5 or 6. Read more>>

George “G Smoove” McDonald

I think I was in college! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in but I knew I loved music and movies. I had a conversation with my uncle who knew me very well. He told me to look into communications/ media/radio because I had such a love for music and the music business. I loved music videos as well so that was the original film connection. I did student radio and fell I. Love and then began interning at V-103 in Atlanta and that changed my life. I knew then for sure! Read more>>

Sharon “PINKEE” Pinkerton.

Back in 2016 a friend/co-worker of mine named, Kelly taught a basic cake decorating class at the cake and wedding cottage. She had been trying to get me to take one of her classes for a few years. We received a nice profit-sharing check at our job, so I went ahead and signed up. In one of our classes, we learned to do an image transfer. I chose my Orioles and before I finished decorating my cake one of my classmates wanted to buy my cake for her brother. That was it I was hooked. Read more>>