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.

Wendy Fetzer Mazza

I have always “done art”, whether it was keeping a sketchbook or creating change of address cards or planning my children’s birthday parties, but knew that someday I would want to pursue it full time. I went to college for interior design and practiced for about 7 years. I chose that career because at some point I was told that fine art wasn’t viable and I had to choose a career in the arts that could provide a paycheck. When my children were born I left design, but never lost my tether to my creative side. Read more>>

Malika Burieva

During the Covid-19 pandemic that rose incredulously in 2020, I was bored like many people. I delved into TikTok and I saw this famous sound going around with a video showing one’s Asian heritage. The sound questions, “which Asian are you?” I wanted to show off my Central Asian heritage and being Uzbek-Turkmen and I used the sound. It gained traction on the “for you page,” and I had many people commenting “finally an Uzbek on my fyp” or “finally some Central Asian representation.” Read more>>

Jesse Greene

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved all things nature and animal related. As soon as I could explore the world around me, you couldn’t keep me inside. I always wanted to find that new insect I’d never seen before or that hidden spot by the creek that no one would ever go to. From my first drawings as a child, up to now, wildlife has been my biggest influence. During high school, I began to use different shapes to create larger images of various animals. Read more>>

Sophie-Elizabeth Thompson

I always loved creating and wanted to be an artist at a very early age. I have a book by Richard Scarry book where I chose my professions. One was a pig brick laying and the other was a cat being as sculptor. I wanted to do both and now have done both. When a little older, but still very young, I remember being down the garden with a small penknife or a screw driver and a hammer and making a mess of a block of wood thinking I was creating something amazing. Read more>>

Cara Bishop

I’ve always loved singing, ever since I could learn to talk basically. When i was 14, I taught myself to play the guitar and shortly after I wrote my first song. I was nervous about letting anyone hear it, but when I finally did, something just clicked. Seeing the response to the song and the way it affected those who were listening to it really planted a seed for me. Right then I knew I wanted to write more. And it just kept growing to the point where I said “This it. This is what I want to do professionally.” And I’ve been trying really hard ever since! Read more>>

Laura Myslinsky

I don’t have a definitive moment. It’s more a feeling I’ve had throughout my life. My creative path is similar to a puzzle, I’ve been piecing it together over time. When I was 5 years old, I recall putting outfits together and being very taken with how things “fit” together. I was entranced by colors and textures. This materialized in the way I put outfits together. I have one very early memory, of dressing up in my grandmother’s pearl strands, large brimmed straw hat and carrying my blue and white purse. Read more>>

Seraiah Nicole Frazier

I was in high school. Attending the Philadelphia High School for the Creative & Performing Arts as a major in theater, minor in film. Even though theater was my major it opened the door to so many artistic forms. My classmate told me about spoken word club and I decided to go with her. For the first time I felt safe. The words that I’ve been writing privately can come to life as a performance. I had never done such a thing. Read more>>

Gigi Dayan

As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a painter or a drawer. I have drawings my mother kept from me drawing houses in perspective when I was just 5 years old. The drawing was all I could think about. Then I wanted to study beaux-arts, a French institution. Being poor and painting was my biggest dream! I was going to sign up for beaux-arts in 12th grade when a friend of mine told me he was going to a graphic design school. I had never heard of graphic design before, but he told me it was both art and computer science. I was fascinated by technology, so I visited the school. This is the best thing I’ve ever done! Read more>>

Malcolm Davis

It took me years, learning to tap into my creator side that i didn’t know even existed. i Have been playing baseball all my life. traveled overseas to Australia, so i felt like my life was already set and laid out for me. When I graduated from college. This is where it all Started with me and my best friend Chris Drake better know as BIGGZ. We Wanted to find a way to reach people and to get the joy out of them because we know that life can be overwhelming sometimes. Read more>>

Nicole Hinchman

I knew I wanted to be an art teacher while watching my mom in that profession. I would line my Barbie’s up after their “fashion show” and would teach them art class. It wasn’t until I lost my father in 2019 that my fashion blog and influencing came to life. I realized that NO one is promised tomorrow so what else do I love and know I’m good at, fashion and styling! 3 1/2 years later here I am living my dream! Read more>>

Erica-Michelle Amador

Painting was something I started doing in 2020 just as a hobby. Id work full time at my regular job and come home everyday to paint. As time went on, I noticed my skills were improving over the course of a year which lead to selling quite a few pieces that I did out of pure fun, Soon after I started getting commission work so I figured, Why not pursue my childhood dream further? Read more>>

Pedro Fuertes

I had the idea of being a painter when I was 8 years old, and eventually I decided to do it professionally, studying at the School of Fine Arts for 6 years, from which I won an award when I graduated. Read more>>

Deonne Moore

I knew I wanted to be a creative since the very first time I can remember picking up a paint brush at the age of 12. My childhood is almost a blur from experiencing so much trauma, many can’t imagine the troubles one face having a mother who had 3 children by the age of 18. We were so poor, living from place to place, no beds, rarely had food, clothes, soap, shoes, etc… I rarely asked for anything growing up but if I did I would try to ask for the cheapest item. Read more>>

Jorge Muñoz

It was back in 2015 after I got selected with a few other talents to audition at an event called ipop in Los Angeles where I would sing and act to get callbacks from agencies in the industry. After what I would say was a successful audition, I realized I couldn’t push music away anymore. I was studying advertising at the time but I knew that it was time for me to go fultime on music. Read more>>

Mavis Johnson

I took my first international trip to Mexico in 2017 and after 24 hours I just knew I wanted to travel the world. I became the girl that was ready to book a trip at any moment. Where’s Mavis? Oh she must be traveling again. After a few trips people really started to ask questions. How do you travel so much? How do you afford all these vacations? At that moment I wanted to show people how I travel and how easy it was to just pick where you want to go and just do it. Read more>>

Libby Ozog

Art has always been an important part of my life. I always viewed it as a hobby and never realized that it was actually possible to make a living creating art because I had heard from so many people growing up that it’s nearly impossible to make money as an artist. In college I got a minor in art because I enjoyed it so much but my main course of study was in Environmental Science and Geoscience because it was interesting to me and I thought it was more practical than art. Read more>>

Detzany

The moment I wanted to pursue music professionally was when I was about 6 years old; I saw a video on youtube of this little girl auditioning for Britain’s got talent. I saw her performing in front of a massive crowd of people, and they were so moved by her voice that it brought tears to their eyes of how young she was, which inspired me so much. I went downstairs to my mom and sang that same song (somewhere over the rainbow). Read more>>

Karena Atkinson

Ever since I was a child, I’ve had this BIG imagination. When asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, I would say ‘typical’ things like; Lawyer or Therapist (which were still desires) because I didn’t think anyone would take my dreams seriously–cause no one really had. But when I wrote things down, or played pretend in my room, I was always this multi-faceted dreamer. I knew I wanted to sing, act, dance, model and write. Read more>>

Monique Latise

I knew I wanted to pursue comedy full time from the very beginning, 2010. I have always loved entertainment and being creative. I was not a good student so I have tons of struggle in school & the work force as an adult. Entertainment brought be joy and it fed my soul, I wanted to do it forever. But I was raising my children so thankfully I was able to maintain my employment for 27 years. After 12 Years of Comedy I got the courage to leave my Job and pursue my dream full time. I knew it was coming just didn’t know when or how. Read more>>

Mulah Marciano

There’s actually 2 occasions where I knew pursing a career as an Artist was for me.. The 1st time I got high from marijuana, I was talking to my brother but everything was rhyming so easily so I began to write music more often. My senior year of high school (2011) after I quit the basketball team, I started to tell my classmates that I rap. No one believed me, so I recited some of my lyrics over a couple hit song instrumentals to prove them wrong. Read more>>

Quetel Deveaux

So, I wouldn’t say that I always wanted to be a nail artist. I honestly didn’t have a choice because I didn’t finish high school and at the at of 17 I was pregnant with my second child. Now just a bit of a back story, from I was a child I’ve always been good with my hands. Growing up in the neighborhood where I was born and raised in Hawksbill, Grand Bahama in The Bahamas, I was always that friend who would do my friends and their moms or siblings hair and nails. From the youngest to the oldest I was the one who everyone would call to fix them up. Read more>>

Britt Devens

I was graduating college (finally-it took me a while), but I finally knew it was time for me to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was stuck in a relationship that was not very healthy for me and I was about to take a job in the field that I studied in my hometown. But before I did that, I decided to take a impulsive trip to Arizona to visit my best friend. When I got there I played some open mics and then found myself booking a few paid gigs. Read more>>

William Bell

In my high school years i always gravitated towards my artistic passions. No plans for college were realistic for me. I was always focused on dancing or using a camera. They were my obsessions and I’d like to think I was fairly good at them. After graduating figuring out how to pursue my creative side full time became my only focus. Read more>>

Rosa Fortys

I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally since I was 12, at that age I started to passionately draw and started to play around the idea of owning my own platform where I could create all of the stories in my head, very much like Studio Ghibli, the cover of my binders had mock logos of what I wanted my company to be, as I got older though, I shifted my focus, sometimes the dream of owning my own creative studio seemed too far out of reach, Read more>>

Fiona Debell

When I was 18 years old I was lucky enough to go to the Tate Modern in London. When I entered the Rothko room I was physically moved. The scale and colour and depth of his work took me by surprise. I remember sitting on a bench and weeping. The art created such a strong emotional response I became determined to create expressive, emotive art myself, in the hope that one day she too would evoke such a feeling in others. It has happened many times over the years. Read more>>

MJ HARRATTAN

I think the moment that I knew that I wanted to be a professional artist is when I was studying at Pratt Institute majoring in Illustration. Before college, I had no idea exactly what I wanted to be after my dreams of being an architect left me due to my inability to do complex math. But once I was in Pratt, I finally figured out that my path is in art professionally. What I did not know is that that path is not easy to persue in at all. Read more>>

Chynelle Priyanka Stephen

So this is a very interesting question that I love answering! I had always been a creative child from the very beginning and I knew that I was inclined towards making things by hand.I was always fascinated by clothes very early on as I would love stitching them for my barbie dolls.At one point of time I was soo engrossed doing that,that I almost stitched up my own clothing along with that of the doll. I was 7 back then! My sketchbooks used to be filled with soo many illustrations as I loved doodling outfits and other painting. Read more>>

Gail Shalan

I have wanted to tell stories for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been an eager performer and an avid reader– a believer in the transformative power of stories to bring joy, comfort, and community from a very young age– but I think I was in the third grade that the indie feature film, “Dinner & A Movie”, was shooting in my hometown. Read more>>

Micah

Music has always been a passion of mines . I knew when I was 3 years old sitting in my car seat of the back seat of my mother car. When I heard Alicia key’s debut song Falling . I open my mouth up singing word for word. My mother turned around surprised to hear this big voice from a 3 year old . That’s when I knew I wanted to sing . That I wanted the world to hear my voice . Being around other music influences shaped me into the artist I always wanted to be . Read more>>

Kevin Sanders

Being an artist was always in the cards for me, I have an abundance of knowledge when it comes to the many art forms. But telling stories through the lens of a camera was the most beautiful thing ever to me. I’ve always been serious about what I wanted to do but I never knew how to get started, that’s until I met a little girl named Claudia. Read more>>

Jaquair Gillette

I recognize my love for the arts when I was kid learning how to draw by tracing cartoons, illustrations,comic characters, and practicing scenes and skits from my favorite movies and TV shows like In Living Color and Indiana Jones. Read more>>

Adina Kopinsky

I was always interested in words and writing, but as an audience and not a creator. I read voraciously as a child, had a deep and invigorating imagination, and got a BA in English Lit to deepen my critical skills. I thought I would teach English but instead I got married young and chose to stay at home with my kids. I was afraid of my own creative voice. I bought into some kind of “prodigy” theory of the artist and believed I wasn’t good enough to create. Read more>>

Mello Cool AF

Mello Cool AF, is one of the most underrated female lyricist on the underground scene. She grew up in the inner city of Atlanta, GA. She quickly gravitated to music as an outlet, a way of expression but most importantly a source of empowerment. Growing up she was inspired by artist like Ghetto Mafia, T.I , Young Jeezy, Tupac, Biggie and Queen Latifah. Read more>>

Jason Reeves

As far back as I remember I was always interested in being an artist. I’ve bee drawing since I was three yrs. old and all through my childhood the kitchen table was my studio. An old friend Mark, an older kid in the neighborhood, introduced me to my first comics. I remember being knocked off my feet by X-Men Classic, the reprints of the writer Chris Claremont’s stories. Read more>>

Joseph Lopez

Starting The Crawl Drinks happened like some of my ideas on a whim. I started to think of a concept of traveling from gas station to gas station, but then expanded it to other places to go like bars, pub, and breweries. As I was driving around for work the idea started to brew more in my brain and I was getting a better picture of what it could be. I started talking to my wife about it and then my friend Paul who’s a homebrewer. Read more>>

Denzel Palm

I first knew that I wanted to go down the creative/artistic path after I graduated from Western Michigan back in 2015. In 2013, I started a record label titled, The Free Afternoon Party with a few of my college friends. Originally, our main goal was to support one of the founders/musical artist in his music career. At that time, it meant creating T-Shirts, flyers, event concepts, & growing our footprint. Read more>>