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.

Tyler Scully

I had always been into music and art from an early age. Since middle school I had been in bands creating music in multiple genres, but found more success once I began producing dance music and DJing. On the side of making music I was painting and pursuing a degree in Fine Arts in Painting and Sculpture. Read more>>

Nick Franklin

influence on me. I began drawing and painting at an early age, maybe 7 or 8. Back then it wasn’t any social media out and I felt that making it as an artist or creative would be hard. Around Middle school, I still dabbled and enjoyed art but wasn’t serious about it then. Read more>>

Victoria Wilson

Wow, I can still hear my grandmother’s beautiful voice singing “This Little Light of Mine”. We would always sit in chairs on the back of her house, and she would instill so much wisdom in me as well as teach me songs. She would tap the chairs creating the most powerful beats of all and would sing the lyrics to songs over and over. Read more>>

Alejandro Tuzon

I knew that I wanted to pursue Photography as a profession when I graduated High School in 2016. However, I did not see it as a viable option due to outside influences. After a few years of working at a job that was unfulfilling and highly toxic, it occurred to me that I don’t want to do something that does not make me feel genuine joy no matter how much money or “stability” it may provide me. Read more>>

Saeko Kujiraoka

When I was a young child, my mother would play the piano and sing, and I loved singing along with her. This became my musical foundation. Then, when I turned 5 years old, I started piano lessons with my older sister. Around the time I was in my second year of junior high school (or the eighth grade), our house was remodeled to include a 12-jyo (12 tatami size) teaching room, and my mom taught ikebana (Japanese-style flower arrangement) classes there. Read more>>

Emanuel Dominguez

The realization that I could turn my passion into a profession struck me during my freshman year at Baylor University. Initially starting out DJing for free, I gradually transitioned to making money spinning tunes every weekend at a local nightclub by my senior year in college. Read more>>

Tyler Wolfe

It seems like I have been discovering the potential as an artist, professionally, my entire life. Read more>>

King David

It’s a long journey that starts with me as a young kid finding real joy in creative pursuits, but in an underfunded public school context where any sort of seriousness related to that creativity is largely ignored, usually because of the lack of resources available for educators to nurture any of their students’ talents that lie tangential to the academic. Read more>>

Tonya HOLLOWAY

I knew what I wanted to do at the ripe age of five. I remember the day it happened. I can’t remember where my keys are half the time but the day I christened myself as an artist will be an everlasting memory. I was watching a TV show and became so fascinated with what they were doing, that I wanted to join them. Read more>>

Don Benjamin

When I was going to college for basketball I realized I wasn’t going to the NBA and had to think of another passion and realized I wanted to be an actor and in the entertainment industry. Read more>>

Brandon Collins

I started drama when I was in middle school at a performing arts charter school. It was a great program and I fell in love with acting/ storytelling because of that experience. This love, however, was deferred for 11 years following my move from a small agricultural town in Northern California to a surf town in south Orange County. Read more>>

Matt Yeomans

I knew as early as high school that I wanted to work in design, but I didn’t know in which form or how to make it happen. I ended up (falsely) convincing myself that there was no money to be made in this industry. Which, ironically, lead me to taking a completely different path in education; studying philosophy and religious studies. Read more>>

Kerry thekyleblue Smith

Accident in college where I presented a project as a Poem in front of class. Then I started going to open mics to further develop my craft. Read more>>

Jon Ritt

I agree with everyone who ever said that we’re all born artists. I was lucky enough to have parents that believed in art and supported me from the start. By the start I mean age 4 or 5. I made a drawing called “Mr. Mouse” and apparently it was a big deal for my age that I included finger nails on the mouse. Read more>>

Lavae Vason

In 2012, my artistic aspirations took root, and I decided to pursue a career in art. I attended Orange High School in Pepper Pike, Ohio, a small suburban school. It wasn’t until my senior year that I discovered my passion. A friend introduced me to Ilthy, a clothing brand founded by the artist Glen Infante. Read more>>

Yung Brince$s

I have honestly always had a love for fashion, music, arts, design, & performing, but it was always something I kept hidden. Whenever you bring up wanting to pursue an artistic profession, people often look at you like you are crazy, but the encouraging ones look at you with love. I have always had a love for the creative arts. Read more>>

Edwin Serrano

I’ve always had a passion for performing arts! Ever since I was a kid, I loved expressing myself through dance, singing, and acting. I dreamt of being a big Hollywood actor one day. As I got older and attended more auditions, I realized how hard it was going to be for me to reach my dreams. Read more>>

Ji Lee

A vivid memory I have from childhood is at the playground around dawn. I was about 8 years old. Most kids left. To home where a cup of cool milk and bread is awaiting, and to after-school classes and piano lessons. But I was still there, a thin tree branch, on one hand, drawing an interaction between two girls on the sand. Read more>>

Alexandra Dawe

I was raised in a family of creatives. My mother is a director and choreographer, and though my father worked his way up in the world of engineering, he would join the plays and musicals as well as build the sets, putting his architecture skills to work. Read more>>

Kim Selby

I landed in ballet class at the age of 3, was in my first performance at 5 and I was hooked. The lights, the costumes, the applause and the sheer joy of twirling and singing was implanted and from then on, that was where I felt alive. I took all opportunities to be on stages, through dance, acting, reading in church, pageants, anything. Read more>>

Tee Manay

Since I was a kid, I started playing the keyboard by ear at the age of 4-5, though I broke my first one, it took me a while to get s second one as a gift from my mom, but that was the foundation of my interest in music, even though I grew to become fund of science and was on the road to becoming a Doctor, graduated from medical school, but I still went back to my first love, it became clear to me when I moved to South Africa and had the opportunity to record my first studio song “Girl For The Night”, the engineer loved it and told me to submit it for an on-going drop zone competition then and I am glad I listened and submitted the song. Read more>>

Sailè

I wanted to pursue the path of music since the age of 6. Singing with my grandmother in the early mornings while she cooked breakfast always reminds me of my genesis of loving music. Read more>>

Anjin Prasad

I was born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, where the expectation is you work 9-5 in an office job or real-estate. In my early 20s I knew this wasn’t for me. I realized I loved enveloping myself and discovering different worlds through stories. It could be a movie, television show, video game, or comic book; it didn’t matter. Read more>>