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.

Anna Frantz

If I’m being honest with myself, throughout my life I have felt a little bit lost regarding what I wanted to do. For years I felt like I was just going through the motions of what you’re “supposed to do”. Off to college I went as I began shoveling my way into debt and popping out the other side with my MA in Psychology but still uncertain of what I really wanted. Read more>>

Rayy Blank

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was around 2013 when I was in middle school still. I would always usually listen to rap on the radio and at the time they were playing music from Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Rich Homie Quan & Young Thug and I was curious to see where I’d fit in and where my music would be at on the radio. Read more>>

 Mondaii

At an early age, I always knew that music was my calling. It was simply the control it had over me. The way it could influence my feelings like no other. The rush it gave me. I knew at an early age that it was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Read more>>

Shod Santiago

For as long as I can remember. I legit used to get fired from EVERY job I’ve ever had Lmao I knew working for someone wasn’t for me. I need to let my creative juices flow lol.  I’m an Aries so I naturally match to the beat of my own drum. Read more>>

Dutch Hippies

Eva knew she wanted to be a singer since a very young age, probably around 12 years old, when she did her first professional recording in the studio. She actually got a record deal with Sony Music when she was 15. Read more>>

Aubry Corona

I have always wanted to pursue a career in the arts since I can remember. For years I was a freelance artist and would make somewhat of a living doing commissions and murals. As much as I loved doing the art, it wasn’t steady and it was a very lonely career for me. Read more>>

Vence Ray

I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally when people started expressing a need for my music and content on social media. From the ages of about ten through some of my teenage years, I played in a band in my home country, Haiti. Back then, I did not aspire to make creating music and content a career. After moving here to the US in 2010, I continued playing music here and there in churches or the odd gig. Read more>>

Brittany Kelly

According to my parents, I wanted to be a “star” since I could talk and was drawing at just two years old. I mean, they’re right, even though I don’t remember saying it that young. However, I do remember as early as elementary knowing entertainment was the career I wanted to pursue. Being able visually tell stories for a living is one of the most fascinating things to me. I pray every day God grants me the opportunity to have longevity in creating visual stories too. Read more>>

Christina Grace Mastrangelo

When I was 8, we went on a school field trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum. I remember having the most awe-inspired reaction to these beautiful illustrations. While all the other kids were running around, I was staring at these paintings with pure joy and excitement! Every time I visited an art museum after that it was the same thing. Read more>>

Nanette Fluhr

I was drawn to art in childhood and always loved drawing and painting, making things…anything creative. As I grew older, I knew I wanted to pursue art professionally. I thought it would be wonderful to spend my time doing what I love and making a living at that. Even if it was a more commercial route, a career in the arts appealed to me. Read more>>

Maria Fernanda

I’m an entertainment journalist and a professional dancer, from Venezuela, living in Miami since 2016. I have my own platform “It’s Maria Fernanda” where I get to interview music celebrities & currently I’m a soloist in “America Viva”, which is a show that delivers a powerful message about diversity and inclusion through incredible music and dances. Read more>>

KendraRenee Sanders

When I was three years old I was watching the news and I told my mom I wanted to be on TV like Carmen Harlan and she told me that was a news anchor. I was like ok then I wanna be a news anchor, a couple weeks later we were watching a movie and I told her I wanted to be a news anchor like Angelina Jolie. Read more>>

Ryan Shaw

I’ve always loved creating art since I was in grade school. My older brother (who is also an artist) had a massive comic book collection growing up and he would show my the different art styles his favorite comic book artists. I would marvel at the pages, the work of art, and the fact that these artists made a living doing what they loved. I also was enthralled with cel animation from golden age cartoons to what I was watching as current day animation at the time in my youth. Read more>>

Erica True

I knew I was going to have an art career pretty early in life. I can’t remember when exactly I made that decision, but I can tell you that I drew my first picture when I was two or three years old. The picture was of some fish on a napkin that was lying on the kitchen table. I had asked my mom for some tape because I wanted to use it to simulate the glass of a fish bowl. Read more>>

Carlos Rosales

I’ve always leaned heavily towards the creative side. In grade school I was in art classes and I played guitar. Whether creating a new art piece or writing a song, from then I knew, I didn’t want a career in the same thing in and out, I wanted to create in some form of fashion. As I got older I gravitated towards film. Read more>>

Nicole Robbins

Music has always been apart of who I was from an early age, but I knew I wanted to become a singer when I was in elementary school. It was around 9 or 10 when I decided that. I remember watching artists like Destiny’s Child and Alicia Keys on tv and said to myself, “I want to be a singer when I grow up” I wrote my first song at 11. Read more>>

Messe bidias Rackel

The first time I knew my journey would change was in 2014 after graduating from the university as an accountant . I was jobless, black and from the ghetto. In the black region of my country, education didn’t favor us because of the corrupt system of government. Read more>>

Derek & Teresa Taylor

Derek I grew up in a suburb right outside Chicago, Il. Back in those days we had people that were all about finding ways to keep kids like myself out of the streets and so someone came up with the idea to have talent shows in and around our area. Me and a group of friends decided to enter these talent shows as a Pop-Locking group. Read more>>

Belle Lundon

I knew I wanted to sing when I was two years old. I was invited to sing a song onstage and I did not shy away whatsoever! Then it became an ongoing tradition that I sing at the end of service every Sunday. I loved every moment of it! By the time I was five years old, I saw a little girl who was around my age on “The Cosby Show”. I ran to my mother in the kitchen and asked how can I be on the show too! She told me that would be the occupation of an “actor”. I asked my mom if I could do what this child actress did, but she said she didn’t know how to do this. I cried. Read more>>

Judith Carlin

Growing up I was fascinated by human behavior and everything that was going on around me. At a young age I was constantly sketching but I also wanted to be with people, so I started acting because I adored exploring the human condition through stories. Soon I realized that I needed to express my own ideas and observations so I expanded into playwriting and directing. Read more>>

Miles Davis

On my first birthday, my babysitter asked my parents’ permission to perform a traditional Korean ceremony called doljabi on me. The doljabi is said to bless and determine the child’s future. She placed a number of objects on the table in front of me including a dollar bill, a paintbrush, and a variety of other things and encouraged me to pick up any object I wished. Read more>>

Gracie Ruiz

Being an artist was never a decision for me. It is who I am. It is embedded in my DNA. I am a born artist. My perspective of the world and it’s species has always been divergent. I find beauty in the rarest of places even in the wrongest of times. Read more>>

Ky’saun James

The first time music truly consumed me was at 16 when I got asked to join the male choir of my school. At first ignorance was apart of my outlook not seeing it as very masculine, but once in the mix an entirely different world revealed itself an escape route from the daily ways of a teenager. Read more>>

Ivy Love

I had the desire to pursue the arts professionally from a very young age. For as long as I can remember, I have been reenacting scenes from movies and choreographing dances in the kitchen. I started attending a private school in the third grade. It was there that I got introduced to ballet and musical theater. Show after show, I got hooked on the feeling of performing. People in the arts world were friendly, funny, and down to earth, and I felt at home. Read more>>

Kieler Avery

I’ve always loved singing. I started musical theatre when I was 3 years old and did that for years before I picked up a guitar and started learning how to play and sing on my own. I taught myself to play guitar by watching videos of tori Kelly play. I would spend hours watching these videos and trying to match how her fingers moved. I had piano lessons for years through elementary school, learning a more classical style. As I got older I kinda ventured away from that and just learned how to do chords so I could sing with it instead. Read more>>

Charley Breaka

I choose my path as a Breaker/Breakdancer at the age of 10, inspired by the movie You Got Served (2004) and Bomfunk MC’s music clips, specifically Uprocking Beats (1999). I got attached to Breaking really quick as I always wanted to practice sports professionally such as soccer and/or Kung-Fu but it didn’t happen at the time, so Breaking was the escape to my frustration. Once I started to break I never stopped. Read more>>

Nora Roberts

To set the scene, I was in my mid 20’s working at a job that made me cry every day. I felt very stuck. I was taking care of every single person in my life, except myself and that was the hardest part to come to terms with. I felt like there was something wrong with me because I was not content in my work life and I reached a boiling point where I knew something had to change. I started making jewelry as a way to unwind. Read more>> 

Spectrum The Originator

Growing up in Haiti, support for artistic professions was non-existent. I was conditioned to go to school, get a degree and start working like a slave until I die. I had three options; become a doctor, lawyer or engineer. I chose neither. After moving to the United States at the age of 12, I fell in love with Hip-Hop instrumentals, so I started producing in high school. Read more>>

Torrey Hair

I knew that I wanted to pursue creative path when I saw that others are out here doing the same thing I am doing and making money off of their gifts. Read more>>

Sarah Collins

I few years back I was flipping through an old record book that my mom kept for me when I was in elementary school. Starting from kindergarten on, almost every year the question of “What do I want to be when I grow up?” is followed with the answer of “artist.” I still remember that feeling as a kid, knowing that I wanted to be an artist not only in practice, but for my job and in my profession. Read more>>

Kezia Alford

When I was around 26. I knew I wanted to be a Singer/Songwriter and Recording artist. At the time , I was only singing in a church setting but I knew in order to tap into my call of an Evangelist even more, I had to create music that could quickly go around the world to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. Getting outside of the walls of the church. As I grew in my career, the more I understood the business side of music as well as ministry. Read more>>