We asked some insanely talented artists, creatives and makers to tell us about when they know they were going to pursue a creative career.

Jonathan

My creative path didn’t truly start until I moved to the greater Pittsburgh area three years ago. Before that, I simply made songs on GarageBand and produced them myself. In 2023, my family and I decided to move out to Greensburg, PA in pursuit of some better jobs. Approximately 4 months into living here, I met some great friends that motivated me to try an open mic for the first time. As soon as I was done, people began to come up and thank me for my lyrics, as I had just finished an original song. Fast forward two months, and I had other musicians coming up to me that wanted to play my music, so we started the band. Read More>>

Karina Gonzalez-Velez

From the moment I began to envision my career path, I knew I wanted to pursue something creative. I’ve always been passionate about movies, television, and live performance, and I was determined to find a creative outlet within those worlds. Like many others, I thoroughly enjoyed watching beauty influencers such as Manny MUA and Glam & Gore, spending countless hours immersed in makeup tutorial ranging from beauty to special effects. Read More>>

Sheren Meadi

I’ve loved art for as long as I can remember. As a child, I would spend hours sketching people, objects, and scenes from my imagination, fascinated by how a simple pencil could bring something to life. But the moment I truly knew I wanted to pursue art professionally came during high school. I was taking an art class with a teacher who saw my potential and pushed me to explore beyond my comfort zone. She encouraged me to enter my work into local exhibitions, and to my surprise, my pieces began winning awards and even selling. Read More>>

Rob Redding

I was seven years old, a Black boy from Atlanta—son of a preacher and an educator. My father’s voice struck like thunder, his cadence etched in Scripture. My mother taught with quiet fire, her hands sowing futures with every lesson. From their union bloomed a conviction: something brilliant could be made from me. Read More>>

Scott Offen

My father was an amateur photographer who treated himself to the best cameras available. Despite that, I had no interest in photography, no matter how much he tried to teach me. Read More>>

Goldie NotNice

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to attend a couple summer seminars Savannah College of Art and Design used to offered for various courses(I’m not sure if they still do that). I took two courses at the Atlanta campus and two courses at the Savannah campus. I’d first take Fashion Design and Drawing and Painting, then Painting again with Architectural Design. It was within and from that experience, I knew I wanted to be an artist long term/professionally. It was the first time I felt seen by people who shared passions with, and it would be what inspired me to pursue my art degree. I didn’t get a chance to attend SCAD (for personal reasons, but I would go on to obtain my BFA from Sam Houston State University! Read More>>

Anton Manuel

I was lucky enough to be born into a musical family, with my parents migrating from Ukraine to Australia in the early ’90s. Music was always around me — my dad is an opera singer and I had piano teachers on both sides of the family. I began private classical piano lessons at the age of 4, as well as studying at the YAMAHA School of Music. Through YAMAHA, I was introduced early on to improvisation, composition and ear training. Free improvisation quickly became my creative outlet. Read More>>

Breanna Hawkins

I didn’t have a big “aha” moment when I started my makeup journey. It was more of a quiet nudge—something inside me saying it was time to lean into something I’d always loved.

Before stepping fully into makeup artistry, I spent five years in direct sales for a cosmetics and skincare brand. I genuinely enjoyed helping women feel more confident in their own skin, but as the company shifted, I realized I was changing too. The one thing that never changed? My love for makeup. That spark was always there. Read More>>

Brandon Kroupa

It was October 15, 2005 as I was on my way to visit my dad in Traverse City, Michigan. I had just gotten off the exit to M-115 made my way through the outskirts of Cadillac, Michigan and headed on down the highway through a very wooded area. I remember that it was raining and very gloomy. Typical for Michigan at this time of the year. The CD I was listening to ended so I decided to tune into WTCM Radio out of Traverse City since I was close enough to pick it up. They had just done the noon update when they played this song called “The Legend”, a folksong about a local legend of a half man, half dog, creature that seemed to have a history of coming around each decade in the seventh year. Being where I was, pretty much in the middle of the woods, creepy story, and all, got me thinking. After I arrived at my dad’s I asked him about the song. He gave me the backstory of it and later that evening after we had gotten back from dinner I took to the internet to find out more about the song and this creature that was known as the Dogman. I got it in my mind that it would make a good movie and went to work developing a story and working on a screenplay for the idea. Read More>>

Aaron King

There’s not really one single moment where my love for storytelling all clicked, as much as a constant exposure to others’ pursuit for the arts. When my parents were alive, my mother worked magic with a paint brush or drawing pen. And my father, when he was in my life, knew how to tell orally engaging stories too. Between that, and bonding with my grandmother over black and white classics, or the Oscars, or The Thanksgiving Day parade, I really appreciated how the media could freeze wholesome moments like that in time, and I knew I wanted to do the same for other families. As I got older, my love for theater and acting grew and so did my wild imagination for comic books. Read More>>

Janai Buck

When I was a kids I’ve always been into arts. My mom made sure I explored that side of me from acting classes, art competitions, modeling and so much more. I eventually realized I wasn’t a performing artist and more of a behind the scenes. During my acting classes I used to live in wardrobe and doing the cast makeup. I’ve had some portraits of the B&O railroad inside their gift shop. So it’s in me to create and share. Read More>>

Sathara Foxworth

Starting my business took a few life steps. I was on my first natural hair journey and I noticed that so many products available in the store were either too expensive or just had way too many chemicals for my liking. I am a person that has very sensitive skin and what you would call “fussy” hair. Not just anything will do the trick for me. Read More>>

Neta Ben Ezra

I always knew I wanted to do something creative, just didn’t know what exactly. I grew up in a conservative religious family, so music was never really a big part of my life. I remember when I was 13, I found an mp3 player on a stroll on a beach—you know, those early ones that were huge but could only hold 32 MB. It had 8 songs in it; I still remember to this day track #1 was Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down, and I thought, “Shit, this is the best song ever!” (Minus the shit; I obviously did not know what shit was.) Then I started exploring music, and whenever I would hear a song, I could imagine a whole visual world as it was playing, like it wasn’t just a song but a whole world within it—a story, movement, colors. To this day, I hear a song or a musical piece, and when I close my eyes, there is a video playing. Read More>>

Charvee P

I think the first spark came when I was 14, standing at that classic Indian crossroads — choosing between science, commerce, or arts. I loved films, and somewhere deep down, I knew I wanted a creative life. But growing up in a small-town, middle-class Indian family, art wasn’t seen as a viable career — it was a luxury. I was a good student, so science felt like the responsible choice. I studied hard, got a degree in computer engineering and genuinely enjoyed the logic and creativity of working with technology. I was good at it — and proud of it. Read More>>

Ada Retegan

For sure, this idea had been brewing in my mind for a while, I just didn’t say it out loud until much later. I think for a big part of my youth, I had this mindset that I should “do the right thing.” After high school, that meant following what most of my friends were doing, so I enrolled in a technical university. Read More>>

Dave América

The first time I wanted to play an instrument, I was 8 years old and went to see a friend of mine play with his band, which was called Plutonic (yes, very cosmic). I remember being completely speechless when I saw the bass player. They were doing a cover of Aeroplane by the Red Hot Chili Peppers —though of course, I had absolutely no idea. I was blown away. Read More>>

Carson Anthony

I didn’t always know that music production was my path. In my youth I was an academic. I was well-read, achieved a high GPA, and was determined to pursue law, accounting, or some other easily praised, high paying career. I was an exceptional writer, with an affinity for poetry and literature. I had endless accolades to exhibit and yet, all I felt was an endless emptiness. Despite the fact I was doing everything right, I couldn’t shake the thought that it just didn’t matter; maybe life didn’t. I carried within myself a void that grew the longer it went unfed… Read More>>

Vivien L.

There are actually a couple of incidents that I don’t know which one was the “real” first time, because I had been thinking about pursuing a creative career for such a long time. But the song I wrote under a very random circumstance definitely made me look at songwriting differently for the very first time. Read More>>

Naomi Córdova

It wasn’t necessarily a lightning strike, it was quieter — like a growing bruise, as long as you tilted your head just right. I think it started the day I realized I was more interested in the shadows on my bedroom wall and the moving patterns I saw on an 80’s stucco ceiling. All I wanted was to create, to breathe and produce and share the lens I held so sacred. I wanted to know that I was not alone in what I saw. Not out of selfishness, though natural, but out of hunger. The shadow moved and I followed it, sketching it with my eyes, naming the colors it wasn’t. Read More>>

Mike

Growing up, I was always surrounded by music. I was in a marching band as a kid, then later got into guitar and would just have jam sessions with my friends in my teens. Music has always been part of my life. But the moment I truly realized I wanted to pursue a career as an artist and DJ was at EDC Las Vegas, watching Slander perform live. Something just lit up inside me. The path wasn’t clear yet, but I knew I wanted to be part of that world. Read More>>

Marieke Mertz

While I’m a longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest, I was born and raised about an hour south of Amsterdam, where rainy days often found me at the dining room table with a pencil in hand and a stack of white paper. From a young age, I was drawn to creating—sketching animals, plants, and especially the fascinating women I saw in my mother’s magazines. Although I didn’t attend art school and my career initially led me down a different path, art always lingered in the background, quietly tugging at my heart. Read More>>

Daryl Hollonquest Jr

I knew at any early age I wanted to entertain, but I had no idea it would open this many doors for me. The very first time I performed for a huge crowd was in the talent show during my sophomore year of high school. I wrote a poem that my friend played a blues riff to, and the entire auditorium was into it. I knew right then that making the audience have a good time was what I wanted to do. Read More>>