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

Legendary Jay

Picture yourself as a 3 year old kid, and try to imagine the time where you suddenly realized that you were alive: that you’re seeing, hearing, breathing. A similar phenomenon happened to me in high school where I suddenly realized I would have to decide what I wanted to do with my life or there would be consequences. Read more>>

Eric Hayes

I knew from a fairly young age that a career or work life in the arts was something that I’d like to pursue. Even as a kid I was always drawn to music & dance, art, creative endeavors, live entertainment, etc. I come from a musical family and have been dancing since I was kid. So, for me, it always made sense that I would continue those interests into adulthood. Working it into a career and professional endeavors was a challenge at times but I worked hard and stayed very focused on what I wanted Read more>>

Ellen Gobi

So, it’s actually funny, I originally wanted to be a zoologist and to study wolves in the wild. I know, very specific. Unfortunately, my high school grades did not land me in a university for that degree. I was attending community college at the time and just felt like something was missing. I didn’t know what direction I really wanted to go in but knew I was ready for a change. Ready for a change, I went to see my hairstylist Kristie at the time for a new style. I had an assortment of different photos printed out from google. Read more>>

Chris Catone

I knew I wanted to be a musician from an early age. I was singing in the children’s choir at my church and started taking piano lessons when I was seven years old. I actively decided to pursue it professionally when I decided to start my degree in Music Technology at Northeastern University in Boston. I studied music composition and technology there and then returned to my hometown of Pittsburgh to complete a Master’s degree in Music from Duquesne University. Read more>>

Kim Trickey

I always loved drawing! As a young child I drew often.-always animals and most often horses. I was totally a horse crazy girl! My father was a cattle rancher and a veterinarian so I had ready access to my own horses and a wide variety of animals. The first time I consciously remember wanting to be an artist as a profession was at about 9 years of age. Read more>>

mindy Solomon

I had been teaching art for a number of years as well as making my own work. Simultaneously I had been collecting art and my interest in collecting and telling stories with art became almost obsessional. It was at that point I decided to pursue a career in operating a gallery. Read more>>

Nicole Lin

When I was in college, I majored in advertising. Because of the connection between advertising and motion graphics, I had the opportunity to get in touch with motion graphics. During this period, I found it very exciting to tell a story with design and animation. The emotions that can be conveyed through shape, color, composition, camera language, and various animation speeds are far beyond my imagination. Read more>>

Randi Plemmons

I’ve always been obsessed with art as a young kid. It wasn’t until round the age of 18 that I realized I could make a career out of it. My mom suggested I look into tattooing and the rest is history! Read more>>

Brooklyn Ivy

I didn’t It just kind of fell in place I wrote a song for fun one day and I wanted to record it but never did until one day my friend who video I was in as a feature recorded her song in the studio first and I was with her hyping her up which it motivated me and I told my mom I’m ready to record mines now. Read more>>

Latonya White

I can’t say growing up I had always wanted to be an artist, despite having drawn all my life. My choices bounced between being a dentist, or maybe even a veterinarian instead. It never really clicked to me that it was something I can pursue in life, or at least not in the way as I understand it now. I loved to tell stories, and I would love to create art. The product of that dream would be a crudely put together comic. Read more>>

Bradlee Jaay

I’ve always dreamed of becoming a professional singer and songwriter since childhood but when I knew I had to make my dream a reality was when I released my first EP, BLOOM. In hopes to earn a fair living wage while working on my creative goals I worked full time and went to graduate school. I thought it would bring me financially stability, which it did to a certain extent, but even when I graduated I still felt a gaping whole. This is when I discovered that no matter the fancy title or facade of financial stability- music was my only true passion. Read more>>

Qiyue Zhang

I have fallen in love with drawing since I was very young. Because of the picture book of Andersen’s fairy tales that my mother bought me, or maybe it was the comic strip of Dream of Red Mansions that I have been addicted to for a long time. I look forward to painting it in the future Works like this, and just like that, before I knew it, drawing became an essential part of my life. I have been receiving professional guidance from teachers in the studio to be admitted to the art school in the future. Read more>>

Jason Santiago

As far as I can remember, I wanted to be an entertainer. I was the kid at my parents get togethers that showed off and performed for my aunts me uncles. My cousin, who has since passed got into comedy, and he made me promise him that I would at least try it. Back then I didn’t have the intestinal fortitude, but when he passed, I made sure to keep my promise to him. Read more>>

Marley Seifert

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally was about four years ago. I was working as a snowmobile and zip line photographer, when I had breaks at work I would take out my pens and work on all my “side hustle” / passion projects. Fortunately my boss was cool allowed me to paint / draw when there was downtime. I didn’t consider pursuing it full time until I realized I was drowning in art projects when I would get home from my day job. Read more>>

Billie Sangha

I knew when I was in elementary school, where I was privileged enough to have access to an education that valued the arts and creative expression. An annual book fair/student author festival allowed me the opportunity to illustrate and write my own books. It ended up winning an award, and I remember my peers and teachers encouraging my interests and hobbies that related to anything creative throughout my public education. Read more>>

Rosie Gale

It was during the pandemic period… so many things changed for lots of people including myself. I lost my job, left Chicago, and moved to Springfield, IL. Quite honestly, I had no idea where things were going or what my husband, Ramsey, and I were really doing. In a pure panic frenzy, I started applying for different things. I was accepted for special ed teacher training back in Chicago and also landed a remote internship with a publishing company based out of New York City. Read more>>

Aztrid Moan

From the young age I created art. Influenced by my mother and grandpas, that are all artists, to work on my art technique. When I turn 13, I dove head first into selling and promoting my artwork. Connecting with programs like Artspace at Untitled, Arts Council OKC, OVAC, Paseo Arts Association and Oklahoma Arts Institute to take classes in the summer and during the school year. Read more>>

Tony Meade

Like most things in my life, I’m a late bloomer, and I came to becoming both a performer and creative later than most. I first discovered that I could sing in my senior year of high school when I was asked to audition for a production of the musical “Into The Woods”, and I ended up getting one of the leads. The musical director actually asked me where I’d been hiding all those years. By then, however, I was committed to going into the Army, so everything had to be put on hold for another four years. Read more>>

Marie Shanley

After years of dealing with major depressive disorder, PTSD, Anxiety and more, I recall driving to my house from work, where I had spent the day in a supply closet talking to my therapist instead of working. All I could think of was “If I ever crawl out of this I don’t want anyone to ever feel as alone and scared as I did.” After getting to my lowest, and closest to dying in 2017, I decided it was finally time to write in a way that was authentic to me. Read more>>

Jason Washington

Honestly, this is something that I wanted for as long as I remember. My mother has been performing and making music her whole life and had me doing the same. Most of my earliest memories are of me performing in plays and musicals as a young child. Being apart of a band when I was 10, playing and performing with adults all over the place. I truly feel that I was born to do this. Read more>>

Maria DeVivo

I’ve always known I wanted to write. Ever since I was a little kid and could pick up a crayon. My dad was a master storyteller, and he made up the best stories. I knew early on that I wanted to emulate that. Growing up, I wrote poetry, short stories, attempted many novels, but life always seemed to derail my dream of being published. Read more>>

Colleen Hennessy

I always loved art, and took my first photography class in high school. I studied photography formally in the 1980s., working at many photo labs in the days of film. Faces have always been one of my favorite subjects. I began photographing weddings and portraits as a service to others while working on my fine art photography and painting. Read more>>

German Briseño

I was in my last year of high school in Mexico when I decided I wanted to go to music school and pursue a career in music. Some relatives and friends were not quite supportive of the idea. Then came the opportunity to perform with some friends at a school play. The performance was a total train wreck, awful everything, quite embarrassing. I got really discouraged and decided to listen to the “voices of reason” and enrolled in college to study marketing or something like that. Read more>>

Natasha Mistry

I knew that I wanted to pursue a creative path going back to being a child. I was very shy, but had a very vivid inner world which I could express through creating art and dancing. To me, I felt like that was the most exciting thing that I could do, because of the way being creative made me feel. I felt alive! I was academic too, and at fifteen, I attended a selective school in England. It felt pretty stressful to me, and I never felt comfortable because I had moved from Wales, and was the new girl. Read more>>

K. C. (Zingmaster Flex) Pomponio

I can remember at age sixteen, I had just got my first car and was living it up. I started driving to the end of 29th where there’s just a water tower and an open field with a view of the entire city of Loveland. I would bring my music and my MJ and just study music for hours. I started to write and fantasize about one day, other teenagers listening to my music in their cars. Read more>>

Sarah Carson

I didn’t know I wanted to pursue a creative path until I was in my 60’s. I’m a cousin of the deceased late night talk show host, Johnny Carson. I remember him as a kid saying more than once that “the entertainment business is a brutal business.” So I stayed about as far away from a creative profession as I could. I got an MBA from the Harvard Business School, Read more>>

Weiqian Han

I took a year off from high school due to a medical condition and my parents suggested that I study art to help me regain my physical and mental health. During that year, I fell in love with art and decided to pursue it further by studying graphic design at a university in Shanghai. I have always had a lot of ideas and creativity in my life, which I channeled into my studies. Throughout my four years in college, Read more>>

Diana Elizabeth Jordan

I really can’t remember when I didn’t want to be an actor. I often joke, that I was meant to be an actor because i entered the world in highly dramatic fashion, My doctors worked on me for 45 minutes before I started breathing on my own when I was born. As a result I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy a neurological condition that mildly affects my speech and gait. Read more>>

Japhet Idowu

He initially got Into recording after hearing a juice WRLD free style on a particular instrumental which caught his attention and he searched that same beat up and from there his first song was made and he just fell in love w music and recording from there. He had always played instruments from a young age but stopped at some point in his childhood Read more>>