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

Peter Collins

I knew I wanted to pursue a professional career in music when I was in college. Although I have a background in music from growing up with a father and brother who are in music, and then going to a performing arts high school as well, I never wanted to be fully immersed in music. In college I was led by God to pursue a full time career, and I’ve been on that path ever since. Read more>>

Bridget Steed

Both of my parents are artists so I grew up around a lot of music, visual art and theater. While neither of them did art full-time or necessarily made a living from it, an artistic career seemed to me to be a perfectly logical thing to pursue. When I was about nine, I submitted a colored pencil drawing to National Geographic Kids magazine and it was chosen to be published. Read more>>

Khadijah Green-Gaskin

I first knew I wanted to pursue a creative path in life sometime during college. I knew (and still know) I wasn’t meant for the typically 9-5. I loved art, and I needed to continued creating for a living or I wouldn’t be living. Read more >>

Gil Garcetti

A few months after the voters kicked me out of the District Attorney’s Office, I saw IRONWORKERS moving around huge pieces of iron other than being built the Walt Disney concert Hall. I was able to get on site and was taking photographs of both the IRONWORKERS and the raw steel that would ultimately be covered. I wanted to salute the IRONWORKERS because though. Read more >>

Travis Rice

I got accepted into the architecture program at Ball State University in the spring of 1987 and that meant I had to take the majority of my first year studio courses over the summer. That summer of total focus on all things creative had a huge impact on me and definitely cemented the idea that I had chosen the right general direction to pursue in life. Read more >>

Kathleen Melian

I have been making art for as long as I can remember. I had a newspaper route in middle school and used the money to pay for painting lessons with an older artist who lived in the neighborhood. I also took some lessons from a cowboy artist who offered small group lessons in his home, focussing on drawing the figure. Read more >>

Heidi Nicolle

My parents both loved photography and as a gift for my high school graduation they bought me my first professional camera. I loved creating, capturing my surroundings and taking classes in photography. Although, it was when I started doing self-photography and sharing my journey online was when I realized this is what I should be doing. Read more >>

Chenyi Zhu

My firm determination to pursue the path of art can be traced back to my early years. As far back as I can remember, art has always been an integral part of my life. I still remember when I was a child, in art class at school, I couldn’t wait to pick up a paintbrush or create something on paper. Whenever I started creating, I felt a deep sense of calm and excitement within. The act of painting brought me more than just self-pleasure. Read more>>

Pingnan Lu

In high school, I first realized my drive for a creative profession. We had a career planning class, and I wrote down that I wanted to be a comic artist. Our school, while academically respected locally, didn’t have a strong foundation in the arts. The career planning teacher expressed her reservations about my chosen path, pointing out the challenges of diving into art without any foundational knowledge and the notion that comic artists merely served other people’s scripts. Read more>>

Dakota Cohen

When I was 9 years old, I saw a band performing in an outdoor mall and I knew from that moment that I wanted to perform like that. The positive energy that band brought to the people around them was something that everyone connected to and that drew me in instantly. Something just clicked inside me that I was meant to be on a stage, whether that be in a mall, at a small club, or large festivals. I knew that I wanted to pursue a musical career professionally. Read more>>

Jon Ososki

I always loved music growing up. At a very young age I started trying out many different types of instruments like piano and the violin. I also started playing bass guitar in bands at a very young age. I was really excited and fascinated with the way each instrument and different types of music would make me feel. Read more>>

Manny Lorenzana

When I was a kid, maybe 13 years old-ish I woke up at 5 in the morning to meet a neighbor of mine. He had this amazing looking 1962 Chevy suburban he had fixed up. He could shoot flames out of the exhaust and make it moo like a cow by pressing the horn. He packed up his sons and took me along to my first car show. I don’t know what year this was but it was definitely one of the Mooneyes shows from back in the day. Read more>>

Deanna Pak

I first knew I wanted to pursue the arts when I started taking ballet in an after-school program in 8th grade. My love and persistence for dance led to many shows, as well as musicals, and then I fell in love with acting. I caught the performer and creator bug. To this day, no matter how my life changes through different types of jobs, I will never stop loving the craft. Read more>>

Deon Everything

I always had a feeling that I was going to be in the creative field at some point when I was young, but I didn’t do it professionally until after college. I had joined Browned 2 Perfection Agency, a Black woman owned marketing agency founded by Junae Brown, in 2019 as a Content Creator. Being a part of the agency really helped me become a better writer as well as other skills. Read more>>

Zenna

I’ve realized that I wanted to be a singer when I joined a Church choir at 6 years old. Being a part of the Music Ministry had opened many opportunities for me to be involved in various Church and community events that I considered as a very enriching and fulfilling experience. Read more>>

NICOLAS HOSPITAEL

The epiphany struck me during a profound moment of introspection amidst a personal development coaching session. It is worth noting that my upbringing and education were rather typical of a quintessential “millennial” way – Get a nice diploma so you can get a nice job. However, I realized that when I started university, I didn’t know where to go. Faced with the imperative to choose a path, I tried and experienced different paths. Read more>>

Mon Day

At this chapter in life it was very important for me to find my own niche, along with being proud with what I am doing. Having a large understanding of music has always been a gift of mine and I do my best to express so. It was not until after my first single “HIGHWAY” July 3rd, 2022 when I realized I can and want to take my music career to the highest level possible. A vast amount of encouragement from friends and locals solidified the feelings in held in my gut. Read more>>

Rachael Newman

The short answer is always, but in retrospect the journey was clouded by fear. From childhood I was creative. I explored all types of arts and crafts from painting to photography to clothing design. Food turned into art at age 12 when I bought a Gourmet magazine; to this day plating was like painting with food. Snow sculptures, Halloween consumes, woodworking; everything I did fed my creativity. Read more>>

Dennis Desprois

I was the kid in school who could draw better than everyone else but by the time I was in high school realized that a career in art was kind of an iffy thing. The time it would take to become a recognized artist and able to make a living selling paintings wasn’t realistic since I was on my own and needed an income. Illustration, commercial art and graphics held no interest. Read more>>

Toni Shiloh

When I left high school, I joined the United States Air Force. I needed a break from school. By the time my enlistment requirement was finished, I decided to go to college for a bachelor’s degree. It took me a few times to figure out what I wanted to major in but when I picked English, everything just clicked. It was in a creative writing class that the writing bug it me full force and I knew I wanted to do this full time. Read more>>

Layla Taige

Starting with my passion for dance. I’ve been dancing since I was 3 years old. I trained in ballet, jazz, tap, and contemporary until the age of ten. After that, I relocated and joined dance 411, a studio in Atlanta. I loved that their style was more of hip-hop considering hiphop is one of my personal favorites. Where I’m originally from, they didn’t exactly have what I would call real hiphop. It was very limited. So it was blessing to join Dance 411 after I moved. Read more>>

Susan Jefferson

GOODS: My desire to pursue a creative and artistic path professionally began at a young age. As a child, I would get frustrated when my mom took me on shopping trips to buy clothes because I could never find all the colors I liked in one product. We often left with nothing. When I got home, my mission was to find my markers to create the colorful designs I envisioned in my head and transfer it on my clothes. Read more>>

Jodie Hulden

My first career was as a teacher of severely disabled adolescents – which I did for almost 30 years and loved. While challenging, each day was filled with humor, affection. And I learned to appreciate small steps taken. I started to learn the photographic craft on that job, taking black and white photographs of the students to be put in the yearbook the teachers put together for the students and their families. Read more>>

Mert Gurpinar

I realized I wanted to pursue a creative and artistic path when I got my first tattoo 10 years ago. Sitting in that tattoo artist’s chair, choosing the design, and watching the artist at work fascinated me. It felt like art coming to life on my skin and inspired me to explore different forms of creativity, like painting and drawing over the years. That tattoo marked the beginning of my artistic journey, and I’ve been passionate about it ever since. Read more>>

Ashlyn Ayers

I would say that when I was a child, I understood that I was creative and good at things like drawing. But it wasn’t until I was a freshman in high school that I had made up my mind. Originally, I wanted to go to school to be a Fashion Designer. That dream was alive for quite some time until one day I was reading a magazine, saw an outfit that was so strikingly similar to a design a sketched earlier that week and immediately I decided that being a Fashion Designer wasn’t for me anymore. Read more>>

Adam Tan

I use to draw a lot as a kid. When I started high school, I got into photography. I was one of the photographers for my school news paper. I wanted to be a photojournalist. This dream faded when I started college and I discovered the theatre. I was obsessed with the theatre. I had a theatre company for a few years after college. Read more>>

Arnau Bosch

I’ve been passionate about Music since I was seven years old when I got my first guitar. I come from a family where Music and art, in general, are part of our culture and our lives. So, I dreamed about being a musician and making my life around that. But that dream was evident pretty early on that it would not happen for me. Read more>>

Chris Louis

When I became a teenager, recognizing the gifts that I have, I believed that I would pursue a path that led to me doing something artistic as a professional. I would perform on stage, and it brought out such a fulfilling energy that I never want to stop feeling. Read more>>

Abel B. Padilla

It was when I was around 16 years old. I wanted to be an audio engineer, but I was uncertain about it. I loved listening to music, but I wanted to know if I was passionate enough to follow that path in life. Around those years, I also went to the cinema often with a good friend, Alejandro Dupont. We would go every Friday and catch the releases of the week. Sometimes, we would spend the whole day watching whatever films would be released that day. Read more>>

Kaitlin Smith

On the photography side of my businesses I was mostly self-taught from childhood to College age. There are definitely some photos I look back on from my old point-n-shoots and laugh to myself a bit. However, at some point I asked for a higher quality point-n-shoot for a holiday, that camera became the turning point for me. I have always valued capturing a moment in time but what really sealed the career path for me was taking photos of my brothers football team in High School. Read more>>

Mike Bay

I got my first electric guitar for Christmas when I was 12 years old. My parents made me agree to take at least one year of lessons and I could decide what to do from there. I did the one year of lesson, hardly practiced and once that year was over I was done. I didn’t understand that there was a structure to this thing that felt to freeing to me. By 13-14 I was neck deep in punk rock and all the things that came with it. Read more>>

Jaslyn Loftin

When it come to knowing when I wanted to be in the creative field, particularly the entertainment field, I was five years old. I saw Britney Spears on MTV and told my mom, “I can do that!” My ultimate dream was to be a part of a girl group, so I used to go to so many auditions to try and get into a label or a training camp, but I was always rejected.  Read more>>

John Strother

When I was a senior in college at PSU in the architecture department my professor pulled me aside at the end of the semester and said that I had to decide whether I would be an Architect or an Artist. I thought it was an interesting question but I have never made that choice. I have pursued both to the best of my ability. Read more>>

Jamir Smith

I remember when I began reading the pages of Right On! Magazine, Word Up & Vibe Magazine and saw how creative people of color were. In addition to how colorful the pages were of fashion. I knew at that point I wanted to create a space for other creatives to tell their stories, so I built The “JamirSmithShow”. Read more>>

Sid Srinivasan

There wasn’t a defining moment when I knew I wanted to take an artistic/creative path. All along, I knew what I felt drawn to, I knew what made the hours go by without me noticing and, I knew that I was good at playing the guitar, making music, writing songs, and performing live. I also had the awareness that I was growing in my capacity as a musician. Read more>>

Aimee Granton

I first knew I wanted to pursue a career as a creative when I was young. I wasn’t sure exactly what direction I would end up going with it. When I was little, I used to cut my Barbies and dolls hair, which my mom was not very happy about. From a young age I loved art and creating. I also made jewelry from the time I was about 12, which I still do and sell it in the Salon. Read more>>

Betsy Spina

From a young age, I knew that I loved the performing arts. I grew up studying dance, music, and acting, and I always felt that these art forms had a sort of magic to them. They made me feel connected to something greater, and they transported me to a different place that felt light, joyful, meaningful, and like what I imagined flying would feel like if I could do it without an airplane. Read more>>