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

Anne Marie Ceralvo

Even though I have music industry experience, going as far back as 23 years ago, I didn’t realize that I wanted to really pursue a creative/artistic path until the pandemic. I reconnected with collaborators – from producers, to DJs, to rappers, to fellow singers. Creating music together brought a feeling of joy and a sense of fulfillment! Read more>>

Kate Nevill

I was quite young when I first realised how much I love songwriting and that it was something that I would love to pursue. I was about 7 years old when I first started writing songs and if I’m going to be honest they weren’t great (as you can imagine at such a young age). I was writing and singing about how I would stay up until 11 pm and I just thought it was the coolest most rebellious thing ever!! Despite their quality, I loved the process of being able to write about whatever I was feeling or thinking and creating a piece of work I could then perform for my whole family. Read more>>

Cayman Kane

During my high school years, I discovered my passion for pursuing a career in art. I always had a love for drawing and sketching, but it wasn’t until high school that I realized the numerous opportunities available to earn a living as a professional artist. After graduating high school, I started participating in art festivals in Dayton, Ohio, where I made a few sales. This encouraged me to take up art as a career and pursue it further. Read more>>

Hailey J

Thanks so much for the opportunity to talk with you. I’ve known I’ve loved to sing for as long as I can remember. My room as a kid was decorated with photos of No Doubt and Gwen Stefani, and for fun, I’d design my future album covers and create titles for my not-yet-written songs. Later on, I studied classical singing and opera in college, but once I graduated, I found myself looking again to my childhood dream of songwriting. I began to learn how to write and sing pop songs, and eventually my music partner (and now husband) and I started our alt-pop duo JAY II (pronounced Jay the Second). Read more>>

Megan Nolte

Art has always been a staple in my life, I’ve always known that I wanted to create in all different mediums. At a young age I struggled with anxiety, and specifically remember that art was what helped me cope with all of my feelings. I would always doodle on my homework, my clothes, and my shoes (My mother was usually not so okay with the clothes and shoes!) Read more>>

Travis Crawford

I think I’ve always wanted to do something in the music world. As a kid I used to dream about having a band and singing in front of people. My dad and his brothers would always play their guitars/sing at family get togethers, and I always enjoyed watching them. It took me until my sophomore year of college to pick up a guitar and push myself to learn a song. Since then I’ve been hooked on playing songs and preforming music for people. Read more>>

JoJo Bros

Well from a young adolescence, my brother and I were introduced to the arts through Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Monet, and others like them. Soon after our parents saw that we had a deep interest by the many sketches and paintings we started making, they put us in a local painter’s Art class that she did out of her home for a limited amount of students. There we learned the basics for several years and pushed our skills to the next level. In our teens we had the pleasure of working with Interior designers and artisans from Florence Italy on the Philharmonic House of Design in Laguna Beach for 2 consecutive years. Read more>>

Hillel

Since kindergarten, primary school and the first Black & White screen TV we ever had at home I was amazed, entertained and mesmerized by the cartoons, artistic performances and shows I watch with the consent of my parents. In primary school as a student in second grade my class was selected to perform a theatrical play in a TV show, I was 6 years old. We were seven “actors”, the TV host presented us with a short introduction about the play. Read more>>

Kenwin Jones

My sophomore year in college I was given the opportunity to represent my school by showing a few of my pieces at a local art exhibit. At the time, I was very unsure as to whether or not I was making the right decision choosing photography as my career choice. I was not very good, but my professor saw something in my work. After weeks of procrastination, I finally completed my pieces for the show. The response to my pieces went amazingly well! Afterwards, I knew this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Read more>>

BFR Podcast

IT wasn’t something we set out to do. We just wanted to get together every week and talk about life. We then invited random people we knew and had them tell their stories. After we found our rhythm we decided this is something we want to do long term and hopefully as a career. We’re still working towards that. Read more>>

Jazmine Peterson

As I child I would see the actors on tv and the performers on stage. Never would I imagine that one day it would be that someone was watching. I knew I wanted this to be my career as a child just never thought it was going to realistic and now here I am. It wasn’t until the age of 20 when I realized that I could make this my job. Read more>>

Tristin Cole

As a kid I loved drawing and painting so much it was a part of life. I not only grew up watching plenty of cartoons, I was around the people that were responsible for making them. I had a unique, behind-the-scenes look at how animation was created, my father, a background painter for Hanna-Barbera. It became my dream to be one of those creators. Read more>>

Isaac Berkowitz

I have been interested in Music and live music since I was a small child but I didn’t start playing Guitar with any regularity until I was about 12 or 13. I met my friend, our drummer John Nowak, in band class and we immediately starting jamming and pushing each other to get better at our instruments, We formed a band and have been playing together in groups ever since. As soon as we played our first show I was hooked, but it wasn’t until I was about to go to college that I started thinking seriously about music as a career. Read more>>

Ao Zhang

From a very young age, I sensed that art, specifically drawing, might be my lifelong companion. I remember back in kindergarten, there was this boy who could draw. Using simple shapes, he’d sketch robots, and it had everyone, including me, mesmerized. This was my first taste of the enchanting power of art. I envied the magic he wielded, creating worlds with just a pencil and paper. That’s when my bond with drawing began. Read more>>

Abrina

Ever since I was a little girl I always loved singing. I would put on plays and shows for family parties and my Grandfather who plays in a mariachi band he would always have me sing with them as well. But I would say the defining moment where it was like I have to give this a real shot was when I was about 16 or 17 and I won a performance contest at Universal city walk outside of Universal Studios LA. I put on a show with two dancers abs sang my but off and ended up winning so after that it showed me that maybe I could do this. I had to put my fears to the side and really just give it a shot. Read more>>

 Autumn Bodie

This is such an interesting question for me to think about. I remember as a teenager repainting basic picture frames with fun designs and attempting to find local stores where I could sell them. Without a clear plan or any idea how to do what I was attempting, I was overcome by self doubt and I abandoned the idea at the time, but I never really lost the desire to have a creative business. Rather than focus on business, I put that creative energy into gift giving every chance I got. I love to give gifts to others that they truly love and find useful. Read more>>

Victoria Veedell

I knew I wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally while completing my undergraduate degree. However, at that time, I lacked a clear roadmap to turn that interest into a career. It took several years of exploring various roles within the art world before I gradually transitioned into a full-time artist. I went from working at an art gallery to being an artist studio assistant in Houston, my hometown, to moving on to New York City working in a gallery and after 7 years moved to Tokyo with my then boyfriend, now husband. Read more>>

Yannis Lobaina

I have had a passion for writing since I was just nine years old. Reading books and creating imaginative stories and poems has always brought me joy. Despite facing challenges and detours in my career path, I never lost hope in pursuing my dreams. In my twenties, I explored various art forms such as writing, film, visual arts, and music. When I received my first paycheck at the age of twenty-four for my photographs and publications, I felt courageous and knew I wanted to pursue my artistic path professionally. Read more>>

Eric Wurzelbacher

Looking back, I believe a lot of it came with how I grew up. My parents were self-employed and me and my siblings had a very free environment to grow in. This cultivated creativity and free thinking which, in retrospect, actually made school kind of difficult for me. From a young age I never felt like a fit in the system; I don’t mean this to say I was special. I actually felt quite the opposite for many years- school made me feel quite incompetent a lot of times. However, I excelled in music class and things that I had the most agency over. Read more>>

Delores Curry

When I was a little girl I always loved to sing! I started listening to singers like Mariah Carey, Anita Baker, Jodeci, Brandy, SWV, and so many more & just fell in love with music. When I got a little older I sang in church, joined the advanced choir in high school, and went on to take music theory later. Read more>>

Amelia Nery

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved art. When I was a child, I would roam around the house with a pen, “decorating” everything in sight. Walls, the underside of tables, you name it – they all served as my canvases. I’m grateful that my parents allowed me the freedom to express my creativity. It felt like the entire world was my creative playground. I didn’t spare even the condiments on dinner plates. I would imagine ketchup as a flowing river, a fried egg as a circular house, and I’d use chopsticks to dig a hole in it to create a door for a little dog to come home. Read more>>

Willie Stone

I first knew I wanted to take modeling and content creation seriously when after I seen and got messages that I was inspiring people to start their own thing and people telling me they take inspiration from my stuff being put out also just me always wanting to try new styles and keep advancing Read more>>

Diane Kremer

I started my career as a computer engineer and I worked in high-tech for 20 years. I always enjoyed being creative, but did not have a formal arts education. I made jewelry as a hobby and loved learning new techniques. Life took a sharp turn when I was laid off during the great recession. Read more>>

Adriana Kelly

It all began when I married an Army Soldier in 2001. My life from then on has never been the same. As a military spouse, I was introduced to that new culture and had the opportunity to live in many different places, and meet incredible people. I decided that I wanted a job that could fit in with the military lifestyle but also, that I would enjoy and give me the flexibility of being a full-time mother one day. And I found it! While sitting on the floor of an empty house, in a new city, I had the idea to start a very different type of hobby for me. Read more>>

Qimmah Burgess

By creating Pillow Talk with the Tea I wanted to give back to others by giving them a dose of how I grew up in an Open, Truthful, Candid, and Unguarded environment that continuously doesn’t have any hesitation in showing me the importance of open communication, freely speaking my mind, openly discussing how I felt and what was on my mind without any judgment along with providing the importance of emotional intelligence. Read more>>

Seth Melros

I first knew I wanted to be an artist when I was freestyling with one of my friends over a call. We were freestyling and making sounds for hours and I never knew the time was passing by and I was having a lot of fun doing it and I ended up doing it in my free time more than anything and it put a smile on my face every time I had a good flow or beat going on. Read more>>

Khai Zhen Yap

Since I was a kid my parents made me attend piano/ music theory classes, and I do know most of the kids my age don’t enjoy taking it due to peer pressure and extra commitments, However, I do see myself enjoying it a lot despite it being one of the hardest skill for me to learn that takes lots of time and practice. Music works like a magic spell to me as it affects me in any way, it makes me feel like myself. That is when I decided music would be my future and it’s the only thing I wanted to work with for the rest of my life. Read more>>

Carissa McElravy

Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to pursue a creative life. Pursuing a “regular” job or career was never an option for me or my brother. Sitting at a desk from 9 – 5? Total nightmare. Since I’ve always known this about myself, the question has more been: which artistic path should I pursue exactly? Singing has always been my favorite form of expression and my artistic choices have continually circled around that. At first, I was a full blown theatre kid, destined for Broadway! Read more>>

Cassidy Naber

I’ve been in the entertainment industry since birth honestly. My first acting job was a Birds Eye commercial that I did with my family when I was only 7-8 months old. Since I started at such a young age I don’t really remember what made me decide to make it my career, but I have never regretted it since. I truly don’t know what’d I’d be doing if I didn’t have acting and dancing, but I hope I never haver to know. Read more>>

Connor Huggins

I have always loved music, but performing it and coming to the realization that it was what I wanted to pursue professionally was something that took many years, people, and experiences for me to realize. In middle school and high school, I was a part of the band programs and a member of most of the ensembles. While I love the program and still support it to this day, I was never one for art or classical music. During this time, I started going to concerts with my family seeing different bands and artists. Before the pandemic, we saw artists like Foreigner and Def Leppard, to Bruno Mars, all the way to Twenty One Pilots. Read more>>

Reuben Guberek

I grew up enthralled by books and movies, so much so that I would write my own scripts, novels and short stories. But it took a long time (halfway through college) for me to be sure that pursuing writing and directing was what I wanted to do professionally. Being a movie director was always my “dream job” answer as a child, but I didn’t know if that was in the realm of possibility for me. It was an answer that felt as far away to me as “President” or “Astronaut.” I was afraid that if I pursued being a writer / director of movies, that I would fall short and end up simply working in the field of commercial or wedding videography where I’d be paid to work with a camera, but have no connection to fiction storytelling side of things that I was so in love with. Read more>>

Mary Beth Downs

I started painting 49 years ago. After a number of years learning from private art teachers I enrolled at the University of Minnesota Duluth, graduating with honors with a BFA in Fine Arts. After graduation I started The Art Cellar where, for the last 29 years, I teach 5 classes of adult students each week. I also teach workshops in Minnesota Wisconsin and Florida. My paintings have been exhibited in galleries an shows in Minnesota and have been awarded professional level first place ribbons. Read more>>

Josh Tetzlaff

In elementary school, fourth grade I won an award for painting, and my art was placed in the hospital where I was born, that was the last art class I would take until I got into the art program at APSU (Austin Peay State University) but before that when I was a young adult, I found the movie Pollock in a 5$ bin at Walmart. I went home and watched it and afterward, I was so inspired I drove back to Walmart to buy paints, brushes, and a pack of canvases. when I got home, I started playing with my new toys and loved experimenting with the different marks I could make. Read more>>

Anastasia Merzlaya

I enjoyed drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. Thinking backward, I can’t really spot any particular moment in my life when I learned to love art. I guess, it was always in me. Even in kindergarten, I preferred art activities over other children’s games. I was always doodling little critters on loose pieces of paper, corners of my grandparents’ newspapers and even wallpaper in our house. Each animal had its unique name and a little story, sometimes even a short poem created by me. Read more>>

Kari Smith

I’ve always been into creating art for as long as I can remember. However, it wasn’t always my dream. My whole childhood through the end of high school I wanted one dream and one dream only, to be a killer whale trainer. But once college started I realized how unrealistic that was given I didn’t like traditional school or science and I’d never taken a swimming class in my life. So I moved on to being an art teacher. Read more>>

Gerald Wynter

For years I had written and recorded music and I knew deep down that I had this voice and these lyrics that I wanted to share, I had done a couple shows when I was just starting but they didn’t go great and I had a choice because I had done the shows for free and I wanted to get paid and I said the next event I go to I get paid or I’m figuring out and the next event I was was opening for Obie Trice , paid nearly a week to the day and I realized this was it. This is what I wanted to do. Read more>>

Candice Joy Scales

I got some words of wisdom from a stranger once while I was bartending and still deciding if I should move to LA. He told me that I’m the kind of person that will get to skip from A-Z. That my destiny is already written and I basically need to stop being afraid and having imposter syndrome. That my light is way too bright to go unnoticed, and bunch of other affirmations. Now, to hear that from your mother is one thing but to hear it from a complete stranger is another. Read more>>

Devin McGee

I guess you could say it’s in my blood since I come from a family of artisans. My grandmother, father and aunt were all very talented stained glass artists. My father is also an amazing drummer and I inherited my love for music and playing drums from him. My mother is a writer, so my passion for storytelling stems from her. My uncle was a cinematographer back in the 1980s, and he was pivotal in the development of the initial IMAX cameras as well as time lapse photography, lending his talent to groundbreaking films like Koyaanisqatsi and Chronos. Read more>>

Kimarley Henry

I had been enamored with the art of storytelling for as long as I can remember. I have always been drawn to stories about the human experience and how we interact with each other based on the things that we have been through in our lives. Drawing comics were my way of telling stories, though I did not used to think much of it other than the fact that I simply just enjoyed it. It wasn’t until my junior year of high-school that it became apparent that I needed to get my work published for more people than just my family and peers. Read more>>

Grace Filbin

Some part of me always knew that I wanted to pursue a creative path in life. Although I had assumed that one day I would wake up and magically know what career path I wanted to pursue, it didn’t happen that way. As I continued to be bored and frustrated by what was being taught in my academic courses, I found myself getting more and more excited by what I was learning in art class. Soon enough, the sketches that would normally be reserved for my art classes were spilling over into my notes for history, math and english. I couldn’t help myself from translating what was being lectured by my teachers into little doodles that filled up the margins in my notebook, sometimes obscuring my notes altogether. Read more>>

KLD

I’ve been into music since 11 years old. Having piano lessons as a child which developed into learning to write songs and produce instrumentals. I also learned guitar at that age too so it was easier for me to find the keys by ear. Released my first recordings at the age of 14 and been an artist ever since Read more>>

Elisabete Guerreiro

From an early age, Elisabete Guerreiro was captivated by art as she admired the stunning drawings of her aunt Amália. This childlike charm turned into a passion for artistic expression and thus built the path that would lead her to the tireless pursuit of arts and design. She graduated in Art Education and later studied Product Design in Lisbon. Today, she is an art teacher and plays an essential role in awakening children’s creativity. About 14 years ago, the dormant flame of painting was rekindled, as she went to live in Andalusia, where each brushstroke is a tribute to the traditions and rich artistic heritage of this region of Spain. Read more>>

Cecily Sammons

After leaving my job as a teacher, I decided to get back to doing art on a regular basis. Teaching had really taken most of my time over the years and as a result, in my free time, I just didn’t do all of the creative things that I once did. When I left my teaching job in 2021, my husband and I started talking about all of the possibilities. I found a studio in midtown and just started painting again. Read more>>