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

Azriel Amis

I first knew art was what I wanted to do when I was in fifth grade. I had 3 friends who drew so well, that I wanted to try it for myself. It wasn’t easy, of course, but I never stopped. Read more>>

Sasha Kolesnik

The prospect of choosing a future career once felt both scary and boring to me during my school days. I didn’t have any inspiring role models among grown-ups who would be happy and fulfilled with their career (fun post-Soviet times in Russia…). Read more>>

Missingno

I knew that I wanted to try doing music professionally since Spring of 2019, right after I finished my Master’s degree. I had been making music since undergrad but it took me until after grad school to work up the nerve and take the jump. Read more>>

Stuart Whitworth

When I was 5 years old, my parents started me in piano lessons, along with my sisters. I liked it at first, but after a few years I got tired of practicing all the time and my sisters and I started begging our parents to let us quit. Read more>>

Amiana Patterson

I’ve always been a creative at heart so knowing that a creative flow would always accompany me throughout my lifetime was not a decision that I needed to make. It has and always will be part of who I am. Read more>>

Beth Hughes

It started at a young age, obsessed with reading product labels and playing with oils. I left 16 years of corporate American behind in early 2018 to step into entrepreneurship and it was the best decision I have ever made. Read more>>

DAYLAN JONES

When I was around 6 or 7 years old, I first fell in love with movies and film. My Dad had a whole room filled with various genres of films, and we would watch movies every weekend when we visited his home. Read more>>

Erin Liu

Growing up in an Asian culture that emphasized academic success, I spent over 12 years mastering core subjects such as Chinese language, math, and science. Read more>>

Adrianna Tan

I have always been an creative person, but I hadn’t really considered it professionally at the start. I always considered having art and music as my hobbies, something I could always enjoy without the pressures of needing to monetize it. Read more>>

Monique Sorgen

I grew up in a hippie house so I was always allowed and encouraged to pursue my dreams. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t planning to pursue a creative career that would be something to do with entertaining people through story, in particular. Read more>>

Hannah Lyle

The journey to becoming a makeup artist has not been a straight line. For as long as I can remember, I’ve continually gone back and forth with the idea of doing makeup professionally. Read more>>

Gio McKinley

Since my childhood, I always knew that it made me very happy to express what I felt through art. It has been very cathartic for me, during the course of my life, to be able to write songs, act, draw, perform, and sing. Read more>>

Taige Shi

My creative drive began early in life when I was a child actor in films. At the age of seven, I was invited to act in a movie by one of my mother’s friends. Read more>>

Robert McNichols Jr

The first time I realized I wanted to pursue being an artist was when I was in high school. I was winning awards performing as a cellist and also as a vocalist. Read more>>

Javen Briggs

Since elementary school I have always had a passion/interest in art, and that passion turned into a love as I grew up until I got to high school and joined the art program they offered students there. Read more>>

Maddie Stanley

As a kid I was always interested in the arts; theater, chorus, drawing, painting, you name it. Starting high school I had bullheadedly decided I was going to skip college and runaway to LA and make it big as an actor. Read more>>

Ana Rodriguez

I have always liked to draw since I was very little. I found peace in creating my own little worlds through drawing. When I was about 17, I got stickers made of a few designs. Read more>>

Ziruo Wang

I grew up in a rainy, near-sea city, nurtured by the stories told by my grandma. Once, she told me the story of her mother, a salt worker who raised my grandma and provided her with education by carrying baskets of salt on her shoulder and transporting them from the salt field to ships and trucks. Read more>>

Danielle Carter

I was very young. I was always fascinated with the arts from watching movies and televisions shows growing up.. I always told my mom “I want to be on TV” I wanted to entertain and make people laugh. Read more>>

Fahmy Abdisheikh

Back in 2018, I found myself diving into the world of photography, which was a pretty big shift for me. Until then, I was trudging through my accounting major at Kansas State University and, to be honest, I was hating every minute of it. Read more>>

Malado Francine

I have always been an artist from an early age. Growing up during my formative years in West Africa, and being surrounded by immense creativity only cemented my interest. Read more>>

Felecia Howell

As a young child I loved to read, and I guess the seed was planted then. Through story I could travel any and everywhere. Later, as a teenager I picked up a 35mm camera and fell in love with photography. Read more>>

Jason Abraham

After I graduated college, I went to Audio engineering school. I landed an internship at Wyclefe Studio call Platinum sound. I was working a full-time job while I was interning and I hated it. Read more>>

Brittanie Goldsby

I’ve been into creative things and the arts in general for as long as I can remember, even back when I was a little kid. I used to mess around with watercolors and draw flowers, mostly to cheer up my great grandma. Read more>>

Lindsay Cowles

The first stepping stone to my creative/artistic career was when I moved to New York after college. I knew I wanted to be in the city and knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the fashion industry. Read more>>

Lu Louis

I was very much a class clown all throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I always saw my creative outbursts as just a way to entertain my friends while we were in class. Read more>>

Chad Holliday

My interest in glass and art in general occurred when I was an undergraduate. I had always been creative and had a drive to make but where I grew up this was frowned upon but the local and family and you might be confronted with aggression when I was in high school. Read more>>

Josefina Rita Marcolin

Since I was very little, I think since I was 8 years old, I liked everything related to art. My father was a doctor, and painted pictures as a hobby, and my mother drew realism to perfection. Read more>>

Melissa McArdle

The first time I took a friend’s portrait, and when I gifted her the print, tears of joyful acceptance flowed freely down her beautiful face and she said, “I’ve never knew I was so lovely”. Read more>>

Taylor Haulfield

I honestly don’t know if I can pin down just one moment when I realized that I wanted to be a writer. It was a gradual process. I would say it happened sometime around when I was eleven years old. Read more>>

Julia Conoscenti

Ever since I can remember, creativity has been my refuge, a way to escape the mundanity of everyday life. My journey into digital marketing and content creation began with a simple realization: even the most ordinary objects and things have the potential to be extraordinary through the lens of creativity. Read more>>

Claire Wu

I have always been drawn towards a creative and artistic path. As a child, I loved singing and acting, though it wasn’t the conventional route in my household. Read more>>

Monica Roesner

From as early as I can remember, I always had a passion for art and had parents that supported that dream. By the time I entered high school I knew I wanted to have a creative career of some sort, so I used that time to experiment and explore what was going to be a good fit for me. Read more>>

JoJo Nunes

I recognized a creative spirit within myself around 9 years old. I remember telling my family and elementary school teachers that I wanted to be an Image Consultant and an Actress. Read more>>

Doris Liu

It might sound crazy but I decided my future career path as a designer as early as I just entered high school. I can’t recall at all what triggered me into this field, but I was so determined, and although for some reason I didn’t get to learn design in university, I came back to it in grad school to pursue this path. Read more>>

Carlton Rashad

I’d always wanted to be a music artist! I remember watching Michael Jackson when I was a child, thinking I want to be like him. Then Chris Brown came onto the music scene, then I really knew that this is what I wanted to do. Read more>>

My-Kim Nguyen

Hey! I’m My-Kim Nguyen, a passionate lifestyle and food content creator known as mykim.nguyen on social media. In the digital world, I’ve created a unique space for myself where I share my love for beauty, life, delicious food/seafood, fangirling, and capturing funny moments on camera. Read more>>

Anna Pasztor

I wasn’t fully aware that I wanted to become an artist for quite some time, even though I had been exposed to art since my early days. Read more>>

Dewey Markie

When I was a child In elementary school, I was a part of an African drumming performance ensemble … and as a new member, due to my talents I was kind of fast tracked through the ensemble and eventually became a lead drummer and performer. Read more>>

Clayton Davis

When I first got to college, I did not have a major picked out and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. For some reason anything in the arts did not seem viable to me. Read more>>

Bianca Cato

From a young age, I harbored a clear inclination towards pursuing a career in the realm of creativity. My journey commenced with a fortunate opportunity to engage in the operations of the Clayton County Performance Art Center during my high school years, assuming the role of an Associate Theater Technician. Read more>>

Cierra Ramsey

From my earliest school memories, I’ve always loved creating art. I loved the drawings I got to do in 2nd grade journaling, art class was my favorite time of day, and I was always proud to give my drawings to my parents. Read more>>

Vanessa Roettger

I think art has always been something I wanted to do since I was a young kid. When I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said I wanted to be an artist. Read more>>

John Morrisey

When I was 6 years old. I loved to put on the illusion of being someone else. Read more>>

Priscilla Call Essert

I was the fourth child of 5 and was wedged between extremely “needy” siblings. I felt quite invisible until I found the flute. In fourth grade, I quite easily made a sound on the flute and quickly began making music and found myself in a dialogue with folks without needing words. Read more>>