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

Aleksandra Kokotovic

From an early age, everything I did and that occupied my attention was unusual, full of creative activity and imagination. I was a very engaged child, active and full of life. Commonly I came up with new projects, both in a group and on my own. Even then, I knew that I was not destined for a job from 9 to 5, but that I had to move, create, and be surrounded by interesting, different, authentic creatives, as well as that the experience itself should be beautiful, free, inspiring, in order to make me completely happy and fulfilled, so that I could communicate with my soul and express freely what I carry inside me. Read more>>

Apollo Mighty

I guess it was around 18 right after high school. I recognized that music was the only thing that gave me joy and peace. I can still remember the exact moment in the bathroom at my moms house that i decided that I wanted to sing. I was about to leave for college to study business and while I was excited to get out of Memphis all I wanted to do was create more music and tell more of my story. That how it started. Read more>>

Svetlana Pustova

I remember when I was 14 years old, I was watching Lizzie McGuire on Disney Channel (funny, I know) and I just couldn’t stop. I felt so drawn to the character, the story line, and eventually the actress herself. So, I investigated the serie, the filming, the backstage stories. I just wanted to find out as much as I could. I wanted to understand how it all worked. That was when I decided that I wanted to do the same, and that was acting. Read more>>

Nana Malania

That is a great question. Makeup was something that I always enjoyed doing on myself. I’m sure most of you searched for your mom’s makeup bag and played with it when you were little, well that was also me. In 2011 when I moved to the USA and I felt so lonely doing makeup became my therapy. I would do different looks in my room watching youtube videos, it gave me so much joy and pleasure. Read more>>

Sho Vaughn

I would say around 2014, when I made the decision to go back to school and take up graphic design as a trade. I spent my late 20’s/early 30’s jobless and without much direction as to what I really wanted to do with my life. My mother was recovering from a major health ordeal and my father was already up in age. So it was like a constant “…so what are you going to do now?” in my head, and I had no answer other than I wanted to do something creative that would get me out of my small-city environment. Read more>>

Jenny Lam

Thank you for interviewing me! I’ll begin by saying that I was literally born an artist, which might sound clichéd, but it’s true. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. I started as soon as I could grip a pen in my infant hand, which is why, to this day, I still hold all writing and drawing utensils incorrectly; my hand looks like it’s balled up in a fist (but it works!). Read more>>

Dylan Somsel

I obtained a very old bastard file from an old farm, and knew that the steel could be used to make knives. I decided to try and make one myself, and after improvising the tools I needed was able to complete one. After enjoying that, I began piecing together the proper equipment and the more I did the more I enjoyed it, once I began to build up a fair amount of forged objects that were beginning to take up space, I decided to try and sell them. Read more>>

ITHIELL YISRAEL

Around age 13, I found one of my father’s old photography cameras in his garage and looked through the lens. There was something about the way the world looked through that lens that immediately created a desire to see everything through that lens. As my cousins and relatives would stand around talking, I would put the camera up to my eye, with no film in it, and just float around them. Looking at them from various angles through the lens and I fell in love with the camera. Read more>>

Jacob Carter

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue an art career was in elementary school. I always drew comics in school and a lot of my friends and classmates would read them. I enjoyed watching them read what I had made. They would always tell me how good I was, and they usually would ask me to draw their favorite characters on tv or anime. Some would even offer me money. Thats when I knew I wanted to pursue a career. It was what I loved to do, and for someone to want to compensate me for my trouble felt good. Read more>>

30bomb

I have been making beats since the 8th grade. Throughout my early years of high school, I viewed it as a hobby and nothing too serious. I started to realize this is who I always wanted to be towards the end of my junior year. As the quality of beats improved, my desire to be a music producer forever grew. I started selling beats online and found a new level of passion when I found that people are willing to pay money for my creations. Read more>>

Ethan Jones

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue this path professionally was going into the 9th grade, I saw all these other people with a creative mind and that just made me want to take my own path and do my own thing. ever since then i’ve just fell in love with designing. Its something I can never give up on. Read more>>

Corinne Bach

I’ll never forget; I was 17 and working as a grocery store cashier in a tiny town. I knew I was going nowhere fast in the little town my mom moved us to. A few years prior, I’d moved to Florida from Brooklyn and soon after, my mother remarried. I was so homesick and I missed my dad, my friends, and the big city hustle of New York. Then my dad died in NY and in a twist of fate, I wasn’t able to go to his funeral. Read more>>

Stephen Francis

In grade school I spent a lot of time watching MTV and listening to records. I would pick up a ‘Guitar World’ magazine to learn a song or two and then read about all the guitar players I loved. It was a magical time where the guitar heroes of the 60s/70s were being celebrated by all the contemporary musicians. There was an article on Slash talking about Joe Perry or Stone Gossard mentioning Led Zeppelin. Read more>>

DJ Savage

I was introduced to entertainment at a young age. I began my career at the age of 5 as a musician in my church. My church would often host big crowds for services and other special events. So after performing in front of 100 people (a few times), I knew I wanted to perform on the big stage as an entertainer. Read more>>

Angela Declet

Back in 2020 when many were looking for an alternative of earning an income and/or looking for a new hobby due to Covid-19, I had lost a beloved family member and needed a way to clear my mind in order to grieve. I also took this opportunity to prove to myself that I could achieve anything that I had set my mind to. 19 months later, I am still healing and proving myself that I can accomplish anything. Read more>>

Natalia Acosta

Since a young girl I always loved music. I was in the choir and always chose that as an elective at school, As a teenager I would write and record my own songs at home. Years later, When I joined church I became a Worship leader, singing has always been in me. Growing in my later years after I had my daughter and she became a teenager, I noticed she had a very beautiful voice as well and a passion for singing. Read more>>

Gigi Supernova

When I moved to Austin, I was holding myself back the person the I was when it comes to my sexuality and it was not until I met my first boyfriend that I started to experiment what being part of the LGBTQ+ community was like. I signed up to volunteer for my first pride festival and it was at the volunteer meeting that I got to meet my first drag queen. Ever since that moment I started doing research and playing around with makeup. It was 2019, when I signed up for an amateur competition at Rain on 4th and I did my first drag performance. After seeing all the performers and being received with open arms by the host I found my passion to start doing drag. Read more>>

Miguel Rojas

Being around creative friends sparked my initial interest in art. I never expected myself to pursue a career in the Arts. It was during college where I found being creative helped me relax. At the time I spent most of my free time in the dark room developing film and prints. I’ll always have a spot in my heart for that but it wasn’t until I picked up a paintbrush where I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Something about putting on headphones and getting messy with paint felt so right Read more>>

Vidisha Bajpai

I’m a self-taught visual artist, and have been painting since I was 5 years old. Art has been always my passion, a way to express myself. I have won many awards in various art contests at the city and state level competitions in India and US. I started painting as a hobby, but have always wanted to serve others through my talent. Read more>>

Becca Kannapell

I was working full time in a hospital as an Occupational Therapist in New York City. I was nearing my thirtieth birthday when I began experiencing “undiagnosable” physical and medical symptoms. Luckily I had incredible health insurance from working in healthcare at the time and I was able to see medical expert, one after the next to try and pinpoint what was happening to my body. As I was becoming an expert on trying to heal, I began slipping into a low-level-but-still-functioning-somewhat depression. Read more>>

Ruby Leigh

The very moment I knew I wanted to be a singer was at 9-1/2 years old! I had no idea I could sing because it was something that our family never really did because I come from a very non-musical family but my dad always liked to listen to music in his race car shop and one day he was listening to some old classic country and bluegrass music and I had never heard anything like it before but I liked it and a song came on and I was listening and I started singing the chorus along with it and my dad was under his race car and he said that he was listening and thought I sounded pretty good ? Read more>>

Antoinette Webb

When I first began my yoga practice, I didn’t see hardly anyone who looked like me. It took a LOT of digging on the internet to come across the likes of Dana Falsetti and as a plus size girl, my heart smiled. I then felt the need to find signs of Black people within the yoga community. After finding Renee Watkins, Tie Simpson, and Neo St. Remy, I FINALLY stumbled upon the amazing Jessamyn Stanley. Read more>>

Lyle Adair

I started out sculpting copper as a passtime. It began as a way to relieve stress after work, volunteering at a local gallery in exchange for learning the ins and outs of copper design and fabrication. I’d always enjoyed working with my hands and grew up working with wood and found objects. When I was offered an apprenticeship to learn to use a torch on copper, I jumped on the opportunity. Soon after learning the process, I knew I wanted to pursue it professionally. Read more>>

Genevieve Flynn

It wasn’t until I had graduated from high school. I did not want to go to college, as it was such a struggle to get through my studies in high school. I did not realize that the struggle to study was probably due to a bit of ADHD. I have not been diagnosed by a professional but through the years I have recognized my inability to stay focused when reading. Whatever you want to call it I realized that I did not want to go through college. Read more>>

Olivia Rogers

Ever since I was young I found my way into creative outlets. Creating always brought me a sense of peace and joy. It helped me to express my voice and my sense of self. I remember some days as a child spending all of recess drawing pictures or making string bracelets. I always knew that I wanted to professionally pursue my art, even if it wasn’t a full time profession. As I got older I branched out into more creative outlets such as pastry and floral design. Unlike many other artists that I know, my artistic career is balanced alongside being a full time Diagnostic Medical Sonographer. Read more>>

Erin Carson

I first knew I wanted to be an artist in some form when I was a kid, I always had a pencil in my hand. I grew up with such a big imagination and threw it all onto paper. However, it wasn’t until I was maybe 14 that I knew I wanted to be a tattoo artist. The thought of being stuck in a job for the rest of my life where it’s the same thing day in and day out seemed so boring, and I was determined to make sure that wasn’t me. I needed to follow a path that would allow me to use my imagination and creativity as much as possible. Read more>>

Agnes Russo

My artistic path started when I became a mom with my second child. I was looking for something to relax and to “clean” my head after a very busy and rushing day. Living far away from my family and friends can be very challenging and in some moments of our lives we can definitely feel it stronger. Read more>>

IVORY BLUE

I’ve always felt that writing my own songs was something meant for me to do as I was making up songs with lyrics since I was a little kid and sang them for anyone wanting to hear them, but it wasn’t until I was 14 years old that I was convinced I didn’t want to do anything else. I learned how to play guitar on my own and started to layer looping instrumental and vocal tracks with a tape recorder at a very young age to make the songs sound better. Read more>>

Erik Dobell

Mentalism is a branch of magic and most folks see their first magician when they are a child. I was about 20 or 21 years old, so a little older than most but still a child. I saw this magician in a mall in Ithaca, New York. The magician was selling tricks from a little kiosk and he showed me a few things and I was amazed. I had never seen anything like this before. So I bought a few tricks, learned them, did them for some friends and fell in love with magic. Read more>>

Danial Shafie Sabet

Well, I wasn’t the best student back at school. And I didn’t pay much attention to the lessons. But I always was good at artistic stuff back then. I worked all my summertimes and tried to help my old man on the fields and factory. When I was about 18 I realized that I’m good at designing buildings, so I chose architecture as my university subject and just continued my love and respect for country music. I play and write songs mainly for myself and I did some cover songs from the icons: Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson. Read more>>

Shudi Nelson

I knew I wanted to pursue my path when I saw what came out of doing it & also what came with it, good & bad. I dropped out of high school when I first started attempting to do music lol it was a wild ride but from that point on amongst the praise that I’ve been getting from my work, I’ve been pursuing it much more. Read more>>

Lori Ryerson

If someone had told me that I would end up being a full time artist once my kids were grown and gone on to their own lives, I would have suggested they seek professional help! I never thought of myself as “an artist”; certainly not a visual one. That’s what OTHER people did, with paintbrushes and chisels. Oh, there were the early days, the years I spent as a youngster, when I thought I was going to be a singer and actor, but that was a different kind of art. Read more>>

Dale O’Dell

CHRISTMAS 1972 The Gift that Changed my Life In 1972 I was a thirteen year-old Junior High School kid living the life of a very typical suburban boy in Houston, Texas. I was atypical in one respect because, unlike most Texas kids, I wasn’t into sports and didn’t play junior league football or little league baseball. Sports was not my thing. I was into art and science and had a chemistry set that I actually used. Read more>>

Guanako King

“Music Wise” as a kid my parent would rent out video tapes of latin artists like Selena, Los Bukis and so on.the videos were concert footage and it be thousands of people just single along and knew the lyrics and the passion they put into it , that to me felt like power and i wanted to be an artists, bring all walks of life in one place and control them with music. Read more>>