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

Sara Gorovits

I’m a visual artist, and art has been part of my life since I can remember. Growing up, I was surrounded by creativity. My mom was a ballerina, and my grandfather was a visual artist and a theatrical costume and set designer. I spent a lot of time in my grandfather’s studio when I was young, constantly painting and experimenting, and over the years, I explored a variety of artistic forms – children’s book illustrations, costume design for theater, murals for nightclubs and restaurants, and commissioned artwork. Read more>>

Jenny Mccarty

Art isn’t my primary income. Like many children who loved art, I was encouraged to pursue a more stable career path—and I’m glad I did.

I’ve always been passionate about both art and biology, but when it came time to choose, I chose biology. For nearly ten years after high school, I rarely painted while building a successful career in ecology. I earned a bachelor’s in biology, a master’s in stream ecology, and I now work full time in water resources management. Read more>>

Justin Ume

I think the first time I knew I wanted to pursue music as a career was back in my sophomore year of high school when I put out a small project under a different name. This was a very difficult time for me as I was taking on a lot of family/financial struggles to keep things together for everyone while juggling school, basketball, and running a clothing brand all at the same time (crazy to think about). I had to grow up fast at an early age to take care of those around me and through that it made me hungry and wanting more. I’ve always been creative, but when I stepped into music in high school and really started to see the positive feedback that the tracks were getting I fell in love with the craft because it was really me pouring my authenticity or experiences of what I’ve been through into something more powerful. Read more>>

Jiwon Lisa Choe

My creative journey began when I briefly attended school in the United States at the age of 11. I was 11 years old at the time and struggled to blend in with my peers due to my language skills. Feeling isolated, I spent much of my time drawing. Observing this, my teacher kindly suggested that I take on the role of directing a stage production for a school event. I was encouraged by her support and took on the challenge. Despite the language barrier, I had a wonderful experience collaborating with my classmates. Read more>>

Eric Eremita Jr

The moment I knew I wanted to pursue a creative and artistic professional career traces back to fifth grade. When I was younger, I was always fascinated with cartoons—I liked watching them, drawing them, and losing myself in the universes they existed in. The more I matured, the more I realized that if I could turn this hobby into a profession, it would never feel like work. Read more>>

Kelsey Smith

I’ve always been captivated by the fleeting nature of time, childhood nostalgia, and the beauty hidden in everyday moments. But if I had to pinpoint when I truly knew I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally, it would be in 2016—the moment I picked up my first film camera. Read more>>

Heather Scott

I am a domestic violence survivor, and for a long time, I felt trapped in fear and self-doubt. Leaving was the hardest but most powerful decision I ever made. It was a journey of rebuilding my confidence, self-worth, and life.

Surviving that experience didn’t just shape me—it fueled my passion to create a space where others feel safe, empowered, and whole. Whether through wellness, my love for animals, or modeling, I want people to see that no matter what they’ve been through, they are worthy of a beautiful, fulfilling life. My past doesn’t define me—my strength does. Read more>>

Kayla Booth

The love for this craft began at an early age. Like many actors, I discovered my passion for performing through participating in community theatre. It was in this environment that I learned not only the love for the craft, but what it meant to be a part of such a creative and inspiring community. As time passed and I grew older, I learned more about the art form and the business of being an actor. However, it’s in the moments of being in class, working on the no-budget short films, helping your best friends with auditions, that I’m reminded how much I love this and how much fun it truly is. Read more>>

Sybylla Lindert

I’ve always been creative, I used to have art shows for my paintings or fashion shows with the weirdo fairy dresses I used to make, but I kind of got trapped in that “job” thing for many years. I worked as a pastry chef/wedding cake decorator and did some farming (two things which I still really love), but always kind of longed for something that I felt more of a soul connection with. Read more>>

April

I have been a creative for as long as I remember. It has been a long path with traditional type jobs for the better part of 20 years.
It came together when I was outside my home one day contemplating my next project, when a woman commented on my home. She expressed how unique and wonderful it is and I am a good artist. I didn’t see myself that way at the time and told her that I am not an artist. I saw myself as just a lady that like to manipulate materials to make them aesthetically pleasing….. This woman scoffed at me! She looked me dead in the eye and said, “No, YOU are an ARTIST.” That interaction shook me up and I gave it careful thought. Finally, I accepted this perception of myself and began my journey as viewing myself as an artist. Read more>>

Chrystal Parker

I had been practicing and training object manipulation and circus on my own for years as a hobby. Not knowing anyone else who was doing similar things, I was alone with just the internet to learn. I moved to Chattanooga and found a weekly circus meetups and started attending. I gained many new skills and met a great community that valued skill sharing. I met people doing circus as their career and was inspired to do the same. After only a few months of attending the jams I unfortunately broke my foot (unrelated to circus). During that time I could not work due to my injury so decided to shift gears and figure out how to make circus my career. Read more>>

Sabe Anderson

Music has been in my life from an early age, starting with the piano, which was my safe space during difficult times. Overcoming addiction and living with bipolar disorder shaped much of who I am today, but instead of defining me, these challenges became the source of my drive to explore health, music, and creativity as vehicles for healing and transformation. Music, which is also a powerful tool for healing, became a way to advocate for mental health awareness, personal development and communal well-being. I’m deeply connected to music and its healing power and too old in life to do music without purpose. Read more>>

Sairy Escobar

In 2023 I spontaneously volunteered to be the choreographer/helper for a close family friends daughter quince. She gave me the opportunity to have an input on her dances, to show her my creative side and to see if this is something I might be into. Funny enough it was exactly what I expected and fell in love with being a choreographer not only for the dance but being able to meet new people and show them my craft as well as helping someones dreams come true.Being part of their dream quinceañera is something I cannot express the thrill it gives myself and my team. After finishing up with her quince in JUNE 03 2023 , I knew that was something I wanted to continue as a hobby & now is part of my life. Read more>>

Pylot Studios

Pylot Studios was born over a cup of coffee. In 2019, we [Yitzhak Franco and Leia Tyebjee] were sitting in a café, talking about the artists we admired, the exhibitions that had moved us, and the frustrating gaps in the art world—how so many talented artists were struggling to find space, opportunities, and a community that truly supported them. Read more>>

Christi Bunn

Christmas gifts have played a pivotal part in my artistic journey through the years. It all started with two Christmas gifts I gave my mother and mother-in-law in 2006. As usual, I was trying my best to come up with something creative to give them that would be meaningful and rather lasting, I decided that I would try to draw their homes and give them notecards with the drawings on them. This was received with tears from both. What happened next was really unexpected. When friends and family saw these pieces, I began to get calls for commissions. Read more>>

Joe Lamattina

Since I was a child, (decades and decades ago), I will always remember my Ukranian grandmother creating interesting crafts and DIY home projects. As naive as it all was, she was somehow able to hook me into helping her while simultaneously, helping me to foster my own creativity. I learned how to use my art as a tool in every school project that I had to complete. I can still remember art projects that I created in my kindergarten class. By the time I got to high school, it was pretty clear that my love for art was recognized by my classmates and my teachers. I remember being selected as “most artistic” in my senior year. That same year, it was in a regularly scheduled guidance meeting that my counselor asked me what I wanted to study in college. I remember saying that I wasn’t really sure. With even more clarity, Read more>>

Quanquan Yan

The moment I realized that I wanted to pursue a career related to music—striving to transition from a composition student to a professional composer or engage in music creation—was during my third year at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music Affiliated High School. That was when my first string quartet came into existence and was given the opportunity for a formal performance. Read more>>

Cedar Lee

My Nana and Papa were world travelers and art collectors. Their house was filled with original artwork and beautiful things from exotic places. They gave me books about art. As a tiny girl, my parents supplied me with plenty of paper, crayons, markers, paints, scissors, tape, etc., so creating art was something I did naturally from the first second that I was able. I have no recollection of any time when I first started making art; it has just always been something I did. But my Nana and Papa’s house is the backdrop for my first memories of being completely enthralled by the world of art. This is where I remember first making the conscious decision that I would be an artist. The first time I made my desire officially known was at age 9, when I wrote a paper outlining my plans to sell my art when I grew up. Read more>>

Tania Faria

Since around the age of 4, I’ve always known I wanted to be an actor. I think acting and performing is something a lot of children are drawn to at an early age, but for me, the desire for it never wavered. I have many pictures of myself, front and centre on a stage, during school productions, and always remember being the first to put my hand up for the lead roles. The more, however, I was faced with and learned the realities of the “real” world, such as immigrating to a new country, puberty, etc., the more that desire got suppressed. I didn’t have anyone in my life who was pursuing a creative path, and the examples available to me, in the form of Disney stars on TV, seemed extremely out of reach. Read more>>

Jingyi Zhang

I’ve had a strong passion for photography since teenager year, often carrying my camera to capture the world around me. To me, the camera is like a second pair of eyes, allowing me to observe everything from an aesthetic perspective, free from value judgment. Read more>>

Kamau Freeman Jr.

It was a natural progression. I realized thousands of people were following me on my social media streams, so I kept creating content about my (baseball) journey. As people started asking for help that let me develop new ideas for videos and posts, and I really knew it when my videos went viral. Read more>>

Bethany Fitch

For almost my entire life I have been involved in theater in some way. Even though it was such a huge part of my life I never considered pursuing it as a career. Even in college, I was a Theatre and Environmental Studies double major. I was pursuing Theatre because I loved it and I wanted to carry those skills with me, but my career would be something more traditional. I was doing research. I loved school. Academics were my thing. This was always clear to me. Read more>>

Maho Tachibana

Since childhood, I have loved watching Hollywood action movies, especially those starring Jackie Chan. My favorite was The Karate Kid. I also learned Japanese dance and participated in competitions, enjoying every opportunity to perform in front of an audience. Read more>>

Emi Serafini

I work as an instructor at a pottery studio in West Hollywood, teaching students the craft of ceramics. My students will often ask me how or when I started my journey to become a potter. The short answer is that I took a class in high school and just never stopped. Here I am 12 years later, still throwing on the wheel and hand building with clay as often as I can. The longer answer goes even further back. Read more>>