Deciding to pursue an artistic or creative career path isn’t for the faint of heart. Challenges will abound, but so many of the artists we speak with couldn’t be happier with their choice. So, we asked them about how they made the decision in the first place.

Kristy Baker | Motherhood & Family Photographer

I have chosen to pursue a creative career path simply because it makes me feel more alive. I have never felt like I fit into a social box and in doing my photography I am able to have an artistic outlet to express myself. My photography has paved a way for me to think outside the box. I am constantly learning and trying new things. Another reason I have chosen to pursue photography is because my art allows me to serve others, which I feel is very important. Read more>>

Megan Boddington | Online Creator

Growing up I found so much enjoyment with being creative, then when going to school I realised I learnt more with visuals and creating drawings and diagrams instead of reading or writing. Read more>>

Wendy Colonna | Musician, Mojo Maker, Creative Coach

Creating and performing music made me feel alive, connected and a part of something larger than myself. As a child, I was always singing or writing or creating something and creative expression was where I felt joy. I was a lonely, awkward kid and music was where I went to feel my feelings in a safe place. Listening to my parents records (Simon & Garfunkel, Melanie, Peter Paul & Mary, Harry Chapin etc) helped to soothe my loneliness and feel like I was a part of a bigger story, the human story. The honesty of the lyrics coupled with the transcendent experience of the melodies and harmonies made me feel at home in a world where I felt like a stranger most of the time. It was inevitable that I become a part of that river of music in some way in my life. Read more>>

Jimmy Nigg | Music Venue, Restaurant and Bar Owner / Operator

I started my career in hospitality at a very young age. Waiting tables, cooking, bartending and eventually I got my first job in management when I was 22. I moved up very quickly in the nightclub business and was in charge of over 100 employees. There were nights were we had 10’s of thousands of patrons. It was intense, it was high energy and it was exciting. When I was in high school , I was the party guy. I would carry around my huge CD case so I could DJ, the hookup on a buyer for the keg and directions to the weekend house parties. I’m old enough to say that I used to leave directions on my pager greeting so my friends and the girls from school could call it and meet us there. We didn’t have cell phones in the 90’s! Loving to host parties and entertain ultimately transitioned into what I started my career doing, but it was a job I took opening a live music venue in Denver that changed my life forever. I was asked to start booking bands, and it was a night where I was sitting at the bar watching the band I had put on the calendar perform that It clicked. I could get paid to listed to live music for a living, and that’s what I wanted to do with my life. When I turned 31 I opened a music venue, restaurant and bar in Arvada, but this time I opened it as the owner. Read more>>

Sydney Koele | Tattoo Artist

Truthfully, I had never considered pursuing an artistic career until I felt like I hit a wall in college. I was forced to take a step back and think about what I wanted to contribute to the world. At the end of the day, I realized that creating and expressing myself through art was one of the things that brought me a sense of being. Luckily, I was presented an opportunity to make my art a career, and that has easily been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made! I will forever be so grateful to share the love of art with the people around me! Read more>>

Joaish | Twitch Streamer & Game Designer

Ever since I was a little kid, I had a vividly imaginative mind. Even then I would write stories, draw characters, or act out my favorite video game or movie characters in many different ways. I would even draw out dungeon maps in the same style as the Legend of Zelda series. As I grew older, I continued to write stories for fun, varying as the years went by from fantasy to sci-fi and in various formats such as books or tv shows. Around my high school years, I found a fanmade video game maker that was a recreation of the original Zelda’s engine. While back in those early days I used it as a fun way to make my own Zelda game, I eventually saw it as a tool I could use for more creative and original writings, which led to the creation of one of my favorite games made in that engine, The Slipstream. This greatly sparked my interest in game design in addition to the other avenues. As the years went by and I grew older, life was getting busier for one reason or another and some of the more creative processes I once did regularly were not as often a part of my life in nearly as much of the same way as before. This all changed in August 2018, when I decided to try out livestreaming on Twitch. I had always been interesting in video game speedruns where you beat a game as fast as possible with all the tools available to you in the game, including glitches and sequence breaks. I started streaming The Wind Waker HD speedruns as a way to record my runs, but what began as that eventually grew into what I would now consider my main outlet for creativity. This media and following I built up over the years on Twitch gradually brought back all of those creative interests that once interested me at a younger age, but now I had a place to show for all of them. Creativity is an incredibly rewarding and expressive experience, it can benefit both myself and others, and that is why it has become such a passion for me through the many avenues I have chosen to present it. Read more>>

Christine Rose Curry | Artist & Muralist

It might sound a little cliché, but I have always had an interest in art. Growing up, while I had several hobbies, the one I always practiced and stuck with was creating art. In fact, a very early childhood memory of mine comes from my interest in art. I can remember, laying on the floor in my bedroom, coloring with my crayons and paper, and suddenly getting the urge to color on the wall. I’m sure a lot of children have had this same experience, but I remember thinking how much parents were going to like what I had created. They always enjoyed my drawings, so why wouldn’t they love this?! As you can probably imagine, they were not impressed with what I had done, and although I was punished for this, they fortunately decided that putting me in art classes, might be a better creative outlet. Read more>>

Diane G Rolnick | Digital Mixed-Media Artist

As a very visual and curious child, I was lucky to have been born in New York City, one of the great art capitals of the world. My earliest memories at about 4 were painting a small piano in an artist’s basement studio and my grandmother and I ascending the long stairs in the great hall of the Metropolitan Museum where reaching the mezzanine level, I became mesmerized staring into the huge depths of the Jackson Pollacks, looking up at van Gogh’s bright sunflowers, and gazing at a bronzed Degas dancer on a pedestal. My entire being was at home in the art’s. As a child with many health issues, I was home in bed more than other children and my mother provided all kinds of materials – drawing, building cardboard rooms, making puppets and more to entertain myself. When I was 8 years old, I ventured into a local dance studio and instantly knew I had to dance. My mother, taken by surprised, enrolled me and saw me through my time as a ballerina which included studying at the School of American Ballet in NYC every summer and the Andre Eglevsky Ballet during the year. As a member of the Andre Eglevsky Ballet Company we performed all over the New York area. When my body gave out at 16, I had to leave the dance world and begrudgingly applied to art colleges at my mothers request. I studied at Drexel Institute of Technology that had a small but fabulous art department and then Rhode Island School of Design, earning my BFA in Painting while taking my last year in Rome and exploring the art museums of Europe. I spent another year in Italy as an au pair in Ortonovo, a small village near Carrara taking care of a 5 year old child and 5 cats and a dog and living in an old barn with very little heat and loving the entire experience. Coming back to America after two years, I moved to Philadelphia, Boston, and then back to the New Year area, after earning a Masters In Art Teaching from RISD. I lived in Hoboken for 10 years until my childhood dream of moving out West brought me to New Mexico 28 years ago. Read more>>

 K.B. Jensen | Award-winning Author and Publishing Consultant

My dream of becoming a writer actually started in third grade. I told my dad, and he said I’d starve. (I haven’t starved yet.) I started out my career as a journalist and editor, before switching gears to book publishing ten years ago. I’ve written award-winning fiction books of my own, and I’ve helped countless other authors on their journeys, as a publishing consultant with My Word Publishing. My clients become my book friends over time, which is a joy. I’ve always loved writing and reading, as well as helping people, so it’s a good fit. Telling stories, letting people into your world and helping them see things in a different way-it is a form of art. You can tell strange truths in fiction that may be difficult in other mediums. My career, the creativity and the challenges have all been very rewarding. At the end of the day, why I got into it and why I continue is that I love the written word. Sometimes, I just have to write. It’s not always a choice. Sometimes, it’s just something you do, because you can’t help it and you love it. I love teaching writing classes for teens and adults, as well, because we share that passion. Read more>>