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.

Artur Lago-V.

At a certain point, pursuing an artistic career felt non-negotiable to me. My first hobby was visual art, starting with comic strips and evolving to portraits, I felt constantly pulled to draw pictures, to recreate the world through my eyes. I began singing at 10, mostly in musical theatre productions, and quickly became obsessed, even though I had no idea I’d return to music later as a singer-songwriter. Read More>>

Rania Daghmoura

Since ShoutoutLA is all about embracing the prosaic life of artists and creatives, I will say I initially pursued Visual Arts only out of necessity. So at first, it wasn’t necessarily a calling. Read More>>

 Artur Lago-V

I did not choose my creative career. I had no choice but to be creative. From an undocumented construction worker from Armenia to Russia to a film actor/director, dancer/choreographer in America- the stories of my grandparents surviving Armenian genocide and Stalin’s repressions of the Jews in my childhood and youth and surviving the collapse of Soviet Union and the civil wars that followed it, forever influenced my prospective about storytelling and performing arts. Read More>>