Carlton
Gerard
Sabbs

It's never too late.

I was just a creative kid with a loud imagination growing up on the South Side of Chicago. I wasn't thinking about careers yet — I was absorbing. The streets, the music from passing cars, barbershop debates, church mothers, summer nights, winter blocks. Culture raised me as much as school did.

My path into becoming a professional creative wasn't clean. It wasn't linear. It definitely wasn't planned.

When I was 17, right before graduation, detectives showed up at my house. I spent a week in Cook County Jail. A bad decision almost redirected my entire life before it started. By grace more than anything, a judge allowed me to leave the state and attend Louisiana Tech University. That moment woke me up. I realized how close I had come to becoming a story people tell about you instead of a story you get to tell yourself.

After that, life still wasn't glamorous. I got rejected constantly. I was fired from jobs. I bagged groceries. Sold computers. Worked in marketing. Became a data analyst. Worked in finance. Worked in entertainment. I kept starting over.

At the time it felt like I was lost.
Looking back, I was collecting tools.

Every job taught me something about people, behavior, aesthetics, psychology, structure, and communication. Without realizing it, I was building the skillset to create the job I'd been imagining since childhood — a life where I could make art for a living.

Film became that outlet. Because film isn't just one art form — it's all of them at once. It's music. Color. Fashion. Architecture. Design. Symbolism. Emotion. Culture. Memory. People. The feeling you can't quite explain but you recognize when you see it on a screen. For me, the camera became a blank canvas big enough to hold everything I've ever loved.

Your life doesn't have to start perfect to end meaningful. Sometimes the detours are the education. Sometimes the mistakes are the wake up call. Sometimes the long road is the only road that actually prepares you to become who you were meant to be.

Shine your light.
May we all be free.