As a kid in Macon, Georgia, Jessica Rycheal never imagined she’d become an artist. It was something to do in her spare time.

She was the first in her family to go to college and she felt the unspoken pressure to be a professional.

“Fairly low-income families don’t have any idea of how to make an artist career without being the starving artist,” Rycheal says.

She enrolled in business classes and was miserable. A counselor suggested she try graphic design.

Now, at age 29, a continent away from her hometown, Rycheal has established both a successful commercial design career and a reputation as a fine art photographer.