This video is made with the support of NZ on Air Public Interest Journalism Fund. 

Standing in his Waitākere studio as a working artist, Simon Lewis Wards is a contented man. 

"I pinch myself multiple times a day - it's kind of unbelievable in some sense," he muses. "I feel right where I'm meant to be, more comfortable now than I've ever been and sure of myself. 

"I'm really loving being an artist."

He's made a name for himself with his vibrant glass works - especially his nostalgia-inspired 'lolly' art collection, with oversized Jet Planes, Milk Shakes and other old-school $1 mix favourites proving a hit with collectors and art lovers alike.  

It's a far cry from where this creative journey started. 

For the best part of two decades, Simon Lewis Wards was plagued with "a feeling of hopelessness" - unsure what life held for him.

After being "kindly asked to leave" school at 14, Lewis Wards turned to tagging and graffiti with others who has fallen out of the education system "I believe we were all on search for ourselves and getting into a bit of trouble on the way.

"The line between vandalism and art would definitely - from one person to another - be so different." 

He admits that he felt "thinking of yourself as a bit of a badass or whatever" was the drive for his creative process, until a friend introduced him to the art of glassblowing when he was 30- falling in love with the process.

"I don't usually have a grand scheme and an a deep idea of why I'm making it, that kind of reveals itself as I'm making.

"A lot of the time in my practice, a new work is made (by) a meeting of a technique with an idea and that little marriage there will get me really excited." 

Lewis Wards adds "Half of the guys that I writ graffiti with now have an art practice - street art was our art school."

Everyone has a different path - Lewis Wards and those his graffiti art peers represent that any path can lead to creative and career fulfilment.