We’ve all done it.

Dreamt of the perfect home and what it would feel like to have it. What it would do to make our lives more constructive, comfortable, and creative.

Friends, let me assure you there’s no harm in fantasizing about what this situation looks like (read: the law of attraction), you dear sweet readers, because you should always gravitate towards healthy environments, the ones that will truly satisfy you. And if you’re like me at all, which I suspect you are, you’ve stared down tons of DIY photos featuring custom housing solutions and pretended they were your property.

Images like this.

And like this.

Sometimes like this.

And definitely like this.

These settings inspire us to actively think about how our environments should look and operate. Which is a good thing. Function combined with aesthetics is a honourable endeavour.

Teenage Art Throb

When I was a much younger artist, I had this ideal artist home all laid out in my mind, it featured so many cool functional elements that it was difficult not to get lost in my own imagination and stay there for hours at a time. Daydreaming my life away. But c’set la vie, as I was quickly course corrected. You see creative cuties, as I went through art school and then got my first adult job, I quickly learned what was possible on my budget and I also learned to put a lot of things on standby. I instead focused on the most important components of my visual empire. We make do with what we can right?

This is after all the first post in a continuing series which was inspired by my Postconsumers post on health and wellness. Which was thankfully a good experience and not a demotivating one. You see friends, what I learned from that website is that sometimes we forget just how good we truly have it.

We live in an age where most people in western society have more than enough. If you really stop to think about it, all we require to live is air, water, food, and shelter – everything else is unessential.

But the astute artist would argue otherwise, stating that the purpose of life is to live it, which means contributing to society in a healthy way – and what better way to contribute than to make excellent art? Thus, the question of shelter is elevated to include elements for the artist. Which also means that finding affordable housing and a sustainable workspace becomes all the more important in your journey to success.

Art & Start Homes

I realize this is a challenge as you start out, but let me offer some words of encouragement, this is not about having the biggest and the best right out of the gate, though many would argue that millenials expect the best. It’s about having better than the constant threat of eviction – you work hard to share your work with the world, but discipline is needed to maintain the basic level of shelter. This means being realistic about what kind of rent you can afford, and then dumping leftover resources (time and money)  from your income earning and shelter providing job directly into your passion.

It might sound like madness to some of you, but I’m not advocating you stop making your art, I’m offering an alternative where you keep yourself out of debt and able to do as much as you humanly can to make your art. You don’t need permission to make or sell your art, but you do need housing.

I have a confession to make – I’m not an award winning, world famous, globe trotting artist folks. Yet. But my intent is to keep at it until something gives, whether it’s fortune or skillfulness, I’ll get there. And you can too. But that’s just a theory, until you make it a fact.

Tim!