Two summers ago, in the height of side hustle culture, the thought hit me: start my own creative studio. Not because I needed another income stream. I’d been making — and selling — art for years and I was already dabbling in digital form. So why not? Why not give it a proper home?
And then… life happened. At the end of that summer, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Everything else went into deep freeze.
Fast forward. Three months ago, I had knee surgery. While my leg was propped up for a couple of weeks, I knew exactly what I’d do with that downtime. I built the whole thing from scratch. And two months ago, I hit publish.
What should’ve felt like excitement, felt more like anxiety. Because these days, a website is never just a website. You’re supposed to hook it up to social media, feed it with content, drive traffic. And that’s the one thing I’d been trying to avoid. I don’t like social media. It’s not social. It’s media. And it sucks. But I did want people to actually find the site.
So I took a page from Killer Mike — plot, plan, strategize, organize, mobilize — and started reworking. I rebuilt the homepage. Gave the studio page more vibe. Added a shop page linking to Etsy and Gumroad. Rewrote the about page. Set up Pinterest, Tumblr and Linktree. Kept Instagram on life support. Made three BiG [DiG] pieces. Two OiDiGi’s. And some wooden robots with a couple of 8 year olds.
Now the site feels right. Prints on Etsy. Digital downloads on Gumroad. Posters, postcards, stickers on RedBubble. Instagram and Pinterest for displaying my artwork. Tumblr for micro blogging. I even simplified my whole workflow — mock-ups, uploads, posts — so I can actually spend more time making than managing.
Sales? Zero. Likes? Barely. Followers? Nope. But here’s the thing: I’m content. Because in the end, I’d rather be content making — than making content. ✌️
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