An artist’s digital home base

The sunflower sea star is one of the strangest, most beautiful things in the ocean. All arms, symmetry and quiet alien grace. And it’s been getting wiped out by star wasting disease. They don’t just die, they fall apart. Arms drop off. Bodies collapse. Not because of one single cause, but because their environment goes out of balance. Temperature shifts. Pollution. Pathogens. A system that’s quietly rotting. That’s not just a marine biology problem. That’s also an artist problem.

When your creative environment is unhealthy, you don’t burn out in one dramatic blaze. You waste. Slowly. You lose momentum. You lose joy. You lose your ability to regenerate. Not because you’re weak, but because the system you’re trying to survive in isn’t built for the kind of art you’re trying to make.

Write about your dream home.

An artist’s digital home base—your website—is boring compared to the instant-dopamine jukebox of social media. It’s slow. It’s solid. It weathers storms instead of pretending they won’t come. Your website, your email list, your direct relationship with the people who actually care about what you make—that’s building a stable home base.

Your website is your reef. Your email list is your water quality. Your relationship with collectors is your food chain. When those are healthy, you regenerate. When they’re toxic, you disintegrate.

Art doesn’t need more reach. It needs more roots. And roots don’t grow in rented ground.