One of my really good friends is an artist. For a long time, he made a decent living as a graphic designer. Despite the fact that he was making good money, he couldn’t bring himself to keep doing that kind of work. He didn’t feel like it allowed him to really express or explore his creativity. So he quit graphic design and decided to find a way to make a living making art.

He’ll be the first to tell you that he struggled for a long time. He really likes the whole starving artist image and he certainly lived up to it as his savings dwindled and he hadn’t yet found lucrative work as an artist. He’d paint amazing canvas portraits but they weren’t selling. Finally, he got to a point where he had to start selling the things that he owned to pay his rent.

He decided to take his camouflage bedding downtown for resale at a thrift store. While he was there, he did some window shopping. In one store, he noticed that a custom pillow was selling for $200. He turned to the cashier and said, "how can this cost so much? I could make this for a fraction of that price." Her ears pricked up immediately and she informed him that they were looking for a new pillow designer. That’s how he got into the art of designing pillows and photo blankets for a downtown boutique.

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