Coding for the Creative Soul

Maybe it was a collision of the stars in the sky that day that caused this chance meeting, but there I was, on December 3rd, flailing about, trying to get a grip on coding my website when … but wait, why was I, an artist/illustrator, focusing on learning to code HTML and CSS?

Well, first of all, if you want to be a professional artist/illustrator, as in make a living, build a career, you’re going to have to recognize that you are a business, not just a creative. An entrepreneur. Most likely a solopreneur, a business-builder going it on your own. But I want to drill down a little bit more and give it a new name: a creator-preneur. We’re a contradiction in terms, we creator-preneurs. We revel in the intuitive, creative part of our minds, but to survive economically, we have to explore and develop our strategic, analytical and logical skills to understand and activate a financially solvent enterprise.

So, back to me and coding and what happened on that fortuitous day. Wanna make art that sells? Gotta have a website. Great, I say. After a bit of fretting and research, I decide WordPress is the platform for me, seeing as I have to make it myself and all. WordPress is one of the platforms that is set up for people like me, with lots of options to plug-and-play, or find pre-made units, such as themes, plug-ins and templates to build my own site. My problem: I want to customize.

I think most creator-preneurs want to customize. It’s in our blood. It’s what makes us tick. Design is everything to us, it drives us. If I want to customize, gotta know code. Seems there is no way around it.

At this point, I’m starting to think I’ve fallen down a rabbit-hole. This is all taking precious time away from creating art, from illustrating, from sketching and painting. And I keep ending up at websites telling me how easy it is to make your own website and then, they launch into an explanation that is filled with unrecognizable terms and functions and leave me reeling with how clueless I am. Am I just being distracted from what I truly should be focusing on?

But, then, it happened. I was ready to give up. I thought, I’ll try just one more time. I’ll Google my learning-how-to-code-your-website question one more time and if I get another “build your website from scratch in just ten short years” answer, I’ll give up and write a simple blog. But there it was, a beautiful, concise, freshly-uploaded (yes, just that day) piece, titled, “How to Start Learning WordPress Development” on a site called Design Bombs (link below).

The article took me from right where I was at, “Complete Beginner”, and started me with the necessary links to the necessary info presented clearly and succinctly, which is what I need, because I am an artist with a business, not a web developer or computer coder. Good news: it also has levels for the “Tinkering Beginner” and the “Seasoned Beginner”.

I found an incredible course from Design Bombs’ links on learning coding for my website, so that I will be able to make the customizations I crave. I’ll tell you all about that course in my next blog.

Remember, don’t be afraid to spill a little paint!
Melani

Links
Design Bombs: The “About” page explains that the authors originally started this site as a gallery for web design, but have shaped it into a place for exploring web design ideas, tutorials and resources. Job well done, guys!