It must have been when I was 15 years old that I realized that Painting (or the Visual Arts, as became clearer later on) was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, as my main activity.
I started learning and practicing oil painting, and spent most of my nights with my friend Henrique, (who was also discovering the joys of painting by that time) drinking beer and painting until dawn.
After some time, not being that good, I actually managed to snatch a youth award, and a colective show (with Henrique and Bruno) where I sold all my paintings, one of them even being added to a proper collection.
My parents always thought that I would become an architect, as painting would hardly provide a stable income and was something - they thought - could be made on the weekends, as an hobby; I disagreed, it was very clear for me that Art was not one of those activities that could be done lightly, or without commitment.
As 12th grade was coming to an end it became very clear that the my vision was hardly my parent's, and they told me they would only support me if I went to college to study Architecture.
I wasn't left with many options, so I decided to commit to Art instead, and left my parents home to enroll at Ar.Co.
I took my meager savings, got a part-time job and rented a crummy attic that I shared with my then girlfriend and another friend of ours.
Years have passed, and many jobs in between, until I found myself in the position to again commit to Art, which I have been doing for the past four years, exploring many ideas and concepts through the multidisciplinary Oficinas TK.
I never really cared for Architecture until recently, when I came aware of https://decentraland.org/ and its incredible potential. It became obvious that I wanted to build in Decentraland, I wanted to make a place for aesthetic pleasure, somewhere where Decentralanders(?) could just do nothing but look and listen. Fate brought to me Anarchists International Decentraland Discord's (https://discord.gg/w2wpUT) and I got in touch with Hiro_Protagonist who kindly shared some of their land with me.
(Check their project at https://dclplazas.com/decentraland-districts/anarchists-international-decentraland/ and, please, do get in touch with Hiro if you relate to this project.)
I have been in touch with a friend of mine - an actual architect - and we still have a lot of work ahead, not only drawing, but with the actual implementation, the code, the interaction design, and ultimately curating additional content to present there. I am unsure when it'll be complete, but I am sure it will be a great place to visit.
It is certainly ironic that I finally became the architect of a parallel dream.