This Off Grid Float Home is an Artist's Dream Studio
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Mark Hobson is a professional artist and lives and works in his float home since thirty years, in Tofino, Canada. Having a busy life as a high-school teacher, national park employee and member of different associations, the biologist figured that in order to find some time to paint, he would have to change his environment. He found the house in 1991 and, not being able to afford a piece of land, jumped onto the offer. At the beginning, the float house consisted only of a flat, dark box – not very ideal for a studio space. He extended the decking, added some more windows and built the second floor. "I feel embedded in the world that I love to paint”, the artist says. The area around this bay is part of the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks and Mark also keeps documenting the area every day, which makes up a big part of his joy of living there.
The only things Mark bought new for the house were the joists for the ceiling – everything else has been gathered from friends and all kind of second hand sources. He paid around 12K dollars for the float house and the second floor cost him around 19K, adding on other things throughout the years. The deck is attached to shore through ten ropes for the house to keep in place. There is a generously sized woodshed, which Mark fills up in May and uses for heating from November on. There are two staircases that lead up to the second floor: one on the outside and another on the inside, built by Mark's father, an engineer. Still on the outside deck, he built a covered workbench, a bright space thanks to the transparent, corrugated roof.
The artist used to collect rainwater in garbage cans, but once he got the second floor, setting the batters up on eaves, he realized that when the stove was on, it created smoky tasting water. "That's okay on a camping trip once in a while", he says laughing and explains how he decided to dream the little system up. Now, he installed a valve through which he can just drain the water whenever the stove is on, filling up his water barrels before he lights the stove. In summer, it can happen that it doesn't rain for weeks, which is why Mark saves any soapless dish water and turns it into garden water. A small cabinet right outside the house is the composting toilet.
The inside is simply equipped and Mark built in a skylight to make the space a little brighter and be able to paint. He has two 6V Interstate Batteries and gets power through the solar panels he installed outside, having to charge the batteries around two to three times a year. Only in 2016 Mark installed a copper boiler which gets heated through the stove and connects to his small and simple bathroom. The kitchen is quite spacious and both the cooking stove and the small fridge are operated through propane. A Berkey Water Filter provides him with clean drinking water.
The second floor allowed Mark to separate the living from the painting quarters. The whole floor looks like an artist's dream: the studio is big, bright and full of art materials. As the artist developed an allergy to acrylic paint over the years – probably the ammonia in it – he installed a system that clips onto the canvas which sucks the fumes out. However, it was more of an experiment and doesn't make much of a difference in the end, as he still wears a respirator.
Before Mark moved out to the float home, he was a biology teacher in high-school. Even though he liked it once he was in the classroom, he would always have a very hard time getting back to it after summer holiday.
"Anybody that has a passion, I think you'd make yourself sick if you don't deal with it. My grandmother was extremely artistic and started painting very late in her life. Her work just went better and better and then in five years she died. I thought the last thing I want to do is start my art career when I retire. I wasn't sure I could make a living at it and it didn't really matter, but I really wanted to know if I could do that. If you are a person that has that passion, don't put it off to your late years. Once you stick your neck out, the pieces will fall into place, I've learned to just trust that. You don't get there quickly and the first ten years were tough financially, but now I get to live the life I've dreamed of!".
