Knowing graffiti could never provide a secure income, Bastias spent years channelling his creative talents into his day job in graphic arts and computer game design.

Always gnawing away was the thought he wasn’t being true to himself.

“Working as a graphic artist you are selling your talent, using your talents for someone else’s vision. Doing so much art for other people started killing my passion, my ideas for drawings.”

He decided to cut free and take a job at the Nine West warehouse in Footscray. He swears the decision has given him a new lease on life.

“It means I’m not coming home mentally exhausted every day,’’ says Bastias. ‘‘I have the time and energy to work on new graffiti ideas — you don’t drain yourself creatively.”

Ascot Vale singer BEC COLE perfectly understands Bastias’s dilemma. Her colourful career included an early stint as an art therapist in the disability sector.

The role married her musical passion and desire to help others, a match seemingly made in heaven.

“I realised music was a good communication tool for people who weren’t verbal,’’ says Cole. ‘‘It was an amazing experience, but I just put so much of myself into it that it was like there was nothing left.”

She left the role but never lost her interest in community work. She has emerged a few twists and turns later as the arts officer with Wyndham Council.

She’s still engaging in creative thinking and supporting others, but also ensures her music has space to breathe.

Her lifelong passion has been rekindled by singing with experimental electronic duo Zero Flag, which she describes as “like Portishead’s ‘difficult’ third album, only more difficult”.

“For me, making sounds, making music and singing is my escape. It’s the space I go into to process the world. Throughout all the other changes it has been the constant in my life.”

Trounson is equally animated; whether discussing the rewards of working with her legal clients or the ideas bouncing around her mind for upcoming plays.

The spheres initially appear worlds apart, yet in many ways they align seamlessly. Her acting and creative experience help her think on her feet and her creativity is fed by the eye-opening life stories her clients tell.

“The types of people you interact with in a normal kind of life can be so narrow,’’ says Trounson. ‘‘I love working in Sunshine, the people you meet and the life you see.”

While embracing the two worlds, Trounson finds other people see a strange match.

“It definitely does weird people out,’’ she admits. ‘‘I sometimes feel like I have two secret identities – I often don’t tell people in the creative world that I’m a lawyer.”

Cole also loves her job and has finally found a perfect balance. She sees a creative spirit awakening in the west and is excited to help develop that on the one hand and be a part of the wave on the other.

“People in the area are looking for cultural experiences in their own neighbourhoods and it’s great to be part of building that. I see what’s already bubbling away and it’s an exciting time.”

Working in the factory, Bastias may not gain the immediate artistic rewards he once reaped as a graphic artist, but harbours no regrets about his decision to leave that world behind to concentrate on his own art.

“The greater art community still doesn’t fully understand what graffiti is,’’ he says. ‘‘In a way that puts my graffiti work strictly into the realm of art in that I end up doing what I do for my own pleasure. For me that is what art is about – it’s not about pleasing other people, it’s about pushing myself.”

By not putting all their eggs in one basket, all three artists feel a freedom to throw creative caution to the wind.

Cole says she has no interest in Zero Flag being part of any ‘sound’ or popular musical movement.

The act has nevertheless been attracting attention through gigs at iconic Footscray venue The Dancing Dog Café and at the recent Big West festival.

The next step is time in the studio to record some more tracks.

“I don’t harbour any pretence of fame – in fact I’m quite against the idea. Not being locked into ideas of commercial success is liberating.”

Trounson has a busy and eclectic year ahead. She has no fewer than four projects on the boil, including works for Red Stitch in Melbourne and Belvoir Street in Sydney.

These works cover everything from UFO sightings and transgender cabaret artists to Labor Party leaders and IVF conception.

Occasionally flirting with dreams of writing plays in New York or doing big films, she’ll just as often wonder what life might hold as a barrister or in a different area of law.

“It might sound a bit unambitious, but I’d actually just like to continue with both for now and see what comes. It’s just nice to be in a place where I’m feeling happy in both worlds.”

Meanwhile Bastias is forever drawing new ideas in his sketchbook and hunting out new walls for his work.

Driving his passion is the desire to “take graffiti to the next level” via designs or techniques that have never been seen before.

One thing he knows with certainty is that he couldn’t give it up if he tried.

“I will probably die with a spray can in my hand.”