Lately I've been searching for a home for my new collection and it's had my brain running all over the place.
But first, you'll need to know a bit about me so you understand what the heck I'm talking about. When I was in high school I did a vocational art program that took me out of academic classes and put me into an intensive art program designed to turn out work-ready students, every day for half the day, all throughout the last two years of school. I loved that class so much. It gave me freedom in my schedule, introduced me to kids from a part of town (and a part of society) that I never would have interacted with otherwise, and allowed me to grow as a person. I created work I'm still proud of during that class, but I also created a lot of portraits. Self portraits mostly.
Self portraits seem to be the go-to for art schools.
They're a way to practice new mediums (chalk, charcoal, oil paint, etc.) and a way to give insight into who you are as a person.
I always found them tedious.
But I did win an award for this one (nothing too impressive, I think it was literally a "self portrait" award). Afterwards, this HUGE picture of my face spent years living on my grandparent's wall before coming to rest, haunting my parent's spare bedroom. Apparently my sister has been trying to steal it because she's going so crazy with covid isolation that she just wants someone to hang out with.
Anyways, I don't love anything about self portraits. I don't like other people's self portraits either. Except, of course, those people who come along and tried their best to avoid the whole concept by doing a collage of their workspace because their 'work is their essence', or they did some bizarre abstract picture that 'displayed the chaotic nature of their soul'. But, in general, if there's a face involved in a self-portrait, I'm not really about it.
But still, people everywhere must create them.
Just like great artists must make crappy crypto art.
So let's talk about the crypto art.
I can't tell you how many garbage GIFs and boring images I've seen that are basically just background images (or sometimes, just for fun, stolen art) with crypto logos ALL OVER THEM. Want more ethereum? Great, let's add 20 logos. Laser eyes! Stock tickers! Astronauts! PUT IT ALL IN THE PICTURE!!!!!!
Then I click on the artist's profile and way down at the bottom of their collection will be a few breathtaking photos or beautifully done renders. Do these sell for 10s of ETH? Nope. Only the crypto art.
And it makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong.
Am I missing something deep and spiritual about the very image of a Doge coin logo? Is a diamond icon world changing? Are these seemingly scatter-shot logo dumps really some deep revelation of our very existence as human beings that I'm not smart enough to understand?
So I did what any NFT obsessed artist would do. I've dredged up a stock pile of old hand-painted, hand-drawn portraits and I've turned them into crypto art.
The collection
I want to explore what it is that there is to say about this new digital world we're creating. The opportunities for artists, and the absorption into our backlit screens. The slightly more even playing field, and then the market manipulation by robot accounts.
I currently have five images (four animated) that I'd like to release. Because I've found the NFT Showroom community so inviting, I've decided to try dropping the first one there. If it sells, I'll do the whole collection a piece at a time.
So here we go... let me know what you think. This is an animation I made from a chalk self portrait (the unlockable content includes a higher res file that doesn't have any weird jittery coloring in the hand caused by compression). This one is based on the fact that I can't wrap my head around cryptocurrencies-- are they a bubble that will pop or a mainstay of modern finance?
Note: I didn't add HIVE because it feels distinctly NOT like a bubble to me since I use it for actively completing transactions rather than just making money or speculating.
Anyways... I'm so excited you all get to join me on this journey!
- Side notes
I'm thinking I'll drop each one as soon as the previous sells, what do you all think? Right now I'm planning single editions, but I'm not sure what sells better (higher priced single editions or lower priced multi editions)? Any tips or feedback would be much appreciated.