[Digital drawing created in MS Paint on an old laptop.]
A significant number of events / incidents have happened lately that caused a more than seismic shift in my existence (and the lives of those around me, especially my wife, Mariah, who puts up with a lot of excrement from me...) We moved for the second time in as many months, my granddaughter turned three years old, I drove 4.5 hours with my younger daughter and her friend to watch Tenacious D and Puddles Pity Party in concert (a few weeks ago my wife and I saw English Beat in Portland, OR, too), the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade, and everyone in our family is now on anxiety pills / anti-psychotics / sleeping meds / mood stabilizers or something similar. What a strange, anxious time we’re all living through...
I’m a freaky basket-case kind of guy who hates change and prefers routines and patterns, and now (FINALLY), I feel like I’m starting to develop some new daily rituals again... I almost have bedtime figured out, and I’m comfortable with my morning step-by-step. (My memory is for shit, so I HAVE to have a routine, or I forget things, like taking my pills or eating food or what day it is...)
The main thing that I want to get figured out is how to get my ARTWORK / WRITING back into some kind of pattern. I sneak little drawings and weird digital collages (in my phone) here and there throughout the day, but it’s been several days since I’ve sat down to DRAW – and I haven’t PAINTED anything in a couple of MONTHS! (Gives me a headache if I ignore the creative urge... How ‘bout you?) TODAY, my goal is to get some artworks uploaded to the TEZOS platforms that I like and NFT Showroom... I think I have about 90 pieces waiting to go... (I can check real quick...) 96 pieces waiting to go, and people can’t see (or buy) my creations if I don’t PUBLISH the damn things!
So that’s today’s plan. DO SOME SHIT! Woooo!
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“Thrupple Threat”
[Digital drawing created in MS Paint on my old-ass laptop!] [Still works, I guess! Why replace what still works???] Anyone out there ever see the movie TROLL HUNTER? I remember being tripped out when the main character spots a troll with three heads and says that they grow extra heads as they get older.... Ummmm.... Is that how it works? So either THIS monster is pretty damn old (if it's a troll) or it suffered some kind of embryonic issues causing three sperm-cells to fertilize a single egg...??? I'm not entirely certain, as the genetics of digital cartoons might not match 1 to 1 with physical biology... Right?
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"Welcome Back (Horror)"
[Digital drawing created on my phone.] One always hopes that they've seen the last of a horror when it reaches the highest court in the land, but we are living in BIZARRO times that I never thought I'd live to see. This piece, if it isn't obvious, marks a cruel decision that is based on religious convictions instead of the will of the majority of the population...
P.S. - Must we fight magical thinking with magic?
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/398
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"Dagbert"
[Ballpoint pen on notebook page with digital embellishments and color.] Dagbert R. Griffin works in a cannery on the Columbia River, and on the WEEKENDS he DJs a psychedelic rock radio show on the local public access radio station in Astoria, Oregon! Good job, Daggy!!!
P.S. - This is my most recent FREEBIE piece. Making 23 editions and releasing them for ZERO TEZOS each!!! Ready? Set? GO!!!!
All them freebies are gone... I came up with a plan* though. [SEE BELOW...]
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"Anxiety : Aggression"
[Digital drawing created with a free app on my phone.] I have felt a little tiny bit of anxiety lately, for some reason, and I've noticed (anecdotally speaking) that feeling anxious can also lead to unwarranted aggressive behavior. This may seem self-evident, but I STILL tried to represent these feelings in digital line art. How'd I do???
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/399
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"Conceptual Project (Rot - Part 1)"
[Photograph of an arm band from a concert that I recently attended.] Here's some CONCEPTUAL ART for y'all! On 22 June 2022, I took my younger daughter, Elise, and a friend of hers to a concert in Bend, Oregon. (The show was Tenacious D w/ Puddles Pity Party! The concert was fantastic!!!) At the show, we paid a little extra to get to sit in an area closer to the stage than the normal folks (not as close as the RICH people, cuz we're poor, but we did pony up for actual seats,) and to keep the FANCY guests separate from the peasantry, we got arm band thingies.
As a CONCEPTUAL PROJECT, I took a picture of the wrist band the day after we got back home from the show to document the process, and I'm going to leave the blue, plasticky artifact on my arm until it falls off of its own accord. The fun part will be seeing HOW LONG it takes for this to happen. I will then take another photo of the no-longer-functional arm band and tokenize that along with an official count of how long it took for the process to unfold! Fun!!!
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/400
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"Simple Dataset..."
[Digital drawing over moshed photograph of other artwork.] My imaginary helpers have been working hard to attempt to explore and control my MOODS. They've cataloged my emotional variation, and Dr. Birdhead claims that I have limited emotional capacity, calling it a "Simple dataset..." Good! Should make manipulation of the persona much easier than it would be for a more complex individual...
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/401
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"So So So Helpful..."
[Digital drawing created on my phone over the top of a different digital drawing that I also created on my phone!] This creature from outer-space is here to save us. (We obviously aren't capable of saving ourselves...)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/402
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"It's All Fun and Games Until..."
[Ballpoint pen on notebook page with digital embellishments, moshing, and digitized divine consciousness.] It's all fun and games, isn't it, until we get sucked into the damn computer and get digitized...again...
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/403
Sold!
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"Surfing Saint"
[Sharpie on reclaimed cardboard with digital embellishments and color.] This tiny piece (the physical is only about 5cm x 5cm) was originally shared on my Primitive Entertainment Workshop blog back in 2017. This is the first (and only) time that it is being tokenized as cryptoart!
P.S. - This is another piece of RECESSION RESISTANCE ART! Lots of editions for very low price so that everyone can collect a classic shitty saint (on a surfboard!)
https://objkt.com/asset/KT1ABGYuE84UQNDJdWtMEhiBi6yhsfTQ7W56/404
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*[THE PLAN! I mentioned it above...]
I’ve been experimenting with pricing lately, and I’ve come up with what I’m comfortable with, which allows folks who want to collect my images but aren’t RICH to get their joke fix for cheap (sometimes free), but which also seems to be bring me enough INCOME to continue minting new work AND occasionally buy a piece or two from other artists whose work I enjoy! (It’s all about ENJOYING this process of creating, sharing, and engaging with ART on a daily basis.)
My NFT Showroom work, which as most folks probably know by now is on the HIVE chain, I’m pretty comfortable selling for about 7 swap.hive per image. For every piece that finds a collector, I can mint two new ones, so... We’re good!
On the TEZOS chain (particularly the Teia.art and Objkt.com platforms), the pricing is a bit more exotic... (I also move quite a bit of Holy Foolery through those platforms!) I’ve been pricing my 1 of 1 (unique) pieces at 1 tez. Up until this evening, I have also been periodically giving away limited run (usually 23 editions) pieces for ZERO tezos each, BUT I’ve run into a bit of a problem. The last several “freebie” pieces that I’ve offered have all been grabbed up (sometimes in a matter of minutes) but a handful of people, some grabbing as many as six or seven pieces each, which isn’t what I intended to happen, but since they are just FREE, technically people can take as many as they want...
Some folks have suggested that I up the prices on my free works, but instead, I think I’m going to up the ROYALTIES on those works. Right now, I put 13% for the royalties on most of my stuff (because I like prime numbers.) For future freebies, I’m going to bump the royalties to 23%. This may seem harsh, but I’m giving the pieces away (no initial investment), and with higher royalties, maybe folks won’t think they can flip them for as much profit and move on to some other scam. (If they do manage a quick flip, I get a larger percentage of the secondary sale, which will definitely be better than my primary sale of ZERO.)
Meanwhile, the people who actually ENJOY my artwork can take one or two to keep and not care what the royalties are, since they aren’t just dumping them instantly! Sound fair? Too bad. I’m doing it anyway...
For my other limited run works, I’m charging somewhere between 0.1 and 0.23 each for them, depending on how I feel. (People seem to buy the 1 of 1 for 1 tez more often than they buy the 1 of 101 for 0.13 pieces, which is interesting. Are they thinking that resale is easier with a unique piece, or are they just amused by the weird (I’m assuming it’s weird if I made it) artwork???
We might never know...
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Later skaters!
---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)