Grand Welcoming from Diamond Gallery!
And mid-April musings
I’m writing this for two reasons: to promote my mini-gallery, Diamond Gallery, and to post a non-rant. I really have nothing to complain about. Just hoping that someway, somehow the slaughter of the people of the Ukraine will stop. I know it won’t. I actually believe this might lead - or already has lead - to WW3 but we just don’t know it yet. It’s in that spirit that I pen this letter to whomever reads it. Certainly, visit my gallery and enjoy its first exhibit. I put heart and soul into it and welcome artists, collectors, builders, creatives, ‘non-creatives’ (I really don’t believe any person is non-creative), really anyone, especially people who are new to digital art and NFTs. The last group needs to see that there is much more to NFTs than pfp madness and $70 million 1/1 purchases. And I still hate white lists, regardless of the justification. The controversial, hated and beloved crypto-NFT personality, Beanie, has suggested free minting due to robust secondary profits, and I whole-heartedly agree. Let’s be better.
Where I think NFTs are heading
NFTs are here to stay, but will undergo perpetual metamorphosis. OG projects will remain respected, but what their price points will be I have no clue about (I don’t think CryptoPunks will ever again be buyable for $1, sorry). As long as pfp’s - profile pictures - are used, there will be pfp NFTs. That part is simple for me. Pfp NFTs are inextricably bound to cell phone tech and social media trends (Twitters hexagons, for example). The fact most people miss, IMO, about NFTs is that artists’ life-struggle is literally tied to them. That’s a huge reason they aren’t going anywhere. Tyler Hobbs recalled in an unfortunately non-recorded interview/AMA I did with him for Head DAO (January ‘22) that he had 100 Instagram followers after doing everything he could on that platform to push his art. To put that in perspective, I had just under 1,000 for my music-based page when I inhabited the ‘gram. And I wasn’t really pushing my craft, just posting spontaneously. So, digital artists were getting pretty much no love from Trad Art until Beeple. NFTs changed that.
The Web ‘went public’ in 1994, and there have been plenty of digital artists there - Beeple among them - as websites grew in quantity and quality (of course there was pre-public internet digital art). Technically ‘born’ in 2014, NFTs caught the markets’ attention in 2020 as CryptoPunk, Art Blocks, and other projects’ prices continuously made headlines. But before that first NFT boom was a quarter-century of artistic activity, from 1994 to 2020. It would be a tragedy if it were forgotten. So basically, artists went digital, digital went NFT, and now more and more artists are heading to the blockchain. Many will make their home there.
Ukrainian Slaughter
The ‘conflict’ (such a euphemism) in Ukraine will be remembered by many as the first ‘crypto war’. For the first time in history, spectators (so awful, but that is what mass media makes us) can support whichever side they prefer with cryptocurrency. To date, Ukraine has received more than 100 million dollars in crypto donations. In the past, mammoth TradFi mega-fundraising efforts such as Live Aid were very successful at bringing in money but failed epically at getting it to where it belonged. Wallet-to-wallet speed and efficiency just can’t be beat, and I’m sure we’ll see other situations revealing the superiority of blockchain donations in the months ahead.
Muskker? No, Please!
One of the people mass-media makes sure we hear too much about, Elon Musk, has revealed a dual-obsession with Twitter and cryptocurrencies. I think it’s no COINcidence that Twitter is a kingdom of cryptocurrency culture (rivaled only by Discord?). If Musky Elon fails at his Twitter-bid, he’ll be Bitter for sure. Will he try to buy Discord instead? Of course I hope Twitter (and any other platform) refuses and repels The Musky One.
…And that’s about it (for now)
I must say I’ve gotten no comments at all since starting this endeavor, and wonder about that. This is a conversion, after all. I’m not trying to become an ‘influencer’, or have diabolical plans for my subscribers. I ‘talk’ in public because I simply can’t go up to random people lol and attempt to initiate these dialogues. Also, I subscribe to a few Substacks myself, btw: we all can be hosts, or in the spotlight, rather than the very Musky situation of being perpetually overly emphasized. Ok that’s my shameless plea for written interaction on the part of my readers. Let’s grow this thing and add to good conversation! Who knows, there might be some juicy air-drops down the line... I do have big plans, you know.
Really I posted all of the above just to have an excuse to show you some new art (as I typically close wit it). Below is a piece I picked up in the Paras marketplace on Near (blockchain). The artist is Anahiz (sry, no known website and no Twitter. I guess he had a premonition about Musk). If you like his Basquiat-drenched style like I do, here are others I acquired from the artist (yes, I enjoyed a gas-free binge on the Near blockchain that day).
Elatedly yours