You need to love yourself if that means putting down your guard and hitting mint, when you're afraid to hit that damn button. Yeah, do it. And then you should see like I'm getting chills when they feel that and it clicks. It's like empowering as fuck. Yeah. No, and I think we all need that. We all have hurdles and roadblocks and I think that the artist now it's so much easier to love yourself and share.
R than it ever was with the traditional art world. You had to know somebody you had to give up everything and scrape by to even have a gallery show. That's a brutal world and a lot of artists never went into it. Because myself included we were basically stuck. Making Commercial Art to pay the bills.
That was award-winning mixed media artist coldy. Cool. The has a very distinct, almost collage-like art style. He pulls inspiration from a lot of what's going on in the blockchain ecosystem. One example of this would be his decentralized eyes, portrait series, which features the most influential faces in the blockchain industry. His most recent drop in the series. Name decentralised dog was a collaboration with Snoop Dogg. That fetch 779 thousand USD Nicole. He's been releasing.
Art on the blockchain since 2018. So very much an early in fto G in this space and is also a really serious collector as well. So let's talk to him. This is coldy holdy. I'm so stoked to have you on the show, man. Thanks for joining me.
So, Kevin thanks for having me, man. I'm
starved. Any time? I talk to someone about you. They always say that. You are quote unquote. Like one of the ogs in the nft world. One of the people that were it was their first. It was watching all this unfold.
It would be awesome just to hear. What happened. What went down? Walk me back through the early days of the nft world. Is that something we could do?
Yeah. I know. I'd love to Memory Lane. It's it go always comes back to me this memory lane. It just intensifies, even by the month. It's just the way things are moving. It's just like Nostalgia time. And the hilarious thing is that an OG is like four years old. Right, right. Definitely it puts life in perspective, but also puts like
Shifts in perspective or it's like you can cover a lot of ground in four years, you know, it's not the old track of the get a job for freaking 50 years and maybe you'll get a pension that pays out. That wasn't my path at all. I took the artist path starting basically, as soon as I got out of art school, I was working commercially, but I was never like trying to ascend the corporate ladder. It was always like and this is okay. It was paying the bills and I had an awesome opportunity. I worked at La.
A weekly which is, you know, a major newspaper in Los Angeles and I was doing cover designs fresh out of art school. So it was like, literally jumping into the fire every week when I would get the cover assignment. I would you know, have either a bunch of assets to work with or like a pencil sketch that someone scanned in three years ago. And, you know, it was all awful. Yeah. I had to work on my toes and I think all of that kind of honed in my heart making process or it was a sense of thinking smartly and, and problem solving.
That's not really how I approach art as well. I hate coming up with a plan before, I like start making our table Concept in my head for sure. And most of my sketches. I leave in my brain because they're malleable. And as soon as I get that down on paper than I, it's more like concrete. I actually tend to, like, keep my sketches in my head so that when I get to the computer, it's still very like abstract.
When you said get that down on paper. Do you mean that, you physically, go and sketch out first on physical paper? Or are you going?
I'm straight from your brain to
computer. I primarily go straight from brain to computer. Okay, to me that it's an extra step that I have to like then think about perspective drawing like I've fucking hate all that shit. Yeah. I have a vision in my head. And actually it's really interesting when I was doing all these day jobs and especially when ft's were happening. I had a lot less time to be in the studio making stuff. And what I would do is during meetings or, you know, whenever I wasn't working on something, I would be like pre-planning.
And pre designing in my head. So I would have my concept and I would just start thinking of, you know, color options and I would get a lot of work done while sitting in group meetings. So it's I'm all about like using my brain to get the results quicker than going the long route. Yeah, the Curious given that you were kind of a production
designer and working typical design job. How did you intersect with the blockchain? What brought you to even put in of teas, on your map? Three plus years ago. I'm really
into like crazy podcast. I like a lot.
Of conspiracy theory stuff whether it's absurd or not. I just freaking it's so fascinating to me and I will listen to a podcast like, basically anybody and especially if they're like really crazy. It's not because you
believe it for the record, right? It's because you like the entertainment,
I mean, either way, I mean, we could talk about some conspiracies that can't come true. That's a whole different conversation. But there's absurd ones like absolutely crazy ones and I love those for just the creative idea. Like I'll listen to this lunatic for an hour and then
Say something or he'll have this, like one of them is actually one of my first and at ease in 2018. The guy was talking about how the middle of the earth is. Hollow and there's Energy Pyramids underneath the Earth that are powering the surface level. Okay, you know, like yeah, probably not, you know, I haven't been underground. I can't prove either way, but I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that. But when he said that the vision of an art piece, that was that it was awesome. I was like, yeah, I can run with that.
So that was one of my first pieces on in 2018, on rare Art Labs that this now-defunct r.i.p. Rare Labs, but to how I found it all it was quite interesting. I you know listening to these podcasts. I was also interested in Precious Metals just as like the finance of it all like hard money versus, you know, fee on that whole thing. I was just fascinated with that alone and in one of those somebody brought up crypto and that was like the start of the red pill.
Then I started thinking about this. It clicked. I said, yeah, this sounds like this has legs. How can I get involved in crypto as an artist? You know, I'm not a coder. I don't want to do coding. So I simply typed in blockchain art. That was it. I'm so glad I did that at that point and it was very early. I could tell you, literally the the top four results were crypto Punk's, .i + YC rare Art Labs and
Crypto kitties that had to be it. There wasn't much else. Dada NYC, love them. I don't identify as an illustrator. I didn't want to draw I'm digital. So I was like, oh man, great project. Not for me, Krypto punks. Awesome, you know, is own thing. I wanted a 3D glasses. Punk, that was enough. I was like, that's pretty sick. They got 3D glasses on there. Did
you get one or no? I did. Yeah, what? What? Just out of curiosity, remember? What? They were at that point. I was
like, oh, it was it was a hefty .6 either
and what was
They're at that point, you know, it was probably around 100
bucks. I just probably 50 60 bucks.
It's all relative right at that point where it was like, oh shit. I got rent to pay next week. Can I float this 150, you know, right, I did it. Because the other side of me is, man. I am a seasoned degenerate collector throughout my life. It's like my intuition, right? If it's speaking to me and like my gut kind of gets this little twinge in it. It's like I think I need to own that thing, especially back. Then it was
Who know you, they were sitting around. You get any crypto Punk, 4.6, and probably cheaper ones. I just needed 3D glasses guy. So, that was actually the beginning of me as a artist / collector and it all happened really quickly, but also super slowly. I love this Vision in my head of when I reached out to rare Art Labs. I went to their site. They had a couple no names. Some guy named xcopy these illustration people hack a towel something. Oh so nachi some dude, Miss.
Simpson and the list goes on and on these now. Oh, jeez. In the space at the time. We're just a bunch of Misfit Toys that found a place to upload our stuff and for it to sit there wasn't sales to me. It was just another marketing tool just a place to share my stuff. Just another art, fair booth that I do, like around town. It's like online. Dating is like, I guess you might as well make a profile. You never know like, you know, it increases your odds.
What? And that's how I looked at all this. And, you know, I reached out to rare Art Labs and it was funny. I have this Vision where it because I got a response really quickly from them, and I just envisioned them in, like, a dorm room, or some little apartment and, and like, John, the, the CEOs like, Hey, Kevin, someone emailed us, click just sitting around waiting. Yeah, because if there was no action, so I got I got on there and I just showed him some of my stereoscopic digital stuff like GIF animations or it changed his perspective.
And they're like, wow, this is crazy. Weird. Yeah, come on in. So that's really what started it and that was in. It was July of 18 and
looking at right now. I just happen to pull up your super rare. Decentralized eyes with vitalik on there. I'm looking at the etherium transaction here. And this is hilarious. It was 1263 days ago and 17 hours that you minted that particular piece. You got an offer for .12. He's apparently you didn't accept it. You got another offer 4.15, you going to offer for?
Point six, which is you're getting there and then you got an offer for 1.5 III years ago. You accepted it for 189 US Dollars and then, of course, nine months ago, it sold for 30th and that it will be worth much more today, but it was a hurry up and wait kind of thing. Huh? Is that? My first piece? Yeah, it looks like your first piece.
So so look at who that sold back to
that's sold back to I don't see. Oh you bought it
back. I bought it.
Yeah, yeah for 17.5. Eat for
29k. Yeah, so that's its own magic story.
Oh, so you still have this one? I bought it back.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I see that there you are the owner crazy. So it's just a crazy story. So VK crypto was the original whale of crypto art. He came in. I don't I mean there were some other people I shouldn't discount the other collectors, but he was a main player in the game and I've had some really great chats with the guy super interesting and just down.
To Earth, dude, he was just a huge supporter. Like he he believed in me. He was buying stuff and I always equated aetherium to nowaday prices even back
then because I just believed in the tech. So
to me that 1.6 Aether was six or seven Grand. So I was my envisioned was hold, hold it and let it appreciate the value. The market is only bearing me 150 US dollars, but I believe that if I held on to these things they would accrue more value, right? So
When that happened obviously hadn't, especially then I was very much paycheck to paycheck. But when he decided two years later or something to sell, he sold his entire collection one day without any warning, literally all the Grails, there wasn't anything held back. He priced everything like clearance price and I did you ever find out why? Yeah, I wrote him as a friend. I was like, Hey VK, dude. Not now I put on my collector hat. I was like dude, you are leaving a lot.
Lot of money on the table here. Like it didn't matter that. My heart was priced low. I was like, looking out for the guys like to do. You could at least make 30 or 40% more, do, they would still get a cell and it was the most beautiful thing ever. He said that he wanted the next collector to benefit the way that he did. Hmm. So he built in instant rewards if you knew the art and what the prices were. I, was everything was at least half off at least and they were pieces that are unattainable. I assume
Got that clarification. I went and bought everything I could and it's really timing is so funny in the space, literally the week before. I sold one of my Grails. It was a hack attack. How only one owns it is a pacman piece and I think one of their very best pieces and yeah, yeah. Had just come into the scene and he was, he's an aggressive collector and he has a very good eye and, you know, you approached me about it and I sold it to him for 50 ether which was huge 50 either like is a great sale.
And that was before he started buying everything else because I felt good at the time. But then I had really cold feet took the 50 and literally the next week. I bought three pieces with that same 50 ether. I got my own Genesis piece back. I got a very early, Matt Cain, and then I also got pinned our van armin's. I believe it's his first robot painting for that is basically a trade, if you look at the ether van and
what a fantastic way to diversify.
My job and these are other fantastic artist
obviously. Yeah, it was just blew me away because it reminded that transaction cost was there. I was like a wash across the two or the three. So this space is just, you don't ever know what's going to happen. And I think that's part of my love for it. All is, you know, you could wake up tomorrow and there could be a freaking fire sale that you're not planning on. And if you're able to be agile in the space, that's where the that's where the winners really shine through as those opportunity moments. And it's funny when I bought my
My piece back. I paid thirty thousand dollars to buy my own arm and it was a no-brainer like and that was my collector hat. That wasn't me wanting it to be off the market. It wasn't, it wasn't the artist side of me. It was like, if I was looking at somebody else, that was a coldie art pieces, like, yeah, dude, like, 17 either for a Genesis, please. So, I told my mom about it. I went out to lunch and just to shock her a little bit like yeah. I'm like so Mom. Check this out. I sold it. Two years ago for
Bucks. And I bought it back for 30k yesterday and she looks at me like, first of all, are you serious? And second of all like, what? Like Mommy was a very good investment. Yes. It's like whoa, so it will be a beautiful Story the day that it changes hands to a new collector because I don't want to hold it forever, you know, like I love the piece but I also think that the reason I make art is to share it and for it to be around. I'm looking at my studio.
So right now, and I have a bunch of stuff I've made hanging on the wall. It's just because it hasn't found Holmes. It's not like I stare at this stuff and like with adoration. That's just like, oh, yeah. I remember when I was doing that thing. That's the same with entities. I own of my own. I'm just a shrewd collector.
I'd love to get into your collection, what you've been collecting over time. But one question, I did have for you on your own stuff. Is when was that moment where you were like? Oh shit. This is working. What was the piece that really do? You think put you on the map? Was it just
Back to you, had published a bunch. And then eventually the market caught up with Dan said. Oh, well, here's a great artist and you kind of discovered all at once or was there a specific piece that really took
off the way I look at Art is I like to work in multiple series and styles. I don't like to focus on one thing. I feel like stagnates me. So while I was early on tokenizing, I wasn't super concerned with everything had to be only portraits or
Everything was only Landscapes. I was doing kind of concurrent series, just to keep my own creative. Mind limber. Maybe. I'll do a portrait of italic and then I'll do it. Like part of the walkway Series, where it's just completely different. There's little experiments that I'm testing just for my own design or like my color theory or whatever. I'm every single piece had like a thesis whether it was the artwork process or the theme.
Or even feeling out. Is this something that I want to keep doing. I was very much in a state of just free flow. And I started seeing, especially collectors gravitating towards, you know, certain series specifically, you know, the portraits and I did the portraits for a reason there was no historical artworks about the current day seen, you know, it was artwork on the blockchain and maybe there is a Bitcoin logo. There's definitely some deeper thinkers, you know, Josie was
Hitting it hard, crypto, graffiti, super OG. So there are definitely people hitting it, but there was such an opportunity and I was almost looking at the history books ahead of time and thinking like we need to talk about these people at this moment in time. And it became fun because it was like, I was making my own little yearbook of the people like John McAfee, if you weren't around in 2017, 2018, when I believe that's when he was doing all his pump and dumps and just,
yeah, that was just
Saying it's, he's like, I'm gonna get my own deck on TV. If you know, doesn't hit a million bucks. How much gold is that? And that was just what everyone was talking about that needed to be on an mft. Yeah. It was it was so much fun when these things would come up. I'm like, oh here we go. I'm a do a McAfee, you know. Yeah. The people kind of raise their own hands. Sometimes, it's okay. You're in. I'ma Do one of you so that was a lot of it. You know, there's the collectors also connected with that, I can see that.
So I looked through your portfolio here and I like,
Look through some of these images in their very specific moments in time. And there's something beautiful about combining that with the blockchain and that permanence of it and cementing that in the blockchain saying, this is what was relevant. This is what was going on in capturing that moment in your own unique style. Like it's really cool. It's crazy to look back in at
all because while I still had that kind of ease of free flow, every single piece is a linear progression, and I actually just finished.
A in crypto voxels. I had a gallery plot where I lined them all up in chronological order. So as you walk around you can see the technical production change, you know, like I started getting my chops up more and after effects over time. So you could get a little bit more complex animations or I started messing with color theory more. So it was to me the body of work, resonates harder. When you look at what's around it or what preceded, it it just fits.
I'm really happy with the way it worked. And now, just after the Snoop Dogg release, I decided that that's the end of the OG. I call that like the OG portrait series. Hmm. I made that decision because I was an artist and my livelihood in everything. I took a step back and I was thinking, do I want to keep doing these and have 50,000 portraits of the same style for the next 30 Years to me, that felt
Like more of the same and less of experimentation, and trying something new. And that's really where I lay happiest like, right now, I'm working on a piece and I'm starting at zero. It's so fun. Yeah, because after you do 20 portraits you kind of know the steps it becomes kind of a template, you know, what works and doesn't so closing that series off was symbolic probably more to myself than anyone else. It was like
Okay, you can't rest on your successes like yeah, it's the lazy route in my mind, not knocking anybody else, but I want to explore. I want to be scared shitless and I need to evolve. So what better way than to Kill Your Darlings? Yeah. And find something new. That's really a,
in some sense. It's got to be well, not scary. But I mean, this is your cash cow and like you could go do this style of portrait for the next several decades and just be a very well-off artist because you're known.
I can look, is someone puts up a portrait? And it has your think collage is oversimplifying it. I, what would you call that kind of style that you developed? Yeah,
I mean, technically called a decentralized collage because it's a bunch of pieces that come together to make a whole. But yeah, it says, just digital collage.
Yes. So, when someone looks at that, I instantly from across the room and say, oh, that's a coldie. You're just so known for that. You know, there's artists in the world. I think they xcopy has the same thing. Obviously. There's a lot of clones out there around
copy right now that are trying us so much time, not to knock that glitch. I think is a pretty big genre, that can be experiment with, in a bunch of different ways. But to abandon that, I mean, that's that's some, that's some crazy shit. So are you saying there's not going to be any other collage style called the drops? So what
it's evolving, right? So it's all about Evolution. And the first teaser of it all was, I did an airdrop, probably been a maybe, jeez. I don't know time anymore for four months ago. I don't know.
So basically over the years back to the collectors. They have Diamond hands, like diamond, encrusted glove hands, like crazy shit. And over the years. I have a great relationship with pretty much all my collectors. There's just an open line of communication at all times, whether it's talking about, ipas or talking about Soundgarden, we're talking about family. That's just what we're here for and it's beautiful and I freaking love that. There's a
Camaraderie and a relationship and over the years, people will reach out to me and say, hey, just to let you know, I turned down an offer and man talk about, what does that mean? You know, someone else's opportunity to get some money and do something that they need in their life, but they decided to hold onto the art like holy shit. That's a lot of aspects icons. Like wow, dude. Thank you, and I quickly follow that up with when and if you ever need to sell, please don't worry about me.
Don't ever have an allegiance so much that you're going to leave something on the table that maybe you need to get your car fixed or whatever. Right? Please sell it when you need to sell, and they don't. So over the years. I mean, my sail flip ratio has got to be very low and as it's going by and at that point, I was seeing must have been Warren Buffett. He has the Warren Buffett one and it was going great. I had new people coming in like, yeah, who I mentioned before?
Or he was new. Then at the time and the series was going great. And I was like, man, what can I do to reward my collectors for having these Diamond hands? Mmm. So back to experimenting, I was in VR and I had just had my, my own VR chat Gallery produced and created by Boombox heads. Awesome guy. He totally rolled up his sleeves. He's like Cody, let's get your shit. Camped out. He built me. My own gallery.
Curry with a podcast room with nine cameras and five seats. It was nuts. And I'm looking at the space and I'm like future thinking I'm like what is missing in this room and it was bringing my portraits into actual. I call it digital physical space where you can with the headset on you can walk around it and you can see the layers, the OG series. You're forced to look at a camera and you're like in the eyes of the
It's like the Disneyland ride. It's always going to go to the same angles and it's going to Loop and it works, but it's not interactive. You know, you're just on a pre-programmed ride. I wanted to find a way to get away from that. So I had to learn new skills, right? So, I learned how to take the portrait and bring it into the VR space and pull the layers apart, just the same way as I had done with after effects or photoshop and I figured it out. I did a collage.
Zh the precursor to the decentralised mashup, that I just did on a sink. So everything has a story and I like to drip things out, like, in reverse order. Sometimes I are dropped. This is to GL B, which is a 3D model file and I did a snapshot on a certain date leading up to that. I said I did these little cryptic tweets that like holding decentralized portraits is a good idea or something, you know, they're like what?
Like what was that mean? Basic idea, snapshot like two weeks later and I don't think I announce the snapshot. I just did it and I said, hey just so you know. Yesterday, if you were holding one. I snapshot it and you're going to get a free nft. And then I start dropping those around. Now there you can drop them into the on Cyber super easy as actually just testing it couple nights ago, man. It was super, super easy. Yeah, and you can walk around it. It does everything I wanted it to do and in this sense it so it was almost like begin.
There's like it's like wow that came out really well on the first try, I will take the win and use that as the starting point. That's where the series is going. So there will be portraits, but they won't be MP4 Loops. They're going to be VR sculptures basically crazy when you
think about VR because you mentioned decentraland and on Cyber. One of the things I have a hard time with is just wrapping my head around. What does eventually becomes I know that when we
Are forced into VR for not force, but, you know, there's an event and we all go, like, it's popping. Like things are going on. People little avatars are flying all over the freaking place. But outside of that. I don't spend a lot of time in these these meta versus do you have a take on that? Like, what do you think the future of this is, do you believe that any of these are going to be long lasting kind of durable startups, or are they just more for these one-off events
right now, you know, you have your probably five platforms on.
Ether that are Virtual Worlds, I think each of them have unique outlier qualifications, that would allow it to be successful crypto voxels. I think is going to go down as the OG land. It's like the blocks like Minecraft. It's got that DIY feeling to it and I can tell you, I did a podcast with meta Geist and it was fully in VR. Hmm. We were walking around a basically, there's there's another
Just brilliant guy Jin who is in the VR world? And he did a snapshot of crypto voxels of the origin City from oh my God, maybe 2019. Very very early. And I was in there with met a guy stand. I'm just such a degenerate, like I looked around and I knew where I was in origin City. And I was like, oh my God, we're in Frankfort. I just started running as like follow me dude. I like I was like in Ready Player one, and so I'm writing down the roads, but it was all underdeveloped and like
Eaton's because the no one had moved in yet besides the towers, that's like where it all started. And I had a gallery that was just down the road from the towers. So as I dude, I think we can find my place and we found it, and it was literally like that needs to be an NF T, that time and place. It's just the same as the portraits. It's just these moments immortalized and and collectible like life is going to become collectible. Hmm, especially like sporting.
It's concert tickets. I got, I've been to hundreds of hundreds of concerts, like a lot of concerts seen Pearl Jam like 40 times. I love live music and experiences and I kept 99% of my tickets and they're all in like date order. Those as n FTS are going to matter for the person and for the collectability, you know, let's say you go to the Super Bowl like the year that, you know, a lot of Michael Jordan made 60 points, some huge game. Well, now you have
An mft of that. And then you can sell that that becomes a collectible item. So I think through our whole lives are going to be like commoditized a little bit in terms of, you know, memories and the ability to share those memories with other people who relate to it. Another tangent is photography and specifically concert photography. Oh my God, the first concert photography and of tea, I bought. I think it was a queen.
Picture by this wonderful photographer. Gary Gersh off. I saw it on Open Sea and I just bought it. It was perfect. And then later on and this was only got maybe two or three months ago. My favorite photographer of all time who shot the see, I'm a Seattle grunge head. I love all the, you know, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and house and chains. It goes on and on the guy, like I have two of his hardbound books. I have a freaking t-shirt of his like I'm hardcore.
Into Charles Pearson, he's the goat. He did a prank, see box drop and I saw it was a picture of Kurt Cobain from like their release party or something. Literally my jaw dropped and like, I got the cold sweats like, oh, no awesome, but what's going on the goat, entered the room. And like I wasn't prepared for this. Yeah. I was like shitting my pants because I knew what that meant to me as living that time and then Nostalgia, but also from The Collector side of like, I need to find out what
Not like right now. So I started digging and I found, he just had an Open Sea page and everything like all the one of ones were like, .1, ether. Did you just go in a
buying frenzy at that point? They were all gone. Oh, they were gone. It's all sold out.
They were sold. Like somebody got the tip before me and I was, I definitely got some pretty sick things for not a lot of money, but the choice pieces were snatched. I have later rectified that and
have a good Charles Peterson collection. Now some of those I had to pay for and I felt I fully Justified the prices I had to pay. The thing is with a lot of people who come in here. They don't know what things are worth or like, where to start as an artist in a friend. I hate seeing that because it was the same thing. I did, you know, you sell something for 150 bucks and you're stoked, but you don't realize that you could have gotten five grand good for the collector. I have a lot of Soundgarden vinyl records. I know every picture of Soundgarden. I know.
Like I know it and there was a couple of the photos that were like the covers of albums. I grew up with those things. I looked at him, thousands of times. So I had to own those and and I do actually just two weeks ago. I was on Open Sea and I think I was just looking up. I just typed in Chris Cornell, just because that guy, oh my God. Be up Beyond Legend. Like I hate to say God because that's just such a big word. But he's Godly. He's
Sia a man. Oh absolutely.
That boy.
Paul, I just like holy fuck sighs typing, Chris Cornell just to see what was on. Open Sea. I uncovered a Holy Grail. It was a photographer from the same scene. I think it's Karen Mason. So I was just trolling on Open Sea and I literally opened up her page with Grails like Grail Grails and they had been sitting there for three months, like unsold just sitting.
Oh, yeah. I see, Cara Mason here. If she's does a bunch of grunge.
Originals here. She's um, Kurt Cobain stuff as
well. Yeah, she would like, and knowing the seem like I'm a Pearl Jam freak, not like back in the day. Like that's all I fucking talk about like almost a problem and she was the only photographer at their very first concert. The only one, and I knew the show, like, I have the bootleg, like, I know, their DNA. And I'm looking at a one of one from the show, that no one else was at. And I just, I had to own that as a Pearl Jam fan as a music.
Cool piece like there's so much built into that and I hit her up and we were telling stories was like, man. She was telling me about her time. I was telling about all the shows. I went to, we just kicked off a friendship and still nobody knew about it. Right? So I was like, I bought, I bought a couple pieces for sure, and there was just so much good stuff. There's something about me with collecting that is, I want everybody to have some. I think it's important for different collectors and different people to have exposure.
I could have bought all her stuff for under probably to either. I could have bought the entire collection. Right? But what does that do to her? It doesn't help her. It's good to maybe have an owned in my collection I guess but there wouldn't be that like exposure effect. So I've done it from time to time all the time. Like I'll get a couple pieces and then I was just start dripping it out and then it's gone and that's intensified a lot more.
He has good stay at this point. People have to be following your wallet. Right? I mean these these all these automation tools that you have such a
Popular account that people must just fast follow into anything, you go into. Has that been the case?
I think with themes, I really started noticing this. I did a vent right when covid happened back in 2020. Yeah. That was the year. Everything got shut down and I was one of the artists at the Bitcoin, a show in San Francisco. And all of us had no show. So, I threw up a show and we had 5,000 people come in three days, blew my mind, and part of that.
A guided tour. A part of the tour was I had a little Vault where I had some of my favorite pieces and I very quickly learned during the tour. The questions. I was getting weren't just like, why do you like that one? They were like collector, focused. Tell me more about why you think Gann art is important, you know, like, mmm. And I'll tell him, but like the other side of me was like, man, I'm getting picked apart, which is fine. I want everybody. I want more art to sell.
Well, I want to expose everybody, I collect. Oh, yeah, I'll go to the top of the mountain and scream about them. But I was also noticing that I was basically giving free advisory of collecting to a bunch of people which is fine, but it's just intensified even more. The funny thing though, when I collect things, I only collect things that hit me, right? When I see them and I bought this crazy piece on Foundation. It was like a sacred geometry.
The Sutra piece, it was brilliant. And it was performance art of two people in the desert. I don't have that in my vernacular of things. I'm looking for, right? That's not on the radar. But as soon as I saw that performance and what it was, I had to own it. There's a certain sense to The Collector. I that is not poachable. It's it's simply enters my Consciousness and it goes through the filters of. Is this what I'm into? Am I feeling this? Is it in a
Range that I can afford all these different things, and it's fun to look at my newer stuff because it's not as easy as it used to be. Like it was pretty open territory to just focus on. Gann art back in 2020. Get your PIN DARS. Oh, Baki AI. This guy from I think it's Japan. Just this crazy stuff and I was just into it like Robbie Barrett. Yeah, that's one of my ultimate
Grails. Yeah. I have one of his first landscape pieces of the loan. Super
rare. Oh hats off.
Those are the like the style. Can I have a bunch of great Mario quasi. Mondo Helena. Sorran, Matt Cain, it goes on and on pindar. And so I would go in vain for a while. Then they would go from veins to vein. But then when the explosion happened, it was a tidal wave for me, as well as a collector. I wasn't able to stay up on the new person. It used to be like maybe five new people a week or something and you could like write idea of
Look
who's coming. Oh, man, I walk away from Discord for more than like two hours and I'm like, oh I missed like 15 project straight and they all sold
out exactly. That's a real Degen struggle, you know, yeah, staying up on that and I had to, I just succumb to it. I'm just like
he didn't struggle. I love that. It's gonna be like, what? I'm going to be going to my therapist. If I have a, I have a honking Degen struggle, internal Degen struggle. I missed three whitelist. I don't know what to do. Yeah, exactly. Given that, you're so like, you've got a good eye for
Spine this stuff early. I mean, you're either on the the whole Gann train before anyone else. Are there any trains that are like just departing now, or any like new genres of art that you're starting to pay attention to? Because I would argue that the generative stuff was a whole nother. One glitch had its moment and still continues to can. Obviously last year blew up quite a bit. Anything new on the horizon.
One other. That's not a new movement is trash art. I have a very fond appreciation for that time and place.
And it still continues on. But the Genesis of all that was I think late nineteen or maybe early twenty, Rob - Max Osiris. There's a core there is a core group and that to me Harkens back to like the Dada movement of the tens and 20s. It was just the Renegades that made a movement. And there's so much built into that movement that I just appreciate. I've collected a lot of trash are over the years. How do you define the genre, basically?
Herbal, when it first came out, was the Haven. You don't know trash art until you see it, you know? And it's crazy how some trash art comes across more authentic than other trash hard, but then that's also part of it is like I have one called Mount Trashmore. It's brilliant. It's for trashcan tatars on Mount Rushmore and there's some degenerate looking at it and it's perfect. It's like
like a Grail and so I was just like snatching these things up and it's the same thing. You don't know what you want until you see it. The most awesome trash can on the side of Mount Rushmore you've ever seen. I
hadn't heard of Osiris before Max and some checking out his stuff. Now, that's one of the more famous trash artist. He would say.
Yeah him and Robin S. And I hate less. I really I want to stop talking as soon as I start throwing names out because you
always have little believe. There's a
very important people. I leave out.
I'm remiss to like, start naming names but there's just like Bruce the goose Bruce, The Goose made some bangers like just like he did one eye was the trash supper. I believe where it was, you know, the last supper and it was all trash cans and like just like ridiculous things. Someone did one called Corona and Lime and it was a Corona like I saw my role.
I'm that one's really famous. I actually have
to get more. Yeah, so I got I got one.
I just like it was fun and R arable was. So fresh than that. It was just like easy and it was going to people. They were like making their own opuses. And I see that in people when I can tell like, wow man, like I don't know if you took five minutes or five hours on this thing, but the end product is masterful.
It seems to me like you mentioned wearables going to being a Haven for this. And I think of all these platforms is in some sense.
That's why they're non-competitive is that they all bring a different vibe to the table and they all are known for super rare, like, exclusive one of ones async, obviously completely different set of mechanics there. What are your thoughts about like, tasos? And hen if you mess around with that
at all, yeah. I'm a degenerate there too. Yeah,
it was to get bit by that bug. It's like I went deep. It's easy to go deep in the, in the hints fear
and that to me. It's fractals, right? I think life and experiences really?
Pete and they morph over time, but that was the same feeling early. Hen was the same feeling as 2019 super rare. So, it's that gut feeling we're like this, something special going on right now and that gets me excited the community, the artists are vibing on that. So, everyone's pushing making cooler shit, you know, then you start getting some JavaScript, you're getting some like, interactive stuff going on in there. Yeah.
You getting
some low poly stuff with like John with all the J's. I love John stuff. I immediately started buying his early works when I saw him on Mike. This is
just amazing. Yeah, that was a very, very awesome time and I won't go into how my feelings are about clean and FTS or whatnot. That's don't really want to talk about the, the backstory of all that stuff. But I think the cool thing is, is that the community came together and people felt good about being there and it Foster creativity.
Is one of my most favorite artists that I would call, like I hate saying, oh, gee, but there's that initial class of people who are like lumped together as early, like maybe 2018 2020. My very favorite is suit to do, you know suit whose work? Yeah, I do. Okay. Freaking love the guy. I mean, first of all, he's a genius. He's like the most humble creative guy have ever held space with. He's just awesome and his artwork just proliferated. He found a Groove.
Move. He felt good and he exploded since then. And that's what I want to see for
everybody when new artists are listening to this and just getting started. It's tough right? Because every single day I feel like there's 10,000 100,000 new entities being meant it. Whatever the number may be, depending on how many pfp drops there are that day. But what would you recommend to someone getting out there? Do you say, hey, go for some of the lesser-known networks, like, get on hand. Go on some of the darker alleyway.
Is to kind of grind for a bit. How does someone get noticed?
I had a hard time answering this a year ago and it's only compounded. Since then I get these emails are these DMS and it's it's such a hard response. What I've always told people art is not dependent on where you sell it, art is Art. So the very first thing the artist needs to think about is what they want to make that they're proud of it. To me. There's a sense of Pride as an artist where I
Don't care if that pride comes from a minute glitch thing, or if it took you five years, if you have pride, then you're on, that's all that's it. That's our. So I tell them find what you want to do and do the very best thing you can do. I tell a lot of people that looking at what things are selling for, isn't a great barometer of either success or what the market is going to Bear. You got to put in your chops, you know, you got to put in your time and maybe that is on Open Sea and wearable because they're not gated.
Just start creating and put it out there. And as you evolve as an artist, you're going to have a body of work that's behind you. You're almost investing in your future self by creating stuff now because as the artist grows and he finds his niche, in his Network, in his people, and somebody buys the newest thing, they just see. And they're like, oh, wow, that's really cool. And then the second thought is what else have they done? You're creating a back catalogue of
You that is okay. I still have pieces that have I have on primary Market. I've never sold. Some of them are over two years old and that's okay with me. I'm not the type of guy who there's a train of thought for some people, wear things sitting on the shelf. Show a lack of demand. I absolutely see it differently. I see it as that piece of art, has not found the right person because my art is a connection with somebody else whether that's at a street fair.
You're
selling a postcard to somebody for five bucks. There's a connection that was made and that person chose to take that home with them. That's how I view the sale of art. I make it for myself. It's therapy. It's my passion. It's a whole bunch of things wrapped up into, you know, an mft. But once you make this artwork, it's like having a child. It's gonna have to move out and when it does and how it does. You can't really
Control that you can maybe have a little influence around it. But when it goes and how it goes, it's not up to me. Like I just made the damn thing. I like to use like kind of my roadmap when I talk to people. Not that they have, they can take it or leave it, but I can at least say, hey anecdotally, I have found that you working hard. Now. It's better to be actively producing art than to sit on the sidelines as well. I know people who were watching the scene for over a year before they decide to get in, and they've told me
What regret they have of not just going for it and being like to hesitant that's a detriment to and maybe to yourself for not honoring, what your gut is telling you to do, right? I'm big with intuitions and feeling. What's right? And what's wrong and I think that the artist sadly we're innately tie. You this is kind of a generalization, but there's a little bit of sadness or self-love issues with
Some artists just kind of part and parcel of being a Creator being alone a lot. There's just certain traits that I've seen and that's something that when I talk to somebody, I try to like get to that. You need to love yourself if that means putting down your guard and hitting mint, when you're afraid to hit that damn button. Yeah, do it. And then you should see like, I'm getting chills when they feel that and it clicks. It's like empowering as fuck.
Yeah, and I think we all need that. We all have hurdles and roadblocks and I think that the artist now it's so much easier to love yourself and share than it ever was with the traditional art world. You had to know somebody you had to give up everything and scrape by to even have a gallery show. That's a brutal world and a lot of artists never went into it because myself included we were basically stuck making
In Commercial Art to pay the bills and the idea of being a full-time artist was just not financially
crate. Yeah, it's better to work for someone at that point to try and risk it that you have the way. So a couple questions on people that are listening, this that say, I love called a like these works are amazing. How do I collect a cold? Like is there anyway? I mean, some of your Works have just obviously just confers insane amounts of money. Well deserve but still insane amounts of money. Yeah. How does someone get?
All. Is there anything that you do? That's approachable at this point? Or is it just like that ship has sailed? And it's just it is what it is. You know, it's like saying like try and go find a inexpensive xcopy. Now you just won't be able to do it,
right? It's actually exactly what I'm trying to fix. I guess. I'm going to fix with the right word, but leading up, my whole thing was scarcity. I thought I still feel that less is more. You know, one of ones, it's the same as buying a piece of original oil. Painting off a wall. It's the genuine artifact.
T' and my first foray into additions. I have some additions on Nifty Gateway of my portrait series of Julian Assange and Warren Buffett. That was my first taste of additions. Small additions and, like tan, and then 21. And then I was approached by prank. See, actually, this might, this might be the actual anniversary. The pranksy box was an initiative and I was the first guy, so I didn't really know what was happening, but he approached me.
With a 500 Edition. Which to me was like, I'd think about that one. I was like, oh, wow, that's gonna blow my token count, like, way up up to that point. I have like 150 and three years, but I get so many DM's just from people. They're like, dude, cool stuff. Never be able to afford your stuff. Peace. It was like that's so sad. Yeah, as an artist who wants to share a stuff like I'm not making art for the elite. I'm just making art. That's not part of what I'm doing.
Doing so I chose to do the prank. See box of 500 and the name of it is trust your intuition, which I've been talking about the whole time today and it was a chance to connect with 500 people and I believe that when you have the ability to whether you call it a community or an audience or a group of people looking at your art, you have an opportunity to have a conversation or share or just you can get something across and
I used that saying of trust your intuition for something to think about. We look at Art and you can encode all kinds of messages in your art. And I do that very often, but you can also be very upfront and obvious about what you're trying to say. So it's literally on a billboard, and it just says, trust your intuition. I was proud of that piece because I wanted that to affect people in a positive way, where they're like, huh? Maybe that's something that I should. I don't usually do trust me.
My gut, huh, and then I just recently did an async mashup of the decentralized series and that is the newest one. And that's a collection of eight different phases of the series, you know, so there's 10 different pieces of the portrait. You got each eye each ear, the nose, the mouth, blah, blah, blah. Each one had a different options. So your nose could be McAfee, Buffett, Assange, all the different people. And when the
Person goes on async to meant it. You can program like how common a feature would be or how rare it is. So every time you hit mint, it jumbles up those things and it spits out a new portrait collage. Yeah, that's awesome. Oh my god, when that thing came to life. I don't get emotional until some things like out there and I don't have any control over it anymore and just seeing 600-plus variations of these portraits, each one having its own personality, you know, one of them looks
Just like Ellen DeGeneres. We put meanings on to visuals because that's how our brain works. If there's a familiarity you're able to make this random connection that me as an artist, never intended. There's a magic sense of the algorithm. The way certain pieces came together. That's just like I could have never thought of that. Yeah, and that to me is beautiful.
Yeah. These are awesome because they feel very your style. You know, like we were talking about earlier and they've got your signature on there too, which is very cool because you don't always put your signature on every piece, right?
I do
you do. Yeah, you do it. Is it because they're small? Sometimes you don't see him
or is it? They're, they're in there. Yeah,
where's the one on the distro punk 3D? Does that? Is that evidence
that you're probably cracked my coat on that one. Damn it, God. You pick the one out of four hundred. That doesn't happen. All right, tushin. A
probably on that one. It might have been
because you know what? No excuses. How
How is that working with xcopy on on this piece? Ridiculous? It kind of like flashed in my head just like what it should be. And basically I was doing a decentralised portrait of his art. So I took, I don't know, probably five or six pieces and I clicked the mouth of one. I clipped, you know, the forehead of another and again, I go into the creative process without finite rules. So I just started clipping. And then, that was the first time I'd ever did a mohawk because I later did,
With Buffett but I was like dude that was one of the new pieces. I need from him. I get to tax. Can you draw me some like Mohawk spikes? It's like she's like hell, yeah, it was very interesting because he kind of like let me run. It was my concept and I was just like dude. This would be sick as shit. I love the collaboration in this space because good collaboration has to be honest, all the way up, to brutal without being mean. It's just like full open discourse and I tell everybody I work with, hey,
Don't ever try to like, sugarcoat something to me, you know, if it looks like shit to you, please tell me and I'm not going to get offended. And that one, there wasn't anything like that, but it was very much maybe like, hey, I have this like, crazy different background for the background that animates. Here's a couple more options. So there is like an iteration of some of the elements of it, but it actually went together pretty quickly. And I that piece really set me forward in terms of wanting to really learn.
Sigh God, I think. Did I make that in Photoshop that I couldn't have? I don't know, like, in the
panning and everything that would be hard to do. Like, I did with
panting. Wow, it was not ideal. But I at a certain point, especially my first Andreas, Antonopoulos variant three, I think I started in Photoshop. They have this very crude like 3D version where you can get a camera, but you can't program the
removes. So this is so funny. I used to screen record my screen. Oh crazy. And I would put the mouse cursor in an area, that wasn't in the recorded like on the live canvas area. It was actually like performance art and I would do sometimes 20 movement passes. So I'd have like 20 different versions where I had to like in real time. Decide how long and how far to move the cursor quite frankly and
It was crude, but I didn't know any other way. That was the way that I was able to experiment with the next level before I got the, the software knowledge. Yeah, I mean, how do you make something like
this? Not want to own it though. Do you ever look at this? Like I would like to have this up in my house like this is, it's got to be hard. Yeah, set this free and let somebody else to collect
it. That's exactly the bar of what I release. Like, I don't ever release something. Unless I am
It sounds stupid to say, like, unless I'm impressed or wowed by it. If it doesn't hit that level as a connoisseur of are not even like ego. If it doesn't hit that spot, then everything I make I should want to own even though I don't. Yeah, and it's freeing, dude. I would like to let that stuff go. My, a sink Genesis piece is called Choose Your Own Adventure. After the kids books. I used to love those
man. Those rock my mind that that turn back to page 27 and then forward. Yeah, I would always
The wrong path. For some reason, I felt like I was always
just. Yeah. Yeah. So the async peace. I consider that one of my Opus pieces. It was a lot of conscientious work to make sure all the layers, would always work together to make sure the message was solid. There's a billboard with 17 different sayings on it. Everything had a lot of meaning to me and I did a six hour livestream the day. I sold that on a sink and I was just talking about it, you know, going through it base.
Really my own auctioneering and it was really nuts. Like when the layer started selling. I was getting really emotional because like I you can test and make sure it works, especially back then, gas was so cheap that you could make 10 layer changes and it would cost you like five bucks. Or you know, it was able to do that in this piece came to life in front of me minutes, after selling it and I just broke down. And I was just like that, to me is what creativity that's the Bliss is when you said,
Free and then especially with a sink when it comes to life in front of, you know, it's never going to be the same as when you sold it, right? It's just like it gives you those, the good feels the Deep ones.
Yeah, a sink. And their new blueprint product has been quite impressive as well. It's like they just keep churning out these really creative tools. Yeah, the up
in the end. Another cool thing is with the mural frames. There's an async channel on mural where you can
Beam. Not every async piece but a good amount. You can just have it up on your wall. Even if you don't own it. It's just a good just exposure tool.
Yeah, that's a great point to tell people that haven't heard of this. They actually sell a digital display and I was talking to the CEO and I was like, oh cool. So I have to own the async and then it goes up there and he's like, no, like we want this as like a way to get beautiful artwork out to everyone. So it's a unique frame and that they're taking the opposite approach that most digital frames are taking where a lot of them are saying. Okay, connect your Madame Masque and do
Improve us that you on the entity, just play it. They're like, this is a portal into a
sink, which is pretty
sweet. I think Netgear makes the the device to it's built. Well, it's kinda
tough. You know, actually, I am literally going to try it tonight. They just release that you can attach our meta mask. Oh, really? Yeah.
Yeah. Oh sweet. Well, I'm going to go buy that thing right away. I was I was on the fence and then I didn't now that. Yeah. If I can connect my mask back to these will be selling like
hotcakes. Exactly. Yeah, so I need to go check.
That literally tonight. Imma do VR and check out my mural
frame. Dude. This is why I do these podcast because now I can go buy this before, everybody else hears this and you're right. They sell out, she's cool, the thank you so much for doing this man. This has been a real treat. Is there anything in the Horizon that you want to mention our plug or talked about. Before we go? I am working on a
piece a with an orchestra, which is just I love music and art whenever I can combine the two I'm happy. I collaborated with a temporal.
Is the team who's doing it? They did a beautiful score that I was kind of like, giving my vibe on like what? I felt would be a good audio. And now I'm producing. It's going to be a triptych of three pieces that go with the score. Basically. Mmm. That's going to come out exactly a month from today. That's the one that I'm working with that fresh template. Then I'm excited
about and just going into VR. That's my big thing. Very cool. Well, we'll have to have you back on when you have more things to learn.
Launch, especially in the VR of space. I'm wanting. I'm ready to buy a bought, some land. I have a developed anything yet, but I want to do a little gallery or something at some point. Where did you buy it? Well, I got some sand box. And then I've also got this new world wide, web apartment. Have you seen
that project was just asking me about that? No, I need,
it's crazy. It's like imagine gate 1980s version of VR. It's like very top-down 2D 3D kind of like old Zelda Vibes like pixelated but in a very fun way.
You don't buy land, you bought like by apartments and stuff people and then they're doing this little Furniture designer. So you like eight bitty. It's a very 8-bit experience. It's really fun.
Okay. I'm going to DJ n into that one. Now Kevin, this is this been like, super awesome. I appreciate you. Having me on. I'd like to talk to connect again.
Awesome. Well, thanks brother. Good to have you on the show. Happy to have a good one.
All right.
That is it for this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you would like to help us out and head on over to proof, got XYZ and click on the reviews, but
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