Non-Fungible Tokens.

This new series of experimental paintings is an attempt to capture the soul of the Mountain West through handmade inks and colorful landscape fields. These living inks were created by foraging for locally-sourced, organic matter and then processing them to create a wide variety of natural paints. Foraged materials include plants, leaves, kitchen scraps, old nails, copper pieces, and common kitchen ingredients. Through a bit of chemistry and alchemy, the inks are modified with elements like vinegar, copper, alum and iron, to alter their color and attitude. As the paintings dry and interact with the paper and air, the colors shift and morph from their original ink color into something far more intriguing. This painting has never been shown or sold elsewhere. The original will be destroyed once sold. Read more about my Living Ink Paintings here.

What are NFTs?

NFTs stand for Non-Fungible Tokens, which is a completely unique digital recording on the blockchain of an item, which could be an image, video, music file, gif, piece of real estate, a physical painting, a collectible item, a car, a piece of virtual land in the metaverse. Anything really. NFTs have gained steam in the last year as a way to buy and sell digital artwork. I’m sure you’ve heard of the $69 million sale by the digital artist Beeple. Think of it like this, an NFT is your digital claim ticket for an item recording the sale of the item on the blockchain. This record keeps track of all sales of the item and secures what is called a provenance, or history of ownership, which is important in the art world. I believe that NFTs will not only revolutionize the art industry, but also how we use the internet and how we manage the sale of everything in the future.

Here are a few links that will help explain NFTs further:

NFTs, explained | The Verge

NFTs, digital bits selling for millions, explained | Vox

What is an NFT? Non-Fungible Tokens Explained | CNN

a16z Podcast: All About NFTs | Andreessen Horowitz

Wait, So Am I Just Buying A .JPG?

NFTs can be anything from a jpg, gif, mp4, mp3, to a piece of land in a virtual world, a real piece of property in the physical world, cars, physical art you can hang on your wall, pieces to a virtual game, VIP backstage passes, legal contracts - the sky is the limit. Currently, most of the NFTs you are seeing are digital artworks in the form of an image or video. You may have also heard about collectible items like Cryptokitties or NBA Top Shots, which are now worth millions. The NFT means you have the official ownership of said item, which gives you the ability to resell that item. The worth of that item is completely dependent on who values it and what someone else might pay to own it.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you collect baseball cards. The 1916 Babe Ruth Sporting News baseball card is worth $717,000 and the owner of that card would make a pretty penny if they took it to auction. Sure, you can find the image of that card anywhere on the internet, you can download it, print it out, and hang it on your wall. But do you own the card? No. If you took that piece of paper to Sothebys and said, ‘I want to sell this Babe Ruth baseball card,’ they would have you escorted out by security, or probably just ignore you. NFTs are exactly like that, except added bonus, there is a digital recording on the blockchain of the ownership, which means the provenance of the card is secure and known (which could even increase its value). In the future, I expect all items for sale to be secured with an NFT and no one would even dream of buying something if there wasn’t an NFT for it.

So are you just buying a jpg? No, you’re buying the jpg plus the digital record of ownership and the ability to resell that item in the digital realm. Plus pride and ability to say you were there first.

Why Are You Selling NFTs?

I found out about NFTs much the same way everyone else did - when that Beeple sale happened. At first, I was blown away and thought it was literally insane to spend that kind of money on a digital image. Granted, when you zoom in and understand what Beeple did to create all those images, it becomes more impressive. As I delved into learning more about NFTs, I realized there was so much more to it than just selling a digital image or video. While I am relatively new to working with blockchains and cryptocurrency, I have been watching them for some time and strongly believe in the theory of their decentralized network and the potential they have to change things for the better. Could it all fall apart next year? Sure, but so could the dollar, the US Government, Facebook, Apple or anything.

I believe there are some interesting aspects to NFTs that have me very intrigued and excited about their potential. We know that each NFT is a record on the blockchain of sale and ownership, and the ability to track provenance is very important in the art world (have you watched Made You Look on Netflix?). As a minter of that artwork, I become the creator and original owner of it. When that art sells, each owner in the chain is recorded, and in addition, for each sale that occurs, the artist can get a royalty on that sale, which is currently impossible in the current art market. All those huge arts sales you hear about at auction - none of the artists receive a cut of that. For me as an artist, the ability to get a royalty on the sale of my art in the future is huge.

The other thing I really love about the idea of NFTs is that I now think about art in a whole new way. Before, I have always been concerned about how I can make archival work that will last forever, be sturdy, ship easily, hang on a wall and in general withstand the test of time. But the potential for digital art completely opens up what I can do as an artist with materials and time. I have been exploring ephemeral art like the Snow Labyrinths, but have largely been doing it just for myself, because there was no way for me to share it effectively or even sell it. But NFTs have completely opened up a whole new art market and way of sharing that art and I am SO VERY excited about the potentials. I am brimming with new ideas on what I can make now.

Is This Just A Cash Grab?

Maybe. I am jumping on the NFT bandwagon, and the whole thing could come crashing down next month. This might just be a bubble and I am not naive to that possibility. BUT, I have been doing a lot of research and learning everything I can about NFTs and I think that there is so much potential for this technology that I want to jump on to that train. And just like Paris Hilton, I am constantly thinking about NFTs. Also, let’s be clear that I am donating half of the money earned in this drop to environmental non-profits (see more below) in celebration of Earth Day and to promote Clean NFTs.

Speaking of the Environment. Aren’t NFTs Awful for the Planet?

Yes and No. I would not have gone down this rabbit hole if I was pumping out a year’s worth of carbon emissions just by releasing this collection of art. Yes, NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain are terrible for the environment. But not all NFTs are created equally, and after much research I have found that there are in fact Clean NFTs. By working on the Tezos blockchain (read why Tezos here), I will be using less than the amount of energy used to send a tweet to mint each piece of art. Read more about how the Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain system used by Tezos is so much more energy efficient than the Proof of Work (PoW) system of Ethereum and Bitcoin here. Bottom line. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t energy efficient.

If you want to read more about the environmental impacts, may I recommend this, this, this, and this.

Any line of work has a carbon footprint, and mine as an artist involves the materials I use, shipping artwork, travel to galleries, shows, and the energy I use to make the art. I could argue that the physical artworks have a large footprint as well. Please know that I always have sustainability on the forefront of my mind. I am certainly not perfect and I do fly sometimes, so I certainly have a carbon footprint that is larger than it could be, but I am always working towards greater environmental sustainability. And I think that NFTs can help me reduce my footprint even more. I am releasing this collection of art during Earth Week to raise money for charities I care about and also to raise awareness that there are Clean NFTs and that we don’t have to waste energy anymore.

From Thursday, April 22nd to Monday, April 30th, 2021, half of the money I raise from the sale of this NFT collection will be split between the following organizations.

The National Forest Foundation

The Nature Conservancy

The Ocean Conservancy