MendezMendez

Episode 5: Gramajo (@0xGramajo) is joined by MendezMendez (@mendezmendezart). A renowned collage artist with more than a decade of experience.

Prepare to be enthralled by the captivating Mendes, a trailblazing artist with a vast experience of 14 years in the realms of graphic design and computer graphics. Mendes takes us on a vivid journey of his evolution from a graphic designer to a full-time artist, sharing intriguing stories of creating album covers for bands and DJs, and his adventurous collaboration with the California-based record label Dirty Word.

As we delve deeper, Mendes candidly shares his early experiences in the dynamic world of NFTs, the evolving artist-collector relationship, and his revelations around Rally Token. The conversation then segues into the intricacies of collecting art in this digital age. Mendes offers profound insights on the challenges of standing out in a saturated art world, highlighting his own strategies of DM-ing collectors and navigating web3, and his exciting rollercoaster journey with auctioning a NFT.

Lastly, we venture into the depths of Mendes' artistic style and his views on commercialization. Listen as he recounts his exploration back to his classic abstract work, and the growing interest it has sparked among both collectors and artists. Mendes also enlightens us on his collaboration with Infinite Objects, his creative process, and how he skillfully balances his art with parenting. Join us for an engaging discussion filled with inspiration, creativity, and an abundance of unique insights!

Date Recorded: July 6, 2023

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WDR Newsletter --> https://gramajo.substack.com/

00:00 Unintentionally started selling art on Reddit.
06:09 Successful transition from music to graphic design.
11:09 Transitioned from advertising to freelance art focus.
20:49 Authors boosted visibility by lowering writing prices.
26:42 Dynamic changes, genuine support, organic connection, success.
32:29 Agreement on trends; respectful callouts among collectors.
37:39 New collage work focuses on classic abstract style.
40:41 Work for personal fulfillment, not for money.
49:28 Art should not require explanation for appreciation.
54:42 Transitioning from editions to one-of-one artworks.
01:00:48 Artist focusing on web three for recognition.
01:01:59 Network in real life for art success.
01:09:24 Public domain content used freely for art.
01:13:41 Trust your art, speak through it authentically.
01:22:08 Struggle balancing work and sleep with kids.

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Links:
Deconstructed
MendezMendez
Mendez Website
Sweet Cuts Collab

Music by: henriknorstedt

Transcript

0:02

So when I saw Ryder was like, this is it, you know, the time has come. My time to shine has come. That's right. So I had a huge portfolio of stuff already ready to be missed it, because I've been doing all this work for myself, really, and just sort of, like, licensing it to clubs and djs and friends who threw a party. I would a cool collage for that. I want to give thanks to Mendez. Mendez, for jumping on the podcast with me. I greatly appreciate his time. He's an extremely talented individual. Very funny. He recently had a kid as well, so time is definitely very limited. So, again, greatly appreciated. I hope you guys enjoyed this show. This is available also on YouTube if you want to watch it. And if not, you could just listen to it on your podcast app. All right, take care. Let's dive in. All right, let's jump into this thing. Let me see if anyone. I think one person only asked a question on your. It's pretty dead that my discord. It's so hard to make people go there and just talk shit. Yeah, no, it's a lot of work too, man. After a while, I was like, oh, how come every artist doesn't have a discord? And I was like, oh, because it's a ton of work. Yeah, and you're already doing everything else. Exactly. And it's not only a lot of work, it's a specific kind of work. Like, you have to sort of ferment this community vibe. And if there's no money involved, a lot of people just don't give a fuck. A lot of commits from around the fact of, like, let's make money from this project. Yeah, cool. All right, so who is Mendez? Yeah, I think in the notes I put, if you want to dox yourself a little bit, that's fine. If not, you could leave it up to you on introducing yourself. Yeah, I'm fully doxed. Mendez. It's me. I'm just a digital artist who started making art in 2009. So about 14 years ago. And before that, I was just doing a lot of graphic design, and I was very interested in computer graphics from a very early age. I think I was around 13 or 14 when I started going on message boards and forums and started doing tutorials. And. I don't know. It's weird that in web three now, it's just a big Internet community, because that was, like, my upbringing was, like, message boards, forums, and back there, you had the same digital identity mechanics that you have now with pfps. Back then in the forms, people had their avatar and their signature, and that was their identity. So I was just literally designing pfps when I was 14 and one thing led to the other, and when I was 21, I started doing more art instead of graphic design. And that basically just started this whole series of collage that I do now. Yeah. Did you go to school for graphic Design or art or anything like that? Yeah, I went to New York at Fit. It's called Fashion Institute of Technology. It's a college that's mainly designed for fashion degrees, but they have a communication design program there that I took. And, yeah, I just did that and started freelancing right afterwards and then just kind of got bored with design. I mean, still pays the bills. I still do design to this day. But thankfully, web three came along and I was able to focus on art almost full time. Oh, man. So even now you're still doing a little bit of commercial work. Yeah, because basically when I started doing my collage series, I did it for like three years without any intention of selling it. I was maybe hoping to get into a gallery show or maybe do some illustration for a magazine, but I didn't really have a plan of how to make money from it. But back to the digital community or online communities thing, I was very active on Reddit and I was also making music. So I was on the subreddit called we are the Music makers. So I posted my work there, my collage work there, and I got a bunch of album cover commissions from that. Wow. So I said, oh, that's cool. I think there's an opportunity here to make Michael Ash work, generate some money through album covers for bands and djs and producers. And so that was a big hit. And I did two posts there and the second post blew up. I got like hundreds of dms from that, and I did like two years worth of album covers from just that one post. Wow. And then I was like, all right, I want to keep this going because it's really great because you're working with artists, right? You're not working with corporate or marketing guy. And they usually just really like the work that I was doing right from the first go. So the plan was then to hook up with record labels. So I was a music producer. So I said, okay, I made a list of my favorite record labels and I'm just going to hit them up and see if I can get work with them. And I did, and some replied and I worked with them to this date, one of them being Dirty Bird, which is a big label in California. So, yeah, I do a lot of graphic design for them, like branding. They have festivals, so I do a lot of the festival graphic design stuff. Merchandising lines. Right now I'm working on a vinyl box set for them. I found that a little fusion or where the Ven diagram meets between art and music. Yeah. And I just capitalize on that. Dude, that's freaking awesome. I love that. Are you allowed to say any albums or anyone that someone might know in the space? Oh, I don't think, nothing like, nothing major. Like Steve Aoki. No. Green velvet. I did one for green Velvet. Okay. He's like pretty big in the underground house music. He's like one of the OG producers. Yeah, I'm pretty deep in the EDM space. Oh cool. Yeah. So Clauvin Stroke is Dirty Birds boss. 2001, I did the entire year of Dirty Bird releases. Oh, no way. Okay. All right, man. I emailed Cloven stroke hoping to get that gig, the label, the covers, and I ended up doing just a bunch of graphic design work and it took me like four years working with them on a weekly basis for them to be like, all right, now you can do the covers. Oh, I guess once they did the test run on you, they're like, all right, you're ready for four years. But yeah, I mean they're a great team. They're like family. Not doing. I actually just stopped working with all record labels except for them after I got into web three. That's awesome, man. And you're still doing that now. So is that helping with the bills through the bear? Yeah, definitely. Something happened. I think they got acquired or something. So the amount of work is a lot less, especially after I was doing other covers. But yeah, I still do monthly work for them. Like some logos, some labels, some stuff like that. Yeah. Like some more ad hoc kind of stuff probably. Yeah, for sure. That's awesome, man. I mean, my expenses are pretty low. If I have one mint a month or like maybe every two months, it's okay. Yeah. And the cost of living in Spain is a little less too, especially here. In know I'm doing pretty well in the vera. I can't complain. Yeah, no, I mean you have a lot of success too in web three. So it's awesome to like those dual income streams, especially with what's happening with the market and stuff makes it so you're not struggling or dependent on one or the other. You can do both. Dude, for many years I was just going paycheck to paycheck and just being the stereotypical starring artist. Yeah. And thankfully between last year and 2021, I was able to build a little bit of a safety net. So now if I don't have any income in one month, I don't have to stress about it and go accept shitty client work that I don't want to do. But I have to. Yeah, exactly. No, that's great to hear, man. Let's see. So what made you transition from doing for a decade plus of the commercial work to then switch to web three? Did you see the board apes? And then you're like, all right, let me get in on this. Or how did it happen? How did it transpire for you? The transition to mainly art was a lot prior to web three was around 2015 or 16, I want to say. I launched an advertising company, advertising agency back in the Dr. And one year in, I decided I didn't want to do that. So I went back to freelancing and just started to focus more on the art side of things. So, like, I was doing just corporate design, and then I transitioned to the music related business, like I was saying. And my idea was to find clients that would allow me to do my art even if they didn't pay me too much. But I just wanted to do work that made me feel good. I didn't want to do work that was boring. So because I was doing that, I was doing flyers for $50 for clubs. I was actually working for this club that I was doing, like, four flyers a week, and I was djing as well. So I was doing one dj session a week. So that's like 16 flyers per month and, like, four dj sessions. And they were paying me, like$400. Oh, man. It's ridiculous. But I didn't see it as work. I was just doing my collage work, and I was going there and Djing and drinking for free every Friday. It's shit money, but at the same time, I'm having a blast. Yeah, you're having the time of your life. And that was allowing me to build up a huge portfolio of art. Yeah. So when one of the record label bosses sent me a text in October of 2020 saying, hey, you should check out redditable.com, and I was like, holy shit, I knew exactly what I was looking at, because ever since I found out about crypto, like, in 2015, 2017, I was like, man, I wish I could earn crypto with graphic designer art, or provider service. I suck at trading, but I want crypto. So that need or that desire to trade my art for crypto was there many years ago, before nfps even existed. So when I saw Ryder was like, this is it. The time has come. My time to shine has come. That's right. So I had a huge portfolio of stuff already ready to be minted because I've been doing all this work for myself, really, and just sort of, like, licensing it to clubs and djs and friends who threw a party. I would do a cool collage for them. So a lot of the early work that I started minting was that work. It's not like I saw rideable. It's like, all right, now I need to start making art just for that purpose. I already had a ton of art, so that allowed me to just get started right away. So, yeah, that first piece that I made to deconstruct it, I forget if that was something that I did for a friend or. I think it was actually, like, a b side of an album cover. I would do, like, three artworks for an album cover, and they choose one, and then I'll just keep the other two. Okay. And deconstruct it with one of them. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. I had a ton of work just like that laying around. I would just put it on my instagram, and that's it. That would be it. So now I had a purpose of, like, okay, now someone can collect it, enjoy it, and have all this stuff to mint. Did you already have. Because I think you have a decent following, actually, on Twitter right now. So did you already have a decent following on Instagram and Twitter just from djing or just in general? Just posting? I had something on Instagram. I had a few thousand on Instagram, but zero on Twitter and on Instagram. It just didn't translate to nfds. Like, people didn't really care. Yeah, I feel like they still barely care, too, even. Yeah, yeah. But I had to start from scratch on Twitter, which was difficult, not gonna lie. And just because not only was it difficult to earn a following, but just getting to understand the dynamics of the platform. I was never in Twitter, so I didn't know how it worked with mean. Now it seems kind of silly to say I don't know how Twitter works, but it takes a little bit of practice and trial and error to figure out when to post, how much to post, how to reply, and so, yeah. And you learn, like, random stuff, uh, for you specifically. So I don't know if you. Were you in the Dr. Or were you in Spain at this point? Already in Spain, yeah. So you were already in mean, from my perspective, I feel like the bigger market for crypto is, like, in the US. So when you're posting, depending what time it is that you're posting, it might not translate well to the US time. So there's like little things like that. I'm constantly thinking in time zones. Yeah. For sure. But yeah, I kind of hacked my way into a following with giveaways every like 1000 followers and stuff like that. There's all these little growth hacks that you can do. But honestly, the best marketing you can do is to have good art and have a successful drop. Yeah, that's really the thing that gets most more engagement and followers. Yeah, the art itself will get the traction for you. For the most part, all these little small optimizations do only so much. Yeah, if it's fire, it's fire. That's it. That's really it. And I remember right around the time where my daughter was born, the end of last year, I took like a few weeks off just to be with my wife and just during the week prior to her being born and the week after. You know what it is? It's insanity. It is. So I was posting on Twitter, oh, take a couple of weeks off and it's like, you have to start from scratch. I remember seeing that tweet actually. Right. And then the day after I posted this piece that I had done a few weeks prior and it just went absolutely insane. Yeah, I actually remember this. I know exactly what you're talking about. I remember this because I laughed at that tweet too, because I think I was like, oh man, I feel like I've been in Groundhog. I've been trapped in the matrix for a bit. So I laughed at that comment. And then, yeah, I remember seeing your tweet, like the following image or whatever, and it blew up. It was getting some crazy metrics pretty quickly. Yeah, that was single handedly like the best tweet I've ever put out. And it was just the artwork and title with a typo in it. Yeah, exactly. It is what it is. This is before Twitter blew. Before you could edit. Exactly. And that became like my best drop ever, for sure. That's awesome. That series went really well. A really good way to end the year. So do you feel like when you finally created that piece, deconstructed, was it mostly just like since you already had the art unlock, it was mostly kind of learning the marketing and the platforms and the lingo and all the other small stuff is kind of what you have to focus on mostly versus, like you said, building art from scratch and then learning that on top of that. Yeah, so that year, early 2021, you just bring me back to weird stuff we were doing. I don't know if you were around back then, but we had the rarity token. You would get like airdrop of the token every week. Yeah. So if you bought or if you sold, you would get tokens, which was crazy back then. Yeah, I was getting like 300, $500 just in airdrops every week. It was ridiculous. Beautiful. You sold some, right? Sold it all. Good. I usually sell the airdrops right away. You're like, I don't have time to find out. I'm just going to sell. No. But I remember one of the grinds back then to get visibility was to show up in the homepage of writing. Yeah, I noticed that a lot of people were browsing the homepage of writing to see what was being minted before it was getting exploited. There was like a few months of, like, the whole platform was still new. And the way you would bump up your piece was by lowering the price. So I would start the price at like 0.1, and then every day, a couple of times a day, I would decrease the price a little bit to get bump in the first spot and then be in the first page or second page for an hour or so. And it was crazy. That's how I saw a lot of my work at the beginning, just bumping it to the top. It was slowly at first. I started getting collected by Brian Bigman and Odius and a lot of big people because there weren't that many people making. I mean, I feel like if I had got into it like, just six months prior, it would have been insane. When exactly did you get in? In 2021. Like the first half. October. October. You're good, man. The baby is having a moment. I know. That's why I was slightly late as well. I had to make sure that she was down for good for her nap. Yeah. So, yeah, October 2020. October 2020. Wow. Yeah. Kind of early. Yeah, that's pretty early, I'd say, man. Yeah. But not early enough to get into super rare, when it was easier, when there was not enough demand. And even though I knew what was going on, it took me like maybe six months to six to eight months to mature my understanding of NFTs and the artist collector relationship. And, yeah, it was all so new at first. I wish I had done a lot of things differently, but it is what it is. Yeah. I mean, you learn. That's how you learn. Sometimes I think everyone's kind of learning the artist collector relationship, even now to this day. Yeah. And it changes. It changes the type of collector. Back then, I would dm collectors and start conversations, and it was genuine. It didn't feel like I was shilling or anything. And to this day, they're my best collectors and I still maintain really good relationship with them, and we collaborate on projects and we help each other out, and now that doesn't really work as well. I would hit up collectors just really because I enjoy their collection. I see they're collecting collage. I was like, if I see a collector that has a focus on collage, I would usually start a conversation with them because it just makes sense, right? If they enjoy collage, they might enjoy the work that I do. Not even trying to chill or anything, just to be like, hey, I just want to put this in your writer because you might enjoy it, but now they're being so bombarded with dms and stuff that it's hard to stand out from all that noise. Yeah, agreed. Let's see. All right, so you got started October 20. Where do you spend most of your time in web three? We were talking about earlier about your discord server. Shout out to your discord server. I'll put the link on the show notes. But where else do you spend your time? I know you have a board ape. So were you in the board ape server for a while? Not really. I spend my time mostly between my discord, lucrative's discord and alpha dog. Yeah, alpha Dog is my favorite community because it's just a really good mix of artists and collectors. And the vibes are pretty solid in there. Sorry, the printer is coming for some reason in the background. Yeah. All right. That's where I met you. I know that's where I met you. In the La Cresce server for a while. How did you get hooked up into that server anyways? There was like, mid 2021 or maybe like the first quarter of 2021. I started hanging out with chemical Messiah, which is another collage artist, and he became like the hype man for a little bit. And I just started hanging out with them, like chatting with vesucres, became friends. Now he's unreachable. Yeah. Now he reaches out to you if you want something. Yeah, exactly. I'll dm him like, hey, what's up? It's like, nah, nah. Yeah, I get it again, the dynamics change a lot. People's status changes a lot. He probably gets hundreds of dms busy with his sotheby's stuff and big picture stuff, but yeah, just organically started hanging out. I was supporting the success a lot as well. I was minting all the things that he put out, sharing it, trying to at first, and there's still a lot of that going on right now, but the vibes were, I feel like, more legit, more authentic, more genuine back then. And there was legit support for each other. Yeah, a lot of it turned into shill group chats, where someone would just share a link and request to be pumped by other members of the group chat, and it's become more like. I don't know how to say more. Not as personal. There used to be a lot more legit support, but, yeah, that's how we got in touch. And then I participated in three of the auctions for monsters, and the first two, I would lose by just a little bit. Yeah, I was angry, dude. I was getting so pissed, and I remember it always happened the same way. I would somehow be the last out of the five monsters that were being auctioned. I will be on the last one, trying to get the last one when the first one that sold sold for a lot less. Yeah. I swear this happens still to this day, man. Why does this happen to me? So for that, I think it was a fourth auction I sold. My mutant used to have eth to buy the monster, and I don't know if you were in the chat room back then, but it was unroutable. And some bug happened that someone who was the top bid on the. One of the last ₩2, the other one, and his top bid from the last piece got removed. Oh, wow. Okay. And I had the chance to become the top bid, and I just went all in, like, five e. I would just went all in. Yeah. Everyone is just like, oh, my God, man, this is back. I love this. Everyone got so hyped, and I think whoever was bidding on that one, he's like, all right, fair game. Mendes can keep it. And that's how I got it. That's awesome. I love to hear that. I know what you mean, though, about the server. It used to feel very. I mean, it was a lot smaller. It was like a real nice little gem of a place in the discord world. I feel like it still is a little bit, but I know what you mean. It's definitely changed with proceed with caution and a couple of other. The drops that are bigger. It changed the server a bit, but, yeah. What do you still to this day, like, you go into the server and you still have a core group of people who are the people who are more active every day, and all those cappers and flippers will come every once in a while and just ask about floor price or what's going on. Yeah, so true. Yeah. It's weird for me personally. I've always been into online communities, but I'm more of a lurker. I always read everything, but barely ever post participate, you know what I mean? So that's why I think it's harder for me to maintain a community because I'm more of an observer than an active member. Except for alpha dog. For some reason, I'm naturally inclined to be more active in that community. Yeah, I feel like that's the one I see you chatting in the most, actually. Yeah. I don't know what it is either, actually. It's a good group of people in there as well. It is. I really like the founders, Mondog and diverse. I feel like they're very genuine people and very fair and they treat everyone with a lot of respect. The quality of the content in that private group chat for tag holders, it's very high. I mean, not every day is super active, but when it is, it's like I really enjoy what's being talked about. Everyone seems very intelligent and have really good takes on what's going on. Also, as an artist, it's of a lot of value to get the collector's perspective on what's going on. I think that's maybe the main reason that I'm very active there, because for me, it's like a very crucial insight into the collector's mindset. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, I would agree with that. It seems like even other artists kind of go in there and same thing. Kind of like when, remember the tokens? We went through a phase where everybody was creating a token and then that would lead to airdrops. It was funny to see some of the conversations of people of how they thought tokens should be working and all that. I agree with that. If you want to get a pulse on some good collectors and they have a good head on their shoulders, some good people, and people call out other people, which is kind of like, what's that dude, Zeno? He calls out like cardinals sometimes, and I'm always like, oh, man, this guy, he does not hold back. He'll go after anyone. Exactly. Yeah, that's what I like it. It's very honest. There's no, walk me in there. It's just like raw information. Yeah. And he's nice about it. He's not like a complete asshole, but yeah, he will tell you. He's like, I do not like the mechanics of how this raffle is being done for ex artist or whatever. It is funny in that regard. Let's see. And I think I also saw, actually, that you did some lucrese inspired pieces, too, right? Like with. For hand jabs, I think, and a. Couple of other stuff. Right. For hand jabs. I did. What's it called? I'm not hearing the word like a homage piece. Yeah, an homage piece. Yeah, exactly. And then he collaborated on one of my series in 2021 or early 2022 for sweet cuts. He did a monster for sweet cuts. Okay. Yeah. Back then we were tight. I'm not starting. No, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. It seems like he just blew up so big that it's a little bit. Harder to, like, he's busy for sure. He's good, though. Like, he'll randomly reach out to me and he's like, how's your kid now? I'm like, oh, damn. All right. He's reaching out to talk, but then we'll talk for like, five, six messages. And then out of nowhere, I leave a question, and then art comes in and he no longer talks. And I'm like, all right, I'll see him in two weeks. Let's see. Did you have any other, I guess, what has been your favorite collab that you've done for any of your work? I think the sweet cuts collab was really cool because I got together, like, five artists to do their vision of the sweet cuts. The sweet cuts was a series that I did where I would take mid century advertising heads and I would splice them. Like, I would cut them in half and put, like, an orange or a citrus fruit inside of the head. It was just this very simple idea, and I got five artists to do their take on it. So some people did, like, an animal cut in half with some fruit in it. I got some 3d animation, and Desukeres did one. So I think that was my favorite collage work. Or not collab work, but, yeah, for some reason, I've been holding off doing many collabs. I don't know why. It's something that I've had mixed experience with. Yeah. So after a couple of ones that I didn't like how they went, I just said, I'm just going to hold off doing collab work and just focus. On my stuff here. I can actually share my screenplay. I like this one a lot, actually. Of course, the man, the legend, owns this one. That's never going to get sold. This is a dope piece, man. Yeah. So, yeah, there you go. That's the face cut in half. Yeah. I love this series. This is good stuff, man. I actually really like your work. It's so distinct to me, even for the longest time. I think for the longest time, I associated you with hand jabs because Mondog was trying to get me to get one of those for a while, which I also liked as well. But, yeah, it's very distinct, like your art. I could tell very quickly, even though collage is a very broad category, I'm like, I know this looks like it has Mendez Rinlo over it. Thank you. Yeah. Now, these days, I'm working on new collage work that's more like classic abstract stuff, because for the past six months, I did two series that were more narrative driven works where I use a lot of collage technique, but just to composite together elements, a little bit of collage, but they were not abstract at all. They were more like trying to tell a story, trying to this message, or trying to explain this overall concept, which is fun. It's something that I'm not able to do with collage and only using three d and AI I was able to do. But at the same time, it's weird, because on one hand, as an artist, I don't want to be held back on doing anything that I want to do. Yeah, makes sense. But the other hand, you also want to maintain this recognizable style that people associate with your name. And I don't know if it's the market or because I started doing this narrative stuff, but around October of last year, I was approached by, I'm not going to name names, but, like, top 0.1 collectors and artists asking if I had any unmented stuff because they were interested in one of. And I was like, all over. I was like, oh, my God, that's it. It happened. This is the moment a lot of artists are waiting for, being by those people. Not me approaching them, but the other one. Yeah, them reaching out to you. Exactly. And after that, I started doing this narrative stuff, and it's just like radio silence. No, come on. I don't know. I always try to take the blame for stuff, so I'll just be like, maybe I should have just stick to my usual stuff, but who knows? Who knows? So now I'm like, not because of that, I'm back to doing my original work, but I also was hungry to do the more abstract stuff because it's more exciting. I never know what I'm going to do. It's like sitting in front of a piano and just like, jamming on a jazz standard without knowing where it's going to go, as opposed to playing a sheet of music where you know exactly what's going to happen. Now I'm just back doing my collage stuff. So no more aliens, no more aliens. No more mushroom apes and that kind of stuff. I really like that, though. And it's my best selling stuff. I know, I really like that stuff. But I don't do stuff for the money. I don't do anything for anyone. I just do what I want to do. I really think that's the key, to just be fulfilled with your work, just to do the work that you want to do. Don't create art with an audience in mind, because once you do that, you're just thinking commercially, you're not thinking as an artist. It's a bit of a balance. If I create a piece, I know, oh, this is going to be a one of one, and I'll do like a bitter sedition for this and just a little bit of thinking of how to commercialize it. But ideally, in the creative process, I just like to let myself go and what happens, happens. Yeah. Well, hopefully that person reaches out again, man. Because I feel like you can have both. You can have. This is like an exploration of a theme or a topic plus your abstract work. I feel like you can have both. Yeah, for sure. Because one could be more accessible. For example, the alien stuff. That's what finally got me to be able to acquire a piece of yours. It was a good avenue for me to jump in versus a one of one. Obviously, the goal is to get an abstract one of one piece from you or something, but sometimes things aren't attainable. Money is different, like, every single month, just things happen, so I don't know. Yeah. There might be a good chance to get some of that stuff soon, because I'm working on. I have this series called singularity and fragments, where I just basically took Sam Spratt's model with Lucy, where he did a series of one of ones, and for every bidder on those auctions, he gifted Lucy. Wow. And the skulls are one of ones. So I have these series fragments. You can check it out on the open sea if you have it open. Yeah, I do. So the fragments are one of ones. Bidders one of ones instead of bidders editions. So it's a really easy way to get a one of one from me for free, basically. Yeah. These are nice, though. These are really good quality. They're not as complex as the one of ones, obviously, but, yeah, this one. Here is fire, though. Thank you. That's one that. I haven't shared that one on Twitter because I feel like it's too abstract. But again, it's one of those where I want to do that. I don't care if people like it or not. Yeah, no, that one stands out to me the most, actually. I like that one a lot. Cool. Yeah, I think that's what actually, the other one, too, that I was eyeballing for a bit, and we can get into it, too, is from your most recent one you did for the collaboration you're doing for infinite objects. Yeah, this one. So this one's cool. Don't get me wrong, but I like the other one more. Where's the other one? Give me a second. This one. This one's nice. Yeah, I like this one a lot. That was the derivative that I did. I think foe had, like, a spiral artwork competition or contest. Remember when Tjo his blue so fo did one with the spiral and I was like, yeah, it fits with the work that I was doing back then. And, yeah, that was raffled to one of the holders of the colorful one. Got. Got it. It should have got that colored one. It's not too late. So who is currently someone that you like? What's another artist that you collect from that you admire, that you think is kind of underrated and you kind of want to give some recognition to? I think there's two artists who have a sort of similar style. They do like, a lot of black and white work. One of them is Besmiyar Bezmiar and the other one's glowa. So, yeah, they're just good friends that I actually really enjoy their work. Who else? A bunch of good, close friends from web three. They have great work. Spencer Jackson Kyokill. One robot, even though he had to stop minting work for a bit due to in real life stuff. But, yeah, there's a bunch of people. It's weird that I forget where I said where I read this. I read a tweet that said the lower the floor, the shittier the art looks. Yeah, it's weird because if you see a piece of work that sold for, like, ten e, the monetary value sort of shapes or distorts your perception of how good art is. You know what I mean? So there's a ton of incredibly good art that you can acquire for very little money. Yeah, I feel like that happens a lot, where once something has a ton of money to it, then people are like, am I missing something? That's currently how I feel about that piece of prosciutto AI piece that sold for, like, half a million. I'm, like, staring at it, and I'm like, what am I missing here? I had to read the story. Super had this article on the lost robbies, and it's like, I get it. The story is really cool behind it, but at the same time, I can not like it. Right? Yeah. I don't have to like it just because it's historic, but, yeah, same with board apes. They were, like, almost a half a million dollars at some point, and they've been 300,000, 200,000. And even as a holder, I sold it recently, by the way. I saw you. Even as a holder, your perception gets really distorted. It's like, yeah, this makes sense. This is worth$300,000. You defend the position. You're like, come on. Yeah, mine has a cool little hat, right? And my wife be like, joyce looks actually kind of cool. I'm like, it's still just a cartoon, though. I mean, it's more than that, obviously. No, I know. Yeah. It's a representation of other things as well, but I know what you mean. Yeah. And I'm sure the story. I think I know the article you're talking about. I got to go read it, obviously. And stuff like, that's how I felt about autoglyphs. The first time I saw autoglyphs, I was kind of like, it's a bunch of lines. But then you read it's on chain and the providence to it and all that. I'm like, okay. I could see why people like these or want these. I could still think they're a little bit overvalued. But I can also see why people value them so much. It could change a little bit sometimes if the story is really good, but sometimes the story, even that in itself, isn't enough. I still got to put it up on. I have a token frame, and I'm like, all right, if I put this on here, what's my wife's going to say? She's going to be like either. What the hell is that? Yeah. I mean, 100% the story behind it. The problem is it adds a lot of value to it. But for me, it's aesthetics first. Even with conceptual art, if you go to a gallery and you see, like, a white canvas, and it's one of those things where unless you read the little text box in the lower right corner, it doesn't make sense. If that's the case, then I don't like it. I don't feel like art has to be explained in some conceptual way for me to like it. It adds to it. But. Yeah, if you got to constantly define why you think it's good or whatever, then it's kind of like, I guess the argument could be like, then it's not for you. Like, you're not the audience for it. We don't have to like absolutely everything in the world. Exactly. That's what I mean earlier. I don't have to like it. It can be worth a billion dollars and be the most important piece of art in history. But I don't have to like it. I don't have to agree with, can I have the right to like whatever I like in terms of, that's the. Beauty about art, man. It's all in the eyes of the beholder. That's it? Yeah, that's it. Hey, want to talk to you about Sten's agreement. All this content is brought to you for free, but I want to thank all the premium subscribers, the shitheads out there that are paying. I appreciate you guys helping me continue make this endeavor free for others. So if you are not a paying subscriber, if you could like and subscribe, that'd be greatly appreciated. Let's get back to the show. See you. Yeah, let's see. Yeah. So actually, we talked about it a little bit. So you're doing it right now. Collaboration with infinite objects. How did that come about? What's the collaboration? I know you're doing a giveaway as well. Yeah, happy to. They just reached out. Honestly, it was super cool. The community manager just reached out saying that they wanted to do the collab and they sent me an infinite object with my piece on it. And yeah, they just wanted to give one away for my community. And we're doing one on Instagram and one on Twitter. The Twitter one is next week. I don't know when this comes out, but in the week of the 10 July. Yeah, they're really cool people. They're really just reaching out genuinely to people and working with them. That's awesome. I kind of want to do one of the custom ones where they print something on the edge. Oh, I know what you're. Yeah, those are really cool. I kind of want to think about a piece to implement, like a motion part and that has a static part on the edges. For those. Is it the holders of that piece get to buy one or how does it work? Anyone could just buy one of those. You can just buy one of those. I was just emailing with them because a few people on Instagram were interested in buying it, so they used to have a royalty system that the artist gets a commission from the sale and you can just put up as an artist you have to get on board and so on. But you can just put up the artwork there and it doesn't have to be tied to the NFT. I'm going to tie it to the NFT for the giveaway. So I'll be giving away the NFT plus the infinite object. Got it. Okay. Yeah. There's a couple of ways you can do it. Yeah, those things are pretty cool, I think. I've seen a couple of other artists do like those and they look really nice. A lot smaller than the token frames too. And more attainable to price wise. For sure. They're fun. The unboxing experience is really cool. Like you take it out of the box and it just starts playing right away. Oh, wow. Okay. That's nice. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah. So they thought about kind of the unboxing experience. I feel like that's. Sometimes companies miss that. Yeah, for sure. And it charges with a magsafe thing. So once it's charged, it's like a standalone thing. You don't have a cable or anything. Go looking like desk or a friend thing. Yeah. That's awesome, man. So is there anything kind of new that you're working on collection wise? I think you said you were going to try and go back to abstract work. Yeah. Honestly, this year or the past six months I've been doing a lot of editions, a couple open editions. So I feel like going into one of ones makes sense now. It's also because the one of one market and the additions market is very different. You have collectors who do mostly one of ones and those people have usually deeper pockets. And the additions is more like for a more broader audience, which I've been a lot more interested in just to spread my art as much as I can and to build up a bigger base of collectors. But also if you have a big one on one sale, that will also help the additions. So my idea now is to just focus more on one of ones and maybe do an addition here or there, but definitely on the abstract collage series. Awesome. Do any of your friends from real life know that you are an NFT artist or just an artist as a whole, but also sell nfts? Do they know this? Yeah, there was a moment where I wouldn't shut up about it. Got this ape that's worth 500,000. Yeah, I get it. But no, a few of my friends got into it also as collectors for. Your stuff or just like, in general? A lot of my stuff as well. Oh, awesome. Buy my shit? Yeah, for real? You got to buy my shit, man. But no, they got into it as collectors and they would just buy and sell. I would often tip them into stuff like, one of them got an ape because I told them to get an ape. I've been pretty good giving them signals, really. I told them to get, like, damien Hearst, and they made a bunch of money. I was pretty good in that regard. And my best friend from back home, he's a dev, and he was one of the devs in handjabs, and then he was doing such a good work that he got to do a few things for props. Nice. Yeah. And now he's working with props full time. Wow. Yeah, I was able to really get him into web three. Now he's just into it full time. Yeah, now he's just balls deep in it. Yeah, for sure. It was a really good chance or really good timing for that because he had just lost his main company and he was struggling for a little bit, and he was helping me out when I was struggling, like, many years ago. So to be able to help him back in that regard was really cool. That's awesome, man. That's great stories right there. I love that. Yeah, you got to send me some signals, man. I got to buy a bored ape one day. Just lucky with you, I saw mine because I saw the heavy metal thing and I was like, I'm not a gamer and I'm not going to play that. And I feel like this is the end of it for me. Yeah, I feel like it was such a distinct ape for you. I associated that ape with you for a while, but pfps change all the time. Yeah, I had it as my PFP for like a year or something. Yeah. I wanted to sell it when it was like 80, 70 e. Yeah, that's when I started really considering it, but my wife would always be like. She would just transmit so much panic. Yeah, that happens, man. And I was like, it got to like, look, it's going down like 10% each month. All right. I need to do something. Yeah. And do you guys have it in Spain? Do you guys have long term holds versus short term holds, like capital gains tax? Not sure. I don't think so. I have to look into it because I know Germany has it, but I just pay my taxes. It's like 23% on capital gains. I just put that on stables and I'll just pay it when the bill comes and I'll just stash the eth until the next all time high to cash it out. Yeah, exactly. That's my logic. I miss ape, but if I have 40 e chilling there and it goes out to five k again. Yeah, you're good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think it's always easy to look back and be like, oh, I should have sold here, here. And a lot of people are like, I would diamond hand this or I would sell it at this point. Yeah, man, it's easy to say that a year after it's happened or something. Of course I've come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to time everything perfectly. Yeah, exactly. Have you ever had your work in any galleries before? Are you working towards that or what are kind of some of your goals as an artist for the rest of this year or even long term? Yeah, this year there's this platform called Ninfa based on Italy and I did a drop with them and they have a physical gallery as well. So I had a show there on Milan and then doing NFT NYC. I had a piece in New York as a part of a collage exhibition and now I'm in talks with super chief to do a show now in July. Not to do a solo show, but used to be part of a show that's also focused and yeah, that's the goal. I'm shifting sort of my focus now. I think it makes more sense to use web three as the launch pad for a more traditional art career. So just take recognition and take success from web three and then try to use that as a reference to do more like traditional shows. I've been thinking about this quite a lot actually. And the idea is to just do more in real life stuff. Go to more openings, go to more shows, go to your nonprofits here like cultural centers and museums and all that kind of stuff and start to network with curators in real life because it's very easy to send a DM and those get dismissed quite often. So just starting to network in real life and getting a grinlit with people who are in the traditional art scene, I feel like it's going to be a key factor into making having a solo show at a contemporary art museum, stuff like that. So that's the bigger picture. I'm mid thirty s so I have plenty of time. I was actually speaking with my wife about this. I'm like sometimes I get this fomo, like I need to be doing more and then I'm like, well, the best artists in history, they reached their peak in their 50s, maybe early 60s. There are very little amount of artists who, like, in their 20s were like big, maybe basquiat and stuff like that, but they're not the norm. Yeah. Or an exception to the rule at that point. Exactly, yeah. Just thinking about that getting out of my comfort zone, because, like I was telling you earlier, since I was a teenager, I've been lurking on online communities and I'm not the best social guy to go to a gallery and start to speak to everyone. I'm not really used to that. Luckily, we have a lot of artists that are doing that jump from web three to the traditional art space. So I feel like that'll make it so they're not going to dismiss it, like, oh, you're just a web three artist or whatever bad stigma or connotations that exist. It'll hopefully just keep going away and away and then finally you're an artist, period. It doesn't matter that you do nfts or anything else. Exactly, yeah. The NFT term is just going to go away. It's a fad and it's just going to be digital art or not even just art. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Are you trying to get into, like, you got into super rare, right? Or. Yeah, yeah, you got into super. Yeah, it's like soft bees or Chrissy's one of those. Is that the next step, too? Yeah, maybe. I feel like that helps. Know that definitely helps. Yeah, that definitely helps. But, yeah, I was doing some networking with people there, but it's like everything in life, when you least expect it, it happens. Sort of like, my biggest accomplishments have come just from hard work and just from focusing on my thing without forcing it more. I try to force an outcome the least. It happens. So I really believe just doing my best work and showing up every day, that's going to give me where I want. Also, there's intention and there's networking, all that kind of stuff, but not trying to force anything. Yeah, hopefully I do a Sotheby show. I'm hoping for you too, man. That'd be dope. Yeah. Let's see. And we're coming up on time, so I'll try and speed it up. What tools do you actually use to make your art? It's mainly Photoshop. That's it, yeah, Photoshop, yeah. I have a wacom tablet. Yeah. Just to paint and cut things out. And for my two previous series, I've been using, like, 3d software, cinema four D and mid journey. To generate some assets. Yeah. Mid journey has been really cool to just get some. Sometimes I have a specific idea and I'm like, if I have to go through like 50 museum websites and libraries just to find this one mushroom that I'm looking for and this angle that I need it, I'm going to spend a week just doing that. When I just type it into Midjourney and make an output. Yeah, that's freaking awesome. And I can output something in midjourney that has the texture of an oil painting, which is the stuff that I mainly use. So it just blends in seamlessly and then with, it's the same thing. It's like I can just get an asset, texture it, put it in the angle that I want it, render it, and then put that into my collage. So collage is just mixed media. So mixing paintings with drawings, with lithographs, with AI, with compositing, it's just a mishmash of all these techniques and sources. So is that what you would do before is you literally would go through galleries or magazines or something and just scour the Internet for hours upon hours to find something? And that's how I do my collage stuff. Or even this past couple of weeks I've been doing that. This analogy to crate digging and sampling hip hop. Yeah, you go to a vinyl shop and just go through the crates, find a few vintage stuff that you like and listen to it and finding snippets of it. You're like, oh, there's something there. And then you cut it and then you manipulate it and create something new with it. It's exactly what I do, but with visuals. That's crazy, man. So do you have like a folder of things that you found along the way that you love? So literally a folder is just called mushrooms. And then you're like, hopefully one day I'll use a mushroom in my art. That's awesome. Tens of thousands. I have hard drives full of stuff. Oh, man, that's crazy. Yeah. So at this point, you've had over a decade worth of just hoarding that stuff. That's awesome. Yes, exactly. And still, every time that I go create a new piece, I would just spend like three or 4 hours on museum websites. And nowadays there's really cool aggregators that have pulled in a bunch of work and categorize them by artists and periods and themes and they've done all the heavy lifting. Yeah, the classification or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And now I can just go and they have tags, I can look for things, but, yeah, it's all public domain stuff, so it's CCO. There's no copyright issue there, so just for the use. But, yeah, it's crazy. Sometimes all it takes is just one element in one painting being like, oh, that's really cool, and then just cut that out and put it on a canvas and then start throwing things at it, and the piece almost starts coming together by itself when it starts to interact with other elements. And then a little story starts happening. And if this goes here, then something else can go here. And it's very free flowing process that I really enjoy, which is the opposite of the narrative stuff. The narrative stuff is like, I make a sketch and this is a composition, and this goes here. Yeah, I was going to say it sounds almost, like, more limiting, but it's weird. Sometimes I feel like limiting is freeing almost, because I do photography. And so sometimes I think about. Sometimes I love black and white photography more because I don't have to worry about colors or editing in terms of making it more orange or blue, because that's what people on Instagram seem to like. It's more like light. That's all I care about is light. It's almost liberating. But then I could also see it being like, for you, it's like, okay, I'm trying to tell a story, or there has to be some consistency between all these images or something. So it's almost like constraining. Yeah. The narrative stuff, they just feel like scenes to me. They're just like a scene in this universe that I created. Yeah. Where the other thing is just more like a feeling. Yeah, exactly. So when you were creating the narrative stuff, did you sit down and almost storyboard it where you were like, okay, I have this image of an ape being sucked into a mushroom, and then this one is like an ape being zen with a mushroom. Did you create kind of like a storyboard and then an idea of what each image you wanted and then you went out to go create it? Yeah, kind of. It was the first long run that I did, like, maybe four or five months ago. It was like a 15k run. All the pieces came to me in that one run. Yeah. Okay. It was weird because I forgot my Airpods, and I said, fuck, I'll just go without any music. And somehow, for some reason, I just started thinking about these pieces, and the visuals of the piece just came to me, and then I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Like, came home. I did some sketches, like a bit of a storyboard, but not very crazy. Yeah. And maybe like four pieces came down to me like that. And then shortly after, maybe on a swim, a lot of visuals for pieces come to me after the 45 minutes mark of doing cardio. I don't know what it is. It's like a download. I see it clearly. Damage. It's weird. That's hilarious. I love that. It's the epiphanies while you run. Yeah. And when I do lifting, it's tweets in the middle of a set. I'll think of a great tweet and I'll just. That's hysterical, man. That's so funny. I love it. Let's see, what was I going to say? Do you have any advice kind of for anyone, any collector or artists out there right now that's struggling during this bear market? Anything? Lift the spirits a little bit? Go run. It sounds like. I don't know, man. It's just. Don't get discouraged and just trust your art and make the best art that you can. I could speak hours about what to do or not to do, but at the end of the day, just try to have art that speaks for itself and try to be active. Even though I said that it doesn't really work anymore to reach out to collectors, but really try to have genuine connections with collectors. Really. It's like in real life, if you go up to someone and ask them to buy your stuff, they're not going to buy it. If you go up to someone and just talk about yourself, they're going to not be interested. But if you show real interest in someone and ask them questions and have them talk to you about themselves, that's usually how you form a relationship. So try to have genuine relationships with artists and collectors in the space and try to have a support group that you can bounce ideas off of and not just don't be surrounded by yes people. Just find a group of artists that will critique your art and tell you how it can get better. Yeah, those are just a few. Awesome. I appreciate that. That's good stuff right there. And then lastly, favorite snack. Favorite snack. Interesting. Poof. I have a favorite snack when I'm behaving during the week and then a favorite snack on my cheat days. Yeah. Okay, let's get both. All right. When I'm behaving, I'll go with grapefruit. Okay. All right. Really behaving then. Yeah. I've been joining fruit a lot. I don't know if it's just because it's what I can eat when I'm behaving or what it is. But, yeah, grapefruit. Like, cold. You have to put it in the fridge first. Yes. Cold grapefruit and some pineapple. Just any fruit that's cold. I think the Canary Islands has pretty good citrus. Right? Are they known for that? They're known for their bananas. Bananas. Okay. Yeah, they have really sweet bananas here. And then on my cheat day, a good snack. I mean, besides beer. Beer is not really a snack. No. I'll eat industrial amounts of takis. Oh, you like takis? I like spicy food. And even though they're not as spicy as I could eat, I could munch on takis. Dude, I love Takis. Takis are amazing. Yeah, there's, like, a store trader Joe's here. It's like a grocery store. And they have, like, a healthy version of. Oh, yeah. So I justify eating Takis because I get those. I'm like, yeah, this is a healthier version. It doesn't have all the bad ingredients. It only has some of the bad ingredients. Right? That's hilarious. Yeah, duckies. That's good, man. I've been going crazy on my cheat days lately. Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, cheat days are fun, man. Yeah, the cliche, oh, my daughter was born. I'm going to get in shape and eat well. So, yeah, it's been good. I've lost, like, 20 pounds in four months and just been getting to shape and eating well. Congrats, man. I had the complete opposite. Yeah, I was, like, in pretty good shape before. And then when she was born, I've been sleeping more than anything, especially the first two months, she was a little underweight. So every, you know, every 2 hours we were up feeding her. So I was like, every moment, I was like, I'm just going to sleep. Yeah, sleep, like, such a luxury the first week. Oh, 100%. Yeah. I just started getting back into working out again, and my wife's breastfeeding and all that. So we're tracking macros and stuff, too, because she was starting to get hungry all the time. And the way that she would get full would be with carbs. And I was like, no, the way we get full is with more protein. Let's just up the protein. That's the healthier choice, obviously. Eating pasta and all. That's tasty, but the healthier choice is just up the protein more. Yeah. So we just started that. So it's been good. We feel like we're finally in a good rhythm with her. How old is your kid now? She's just seven months turning tomorrow. Yeah. So you're exactly. Like three weeks ahead of me or something like that. Yeah. Is it getting better for you? Yeah, it started getting better. Let me see. The first few months were rough, then we had like, a little of a chill time, and now it's good, but I don't know. I don't even know what good is anymore. It's just sort of like a blur. Yeah, I agree, man. It's a blur. We had three good weeks, like three weeks ago, and then just two days ago

we're back to like, she's waking up out of nowhere. She's waking up at 03: 1:19:41

00 a.m. And I'm like, why? You were just sleeping like 9 hours straight with no issues, and now you're back to waking up at three? Yeah. You guys are lucky. Mine wakes up every 2 hours still. Every. Oh, man. Yeah. Because my wife is breastfeeding and we're doing, like, bed sharing, so she sleeps with us. Yeah. So I sleep through the night, but my wife wakes up every 2 hours just to feed the baby. I'm a super light sleeper, so I get up more than my wife does. Wow. She knocks out more. So it's been funny. I'll watch the memes of like, oh, it's the wife sleeping on the husband's side of the bed because they're like, apparently you can't hear the baby over there. And I'm like, that's actually me. I need to go sleep on her side because apparently if you go sleep on that side of the bed, you don't wake up. But I wake up. Yeah. I don't know. I'm even more of a light sleeper now than before. I'd say when I had a kid. I'm a pretty deep sleeper, especially since I'm working out so much. Yeah. When I work out hard, I knock out, but for some reason I still wake up, but. Yeah, I know what you mean. I sleep a little deeper when I've worked out. Yeah, everyone's different. It's so fun to hear other people's experience with their newborns and stuff because it's like everybody has a completely different. Yeah, no, it's a great thing. Yeah. And then you mostly get to work from home, right? Oh, yeah. I feel like that's what has allowed me to just focus on a more healthy lifestyle. Just not having much client work and just being able to focus on my art at my time. So I have all this flexibility to do whatever needs to be done, focus on working out a couple of hours a day, and then after that, it goes to bed at like, seven or eight. I have, like, five, 6 hours of uninterrupted art sessions. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Yeah. If I had a nine to five, I would be a. It was. I have a nine to five, and it was rough. And here in America, they don't give you. It's also dependent on your company. Uh, when my kid was, uh, two weeks later, I was back at work, so in the sleep deprivation mode, I was still taking meetings, leading meetings and stuff, and people would ask me questions that I'd be like, you're going to have to repeat yourself, because I was partially going to sleep at that. Because you took too long to say your question. Yeah. That's something that my wife and I talk about all the time. We're blessed that I'm able to stay at home and she's able to stay at home. I mean, those things that people do, they send their kids to daycare, which is completely fine. Yeah, of course, there's always ways to get around it, but we're super blessed that we can just stay home all day and be with the baby. Yeah. Well, thanks again for doing this, man. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Yeah. Nice to finally meet you. One conversation with you. Yeah.