Fellow visual artist (and Meadowvale “Homegirl”) Erin McGean, reached out to me at the beginning of the month and asked me if I had heard anything about NFT‘s. I had not. But her curiosity about it made me take notice and ended up sending me down a rabbit hole.

This is an ongoing education for me, and I am not an expert in this subject by any means. However, I am energized by the Crypto Art Community and have an interest in learning more about it.

What is Crypto Art?

*(in a very general sense):
It is a category of art related to blockchain technology. This underlying structure gives artists the unprecedented ability for purely digital artworks to be bought, sold, or collected by anyone in a decentralized manner. Transactions are done in Crypto Currency (in this case Ethereum).

Crypto Art also provides digital provenance to track an artist and their work in a way that previous artistic records could not.

What is an NFT?

A “Non-Fungible Token” is a special type of cryptographic token which represents something unique (like art); NFT’s are thus not mutually interchangeable. This is in contrast to cryptocurrencies themselves, and many network or utility tokens that are fungible in nature.

Lost? Me too.
Watch this video for a better explanation.

To try and understand it better, I dove right in. I started by opening a Crypto Wallet and depositing a small amount of money (real money). Then I created an account at Rariable and connected my digital wallet. This gave me the ability to “mint” an NFT and offer it for sale.

Since becoming recognized by Canada Council for The Arts as an official Canadian Digital Visual Artist at the end of 2020, I had already begun creating unique pieces for my most challenging client – Me.
I was already up to my elbows in zeros and ones when Crypto Artists began popping up on my radar. Now, it was my turn to experiment with the release of 3 premier pieces. I wanted them to be special. I wanted each to be different.

Sold my first NFT’s

I did it. But I did not do it myself. I got some help.
My digital studio manager (who is always on the lookout for talented individuals) introduced me to Crypto Artist ShortCut. Not only was he generous with his knowledge about this new World, I found his own digital artwork and general approach very intriguing.
Imagine my surprise to discover that the same person who helped to show me the ropes, would end up being the very first owner of my work. How ’bout that –

That’s the best part of this experience. Aside from learning a few new tricks, I have also tapped into a community that I have found to be very supportive. Moving ahead, that’s how I want to be too.

(More available in this limited series)

Inspired to make more

Now that I have done it once, I want to do it again. It is a great feeling to have someone else connect with my work this way. It makes me feel optimistic about building my new digital art collection.

My intention is to #PayItForward. Now that I know how good it feels to sell your first #NFT. I want to give that feeling to someone else. #CryptoArt #DigitalKarma https://t.co/DNypaMwNli

— VECTORVAULT (@vectorvault) February 27, 2021

Stay connected for updates

This is not where it’s going.
It’s where it’s at.

Please take a moment to explore the work of:

Erin McGean
ShortCut