Workshop: NFTs for Traditional Artists
**new sessions added** by popular demand! next week! register here! etc.!
Good morning from Joshua Tree! ✨
A lot of new faces around here - welcome! Thank you to everyone who shared and engaged with last week’s ‘Case for Fine Art NFTs’ article. I deeply appreciate the support and have been excited by the amount of traditional artists (and curious art-lover folk) who have reached out to learn more about the NFT space. 👽
One of my motivations for sharing this content is to create more economic opportunity and business literacy for fine artists. I believe art is self-expression, and that authentic self-expression is ultimately a solve for loneliness (more on this belief here), in that it enables genuine connection. For many, art is pushed to hobby or left in childhood in the pursuit of more ‘real’ and better paying endeavors. As I’ve developed my own practice, it has become clear to me how much my business background has contributed to my success and how few of those skills are actually taught in art school. My intention is democratize a lot of this information in the hope that more artists can be financially successful. As such, I am excited to announce a new offering:
NFT for Fine Artists Workshop
Next week, I’ll be offering 3 *MORE* sessions of NFT Onboarding for Fine Artists. The workshop will be one hour and each session will be capped to 10 people to ensure intimacy and 1:1 support. Details in the link and below!
Dates are:
Mon 11/15 at 6p PT
Tue 11/16 at 12p PT
Wed 11/17 at 8:30a PT
Topics for the 1.5-hour session will include:
What is a NFT? (described in language you actually understand)
How to start (setting up your wallet, accounts, etc.)
Pros/Cons of diving into NFTs as a fine artists
Differences between NFT platforms
Types of NFTs
Best practices for fine artists
The session is best for fine artists (i.e. people with a physical art practice) who are interested in entering the NFT space. No experience required and if you have already minted but are struggling to sell the 2nd half will be more on strategy and context. Non-artists are also welcome — this will likely give you an interesting peek into the process from the creator side — but artists will be prioritized! Feel free to share with friends!
‘Sacred reciprocity’ & Why this Session is Free
These first few sessions will be free & an exploration of the concept of ‘sacred reciprocity.’ I spend a lot of my time these days exploring different healing modalities. Many of my teachers engage in the practice of sacred reciprocity; they share their learnings as a gift to their students because they believe the more people who have the knowledge, the better the world will be. If the students feel they have benefitted and would like to give something back to the teacher in return, they are welcome to do so, and the teacher accepts it with an open heart.
This summer, I paid one of my teachers after our session. As she took the cash, she placed my hands over it, then clasped her hands around both. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “thank you for your generosity and abundance. May this abundance return to you a thousandfold and follow you throughout the world.” Obviously I cried.
I know I could charge for this session and in the future, maybe I will. But for now, I will be engaging in this same concept. If you attend and feel you’ve benefitted, you can offer something back in return: money, art, a NFT (hah!) and/or a commitment to pay it forward.
I know most artists who are exploring NFTs are doing so because it creates the possibility for financial freedom. $50 or $100 is meaningful when you are just starting out so my hope is that offering this session for free will give those earlier in their art career a helpful leg up; perhaps one of you will become wildly successful in the NFT space and then decide to onboard others, creating the possibility for even more people to make a living from authentic self-expression...! May this abundance create waves of the same throughout the world. To me that would be the most beautiful outcome. :)
More Fine Artists, More Women, More People of Color
One more thing if you’re still with me… last weekend and extremely cringey video of the line outside a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC, a big NFT project) event was making its rounds around Twitter. In short, it was basically all white males. I wrote a thread about it…
I don’t think that it is fair to say that was totally representative of the space, but, like many tech-enabled things it their infancy, there does seem to be a meaningfully smaller contingent of women and people of color present. Same goes for fine artists.
As a dark-skinned, asian female who is also a traditional artist, I sit at the intersection of a lot of these groups and feel strongly about our inclusion and successful presence. I very much have an agenda here and my work sharing resources will focus, but not be limited to, these groups. If you have ideas or want to collaborate of mind meld on this, please reach out.
The End ~ Quick Studio Notes
New oil paintings will launch next week! Hit subscribe to get them first and make sure you’re following me on Instagram:
Paintings will be available on my website — alexmacedastudio.com. For more NFT thangs, follow me on Twitter and view my NFT collections: desert minis, oil painting 1/1s, and 1/1s on Foundation. Oh, and come to the workshop!
Much love and many blessings ✨
amac