I just published my third book of collected drawings done during the pandemic. This is probably my last, since I can’t keep on churning the same type of collection every year. The idea for Pseudologia Fantastica was almost a whim, and carrying on that whim for over three years is a little long. That’s not to say that I’m going to stop drawing using my current style, busy drawings that fill the full page, but I’m not going to do them anymore with the purpose of publishing. There are still many ideas that I feel like I need to push, so I’m still going to continue with it.
Also, the pandemic, which was the catalyst to my busy drawing style, hasn’t really affected me much recently in regards to my art. In fact, I’ve been much busier now and I’m finding less time to make art.
I encourage artists to make prints and make books of collections of their art. Not only are they an alternative way of selling your work, they are also an alternative way of showing your work, free from the confines of a traditional gallery. I kinda wish I sold prints much earlier in my career. I always thought that my works were cheap enough as it is, and a Glico print wouldn’t make sense as an alternative purchase. But now I find that prints are just as good a way of driving revenue as much as the original. It’s also a way of meeting your audiences halfway, especially if they don’t necessarily have the resources to purchase an original. The same goes for books of collected works.
Anyway, I hope the people who get my third book enjoy my collection. They’re basically the same images found on my Instagram and featured on this website, but it also includes explanations as well as a list of things found on the page, much like an I Spy book.
The corona virus has come to my doorstep. My wife caught the virus. She had a cold starting on Monday, then come Tuesday, she went to the doctor and they did a test on her. Positive. It finally got her. It sucks because it will affect us financially since she gets paid by the class she teaches and not in a salaried position. It also sucks because she’s in the middle of a yoga certification course which requires a hundred hours of lessons. This puts her behind on her classes and puts us behind financially. And to complicate matters more, we are in the process of moving apartments and we need to get rid of our current apartment. We already turned down three prospective visitors/tenants who could take over the apartment for us due to it being a covid quarantine area at the moment.
What about me? Well, I caught a cold, and it’s not so bad. It’s just that my throat hurts a little.. I’ve had four shots of the vaccine, so I’m hoping that whatever my wife has, I’m already immune to it. See, she only had the two mandatory shots. I kinda resent her for not getting the extra two boosters. Maybe she would still be covid-free if she wasn’t “too busy” to take them. Now she has too much time on her hands. And since we live in a small apartment, I have to get really serious about cleanliness and try not to catch the virus from her. I’ve been dodging this thing for about three years now. And I think if I could just get through a couple more days or so, she wouldn’t be contagious anymore and I would still be a covid virgin.
Living with a covid patient in a small apartment is tricky since there’s really no way to isolate her. Our food has been meticulously separated and I sleep on the couch while she sleeps on the bed, but other than that, there’s no serious separation. My wife sprays surfaces with disinfectants constantly however, which I guess would help prevent me from catching it on surfaces that she touches. We also have an air disinfectant running to keep the air clean, fingers crossed.
My friend suggested that my current cold is actually the covid virus. Well, perhaps, but I’m not suffering from fever, chills, muscles aches, or headaches. I also take a test every day before going to work, and so far each time I tested negative. So I’m thinking it’s not covid, but a something that a bit of Tylenol Cold could easily knock out.
And yes, despite my wife catching covid, I still go to work. It’s probably the safest place for me right now, not being in close proximity with what I know is a certified covid case. I also have no excuse not to go to work since I’m perfectly healthy (despite the cold). There’s jobs and side jobs to do and money to be earned. I guess the biggest test for me will be the weekend where I will be at home trying to avoid catching covid for two days. I figure if I still test negative come Monday morning, I’ll be scot free.
So yeah, here’s hoping I don’t catch the virus. I know it would be a miracle, but hey, I don’t really ask God for much. I just hope that my wife gets better soon and I don’t catch it and prolong our collective suffering. Will be updating this after a couple more days.
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Covid got me. No symptoms, but got tested at a clinic and they say I’m positive. Damn it.
I used to love Twitter. I used my account mainly to rant about politics and react to political comments. It was fun, but boy it was infuriating. It was an endless Internet debate. I was constantly trying to one-up or outsmart one commenter or another, constantly reacting to the news, constantly correcting other people’s bad takes. But then I got banned. I tried to get my account reinstated, but then I noticed how stress-free I was. It was like a weight has been lifted. I don’t have to fight anyone online nor do I have to constantly broadcast my point of view about everything. And for the record, I was banned for overstepping my bounds arguing with Laura Ingraham over the death of George Floyd.
Anyway, I didn’t feel like I was missing out the minute I stopped looking at Twitter every hour. I figure I am busy enough dealing with my Instagram account and Reddit, that I don’t need the negativity that is Twitter. And really, the vibe on those other platforms are very different compared to Twitter. On Instagram, everyone is being positive and supportive of my art. On Reddit, I get to read and give constructive advice on many things, or go on a wormhole and educate myself about a subject. On Twitter, it’s like being in the middle of a playground fight all of the time.
So when Elon Musk decided to buy Twitter, I really didn’t care that much. I already wasn’t a big fan of Elon Musk. For someone so rich, he seemed to be so thirsty for approval, so needy in proving his macho, edgelodrd Tony Stark vision of himself. The man is not Tony Stark. Also, Tony Stark is an awful superhero, a lazily-written deus ex machina of a character. “Oh I know how to save the universe, I’ll just use uhm… nanobots! Yes, that’s it!” But back to Elon Musk. He’s not a genius. He was born rich, and turned that privilege into even more wealth. He didn’t invent the electric cars Tesla is pumping out. His engineers did. If anything, all of the ideas that come out of his head, and not from his engineers or any expert, seem to be totally dumb. Self-driving cars by 2023? Highly unlikely. Travelling in a hyperloop? More like a long, single-lane tunnel that’s heavily backed up. Buying twitter to make it more free for free-speech warriors. Well, that just sounds like a disaster.
And what do you know? The minute he buys it, more n-words start popping up, hate speech increases, and advertisers started fleeing. There are many other ways he’s messing up Twitter, but I’m sure you can find that in other places in the Internet, and by the time you’re reading this, I’m sure he’s already done much more than I could list. That is, if Twitter still exists.
Now I feel bad for many of the people he’s fired in the company, but not all of them. To save money, he’s fired about half of the company’s workforce and has let go of anyone questioning his intelligence or expertise in technology or running the company. I feel bad for those people, but hey, if you’re in Silicon Valley and have coding skills, you’re already more employable than I am. You’ll be fine. Or at least, I hope you’ll be fine. It’s really callous of Musk to fire people right before the holidays. But I suppose that’s him being edgy. Who I don’t feel bad for is the CEO and the other executives he fired the minute he bought Twitter. They were the same people who forced him to buy the company in the first place. I’m sure they expected to be fired. And being executives, I’m sure they all had golden parachutes and was more than happy to be fired rather than stick around and see first hand how Musk sinks Twitter.
I really wish the old Twitter would come back but I think it’s all far gone now. Everyone is gleefully watching Musk fail to run the company. He wanted to be the king of free speech and an edgelord, but now it seems like he’s the one in the middle of the school playground being egged on and teased by everybody. Within two weeks of buying the company, Musk is already hinting at bankruptcy. It’s even affecting the stock price of his other company, Tesla. Unless something dramatically miraculous happens, Twitter will soon be dead.
Goodbye, Twitter, my old friend. It was fun while it lasted. Sometime, I’ll sign up and try to learn Mastodon. Maybe that’s where I can get my old Twitter fix back.
I don’t think I need to explain what happened last Saturday in Itaewon. It’s a tragedy and it’s amazing that such a thing could happen in an open area with no obvious catalyst. In any case, let me just quickly go about with my musings.
First off, I appreciate all of the calls of concern I got from people. I live near the area and I could easily have gone to celebrate Halloween that night. Fortunately for me, I had a very busy week, and I wasn’t really in the mood to go out for Halloween night. Also, the tragedy happened on a Saturday. The big Halloween parties usually happen on Friday nights in Itaewon. I’m guessing the crowd was bigger on Friday night than it was on Saturday, so it’s a mystery as to why the tragedy occurred on Saturday while nothing happened on Friday.
And yeah, when the tragedy happened, I was out having a meal and drinking somewhere else close by. I was so tired, I was home by around nine, watching crime shows on Netflix. The gravity of the news didn’t really hit me until the next morning.
Itaewon has a really interesting history. It was first seen as the foreign underbelly of Seoul. While popular, people would rather hang out in other, more hip places. Itaewon was simply just a place for foreigners to hang out. Then the song “Itaewon Freedom” came out and made it a popular place among the locals. Halloween made it particularly popular, with people dressing up and everything. A sexy nurse here, a Harley Quinn there… it was prime fodder for social networking material.
Then covid hit, and many of the bars and restaurants were forced to closed down. Several places I used to frequent are no longer around. Many of the small restaurants and buildings have been demolished, and now a lot of spaces in Itaewon are under construction, bound to be giant buildings or office spaces in the next couple of years. Last year, people started to be more comfortable going out in Itaewon. Business was starting to pick up. People even celebrated Halloween, I remember. But this year, with this thing happening over Halloween, I’m afraid it’s going to once again scare some business away from the area. After all, who wants to party where over 150 people died in one night? It’s such a grim scenario.
There are videos online of people chanting “push, push, push” as the crowd tried to move, regardless of what was happening a few feet from people. People don’t directly see what’s happening a few feet from them, so they could be unwittingly crushing someone as they’re going with the crowd which is chanting “push, push, push.” A smaller version of this happens every day in trains. I experience it regularly. People would push their way in, not considering the people already inside, regardless of whether the train is already packed. These people would ignore the discomfort their causing and pretend everything is normal as they hug the doors of the train. Selfishly, these same people would not move out of the way or just step out of the train for a bit whenever people want to get out, probably in fear that they would not be able to push themselves in a second time around. When a simple “실례합니다 (Shil-leh-ham-nee-dah)/ Excuse me” wouldn’t do, I have to resort to “Get out of my damned way.”
Now imagine about a hundred of these train jerks in the Halloween crowd just starting to push themselves through in one direction. One pusher multiplies his/her force via domino effect. Now imagine a hundred more pushers going on the opposite direction, unwilling to compromise, pretending that each push is not inconveniencing or hurting other people, the same mentality of the person squeezing himself in at the crowded train door. Then add in a chant of “push, push, push.” Push, push, push. Then you can stop wondering why such an incident could happen.
On April 16, 2014, a ferry, the MV Sewol, full of high school students sank in Korea, killing 360 people. In memory of the tragedy, people wore yellow ribbons. People are already comparing the Halloween incident to the Sewol incident, and now I see black ribbons online for the tragedy. It is certainly something that has shocked the nation and made them aware of life’s fragility. I think this will be seen in the same light in the future, the same collective PTSD. Right now, the small alleyway and the are around it is still closed off to the public. Who knows what will happen to the area in the future once things have settled down. Will businesses be affected? Will people still go to Itaewon to have a good time?
Some people in the government are blaming the tragedy on the lack of police presence to prevent such tragedy. I’m not sure if more police would have prevented the tragedy. I don’t think young people and definitely inebriated foreigners wouldn’t pay much attention to Korean police. They have such a weak presence in the country and don’t really command that much authority.
The lack of police presence could be attributed to political rallies happening close by. The president moved his political headquarters close to Itaewon, and it made the area a hotbed of protests and counter protesters during the weekend. Who knows, maybe if the president was more popular, there wouldn’t be too many protests. And there would’ve been more police available for the Itaewon Halloween celebration. It’s an interesting “what if,” but as I mentioned, I’m not sure more police presence would’ve prevented the tragedy.
Will this prevent future Halloween celebrations in Itaewon? Probably not. There would probably be a memorial set at the alleyway where the tragedy happened, but as for young people partying, I don’t think there’s no stopping it. If not Itaewon, there’s always Hongdae and other places. You don’t have to look far really. Hebangcheon is just a few minutes walk from Itaewon, and it’s filled with bars and foreigners (though not clubs).
Stories like this are garbage. Art Basel Miami, his parents, Alex Hagwood at the New York Times, and anyone else promoting him aren’t doing the arts any favor.
In a nutshell, Andres Valencia, a 10 year old kid, has been selling his work for six figures and is being hailed as an art prodigy and a “Little Picasso.” He’s also blowing up online, even with members of BTS boosting him. What people are missing from the story, or solely from the headline, is just how connected the kid is in the art world, with a mother who’s a jewellery designer with relations with a gallery owner. Raise your hand if you’re an artist who knows a gallery owner pushing your work at 10?
Now, I’m not saying that the kid’s works are not remarkable. I’m also not saying that the whole thing is a fraud. But stories like this is fodder for cliché sayings like, “my kid can do that!” It devalues art and the years of hardwork by many artists when boom, out of nowhere, the New York Times just hails a ten year old the next Picasso. Who needs an art education? Who needs years of perfecting your craft? Why bother painting the hands of peasants? Just skip ahead and be avante garde at 10!
The thing is, young art “prodigies” are not unique. The article mentions this, and some of them are later suspected to be fraudulent. Again, I don’t suspect anything fraudulent here necessarily, but this kid will be forgotten by the art world after a few years just like the many art prodigies people proclaimed as the next greatest thing. “Little Picasso?” People have been studying Picasso and will study his works for years. This kid’s works will be bought by speculative investors and that’s about it. And in a few years, another new kid will be the next greatest thing.
If anything, stories like this read like a big “f**k you” to all other struggling artists, or heck, any artist who spent years getting to where they are now. What’s taking you so long? How come you’re not selling six figure works yet? Why weren’t you represented by a gallery and connected to so many people at 10? I guess you just don’t have it. Look at the kid’s pic on the paper. He looks so bored and disinterested. Art success is soooooo easy. Why aren’t you successful yet?
See, young visual artists, are the simplest to artificially pump into the news as the next big thing. Visual arts is so subjective, much more than singing or playing musical instruments. With musical instruments or singing, what’s good or what’s not good is more universal. One can easily tell if a kid sings or plays a musical instrument well. But they don’t often get in the news or blow up online with recording deals or whatever. Selling paintings for high prices make for great, albeit obnoxious, headlines. And yes, it’s much easier to fake or blow up via galleries and connections compared to other things. Other fields are not as subjective and harder to manipulate. This is why there’s no real-life Doogie Howser M.D.s.
Stories like this hurt artists. It hurts the arts by trivializing it. Don’t study art. If you’re not born with it and not gaining attention at a certain young age, just go to STEM. You’ll earn more money there.
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, but I guess if anything, the death of the Queen is something to write about. I’ve kinda been wondering about her death for the past couple of years, how a shift that would be. Many people, including my mother, lived and died with only one monarch in the British throne. Now I get to see one pass, one that’s been there for seven decades. The lady’s been in our money for so long. She’s a staple in ‘Kid’s in the Hall’ and many Canadian sketches. We used to sing “God Save the Queen” right after singing “Oh, Canada” back in school (The national anthem followed by the royal anthem). She’s as ubiquitous to Canada as the moose and the beaver.
I asked a British friend if it’s strange that I’d feel upset over the Queen’s passing. He thought it odd. I think it odd too. Afterall, she doesn’t really affect me much, nor does the monarchy. But I guess I’m mourning not just the death of from what I know is a pretty decent monarch that presided over the whitling away of the British empire’s colonies, but also the passing of a Canadian symbol.
I’m not a fan of the monarchy for its tabloid drama. I don’t watch ‘The Crown’ either. I really find all of the drama behind the royals a bit tacky, and I could only imagine how mortified as a parent and a grandmother the Queen must’ve been throughout each scandal. My wife was never a fan of the Queen due to her perceived coldness during Diana’s death. But people do acknowledge that she did bow over the late princess’ casket, something that was never done. It was always vice versa; subjects bow to the Queen and the Queen never bows to anyone. That bow shows love, respect, and humanity, as much as the tabloids would love to cast the Queen as the villain during the princess’ death.
If there’s anything I’m not happy about, but I really can’t blame her for, was the way Prince Andrew’s scandal was handled. The man clearly had illegal relations with minors and the Queen made it disappear. I realize she’s dealing with her own son, but the whole thing cast such a dark, disgusting shadow over the monarchy. The prince was caught being a pedophile, and the Queen had to fetch money from her purse to bail her son out. It was disappointing. I would’ve let the courts handle the whole thing instead of sorting it out in the shadows. Sure, the prince had to give up privileges and military ranks, but so did Prince Harry. One is a criminal pedophile, while the other is just someone who wants to protect his wife from the paparazzi. What Prince Andrew got was barely a slap on the wrist.
Looking at the monarchy, it would seem like the Queen’s biggest challenges came not from external forces but more from her own family.
Now of course there’s bitterness towards the monarchy over its colonial past, but I really don’t think the Queen is responsible for much of it. As I mentioned, she presided over the shrinking of the British empire, preserving as much diplomatic relations with the country’s former colonies as she could. In Canada, we are fully not divorced from the authority of the monarchy since many of the agreements with the First Nations were with Canada’s colonial powers at the time. But it’s not like Britain lords over Canada, except maybe once in a while when some British idiot would remark to me that, “we used to own you guys.” To which I would reply, “as someone with a Filipino background, technically it’s the Spanish that used to own me. Also, your racism is showing.”
God bless the Queen. It’s like a good distant grandmother has died. The Queen is dead. Long live the King.
Been reading about DALL-E 2 recently. For the uninitiated, it’s an AI tool that generates images based on text prompts. So for example, someone can type in, “Woman buys blue toilet paper in Walmart seen from behind” and the AI will generate an image that matches that description. The technology is still in its early stages, and many of the results look funny during experimentation that some news outlets have tried to sell it as a fun tool to create memes. But some results look quite good and it’s scary how accurate the AI can recreate text prompts into images.
The AI tool is being sold as a possible tool to help people quickly visualize images. This can be anything from helping people with physical disadvantages express themselves to production companies quickly storyboard ideas. That second scenario sounds like it’s bound to make some artists redundant.
What surprised me about the tool is how good some of the pieces it generates can be. They look like someone actually labored and made art. AI can already generate written words to simulate real people. They do this well enough with millions of bots posting messages on Twitter and writing spam e-mail that they convince thousands of people with their authenticity. But now this DALL-E 2 could be doing the same thing, only with digital art and photography. It can make images that can move the hearts and minds of some people.
There’s already a debate whether some conceptual artists are actual artists (*cough* Damien Hirst *cough*), but with AI, anyone can type out any of their wild ideas and it’s up to the AI to make art out of it. Forget talent, skill, or training… all you need is a good idea and a bit of wit. How long before we see a group of artists calling themselves AI artists who never lifted a brush or a pencil all of their life?
I believe it was Picasso who said, “good artists copy; great artists steal.” TS Elliott similarly said, “the immature poet imitates; the mature poet plagiarizes.” The DALL-E 2 and what it will eventually become is the ultimate thief. It will copy style and technique and appropriate it to whatever the user whims it to. I know someone who currently creates abstract digital paintings. He sells prints of his works. Now how similar would the works be if I used DALL-E 2 and entered “Swishy digital painting with soft pastel tones”? How safe are my works? “Busy ink drawing filling the page with an octopus hidden somewhere”?
Now, the makers of the program claim that there are safeguards which prevent people from making counterfeit images, using political figures, generating pornography, etc. But really, at some point this is all going to get duplicated or someone is going to find some sort of workaround. Next thing you know, we’ll have a convincing picture of “President Biden at a nude resort” floating around the Internet.
I’ve been teaching someone how to draw recently. It’s good to get back to my art school days and recall some of the things I learned. Shout out to Ms. Bachewich, my high school teacher who encouraged me to art school but thought that another student was much more exciting and more talented than me. And to Diane Thorneycroft, my first drawing teacher in university, a renowned artist herself. What a positive influence in my art life!
The good thing about the whole thing is that it got me back to doing the basics. For the longest time, I’ve been doing stylized small drawings. Then more recently, I’ve been doing mostly crazy busy drawings. I’m teaching someone more basic techniques of drawing as well as looking at things. God-willing, he will be drawing more like Robert Crumb in a few months.
Oddly enough, I find myself speaking differently when I’m teaching art. I sound gentler than usual and I’m speaking about “happy accidents.” Give me a few days, and perhaps I’ll stop shaving my head and start growing a beard.
Well, if I can evangelize a bit. I want more people to draw. Do what I do. Draw to keep your idle hands busy. Draw to not think of whatever is bothering you. Draw while you’re listening to a podcast or whatever. That way, you produce something beautiful while basically just chilling. Draw in order to meditate and get yourself some inner peace. There’s a science to art therapy as well as mixing meditation and art, but all I’m saying is that just the act of drawing is creating your own reality. It’s exercising control in a world that becoming less and less out of our control. It is both peaceful, empowering, and relaxing.
How do you make a QR code attractive? How do you make a random sticker QR code out in the wild attractive to strangers? Well, apart from having some T&A, I’d like to think that some art would be enough of an incentive for the curious. I had half a mind to design something that centers more on T&A, but I don’t want people thinking that’s what my art is mostly about. People would be greatly disappointed if they come to my website or my Instagram hoping to see sexy images. The last explicitly “sexy” image I created was over two years ago, and half of the woman’s body was covered in a gorilla suit.
This isn’t the place for sexiness.
Anyway, I think my failure to be popular as an artist not only stems from my lack of talent and my inherent unwillingness (or boredom/lack of interest) in doing what sells, but also in my inability to market myself properly. QR codes in random places isn’t going to attract art buyers. That’s like shooting at a flying target while blindfolded. In any case, this isn’t really some serious attempt at marketing. This is just me creating an artistic problem for myself and trying to solve it.
Actually, I’m surprised at how resilient QR codes are. They are still a thing. The pandemic kinda made them even more ubiquitous here in Korea, but I’m sure they’re now seen more in public in other countries compared to a few years ago. Of course it’s never good to scan random QR codes in public as they might be phishing scams or might contain malware, but that’s why I made the image more artsy. Joseph Reyes is an artist. He’s not going to trick you with malware or whatever. If he wanted to do that, he would’ve had T&A on the image instead of someone resembling the Virgin Mother.
Well, if you happen to find my site via QR code, welcome! I hope you enjoy the art. Don’t worry, your phone didn’t download anything malicious.
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I was asked what I want my audience to take away from my art. “Name three things that your audience will take away from looking at your art?”
Humor, satisfaction, and beauty.
First off, due to my need to amuse myself, there is inherent humor in many of small images. “Why is there a karaoke microphone pointed at the Virgin?,” “Why is the imp smoking a pipe?,” “Did I just see that?” It might not seem like funny pictures at first, but I want people to be amused with some of the images I included, even though some of the jokes are vague or are just meant to amuse me primarily. I am a big follower of Dada, and a big aspect of Dada is humor and joy when seemingly strange and unrelated elements collide in art.
Not to brag but I also think that sometimes my opinions are a bit unorthodox. My depiction of Gulliver’s Travels as a horror story is something that is not often considered, but if you think about it, waking up in a beach and being surrounded by tiny men sounds like a night mare. Another is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and referencing it simply as a “moving day.” It’s a tad dark, but I find the idea amusing.
Second, is satisfaction. I want my audience to be satisfied in finding small details. I want them to see small images and know that they’re one of the few that noticed it. It’s almost voyeuristic in nature, having secret knowledge and getting a joke that is not meant for everybody. This is why I highlight small details of my work in Instagram. Take the image above for example. Do you see the phone looking at Instagram? Now, how many people would see that? And the reason why I included it? How many times have you prayed to your Instagram god today?
I often include interesting details in my images. So they’re discovery hopefully brings joy to my viewers.
Third is beauty. I want my works to be beautiful Just like any art, I want them to be aesthetically pleasing, something that people would want on their wall, or at least something that people would be inclined to look at. A friend of mine suggested I make “I Spy” books, which basically these images are, except that they’re more for adults and that hopefully the images work as a whole and not just a hodgepodge cacophony of small images and words.
As for me, what do I get out of my works?
Hard work, time, and humor.
I want my images to exude a feeling of hard work and time. I want my viewers to wonder how long it takes for me to produce one image. I have a chip on my shoulder regarding small works versus large works. People often overly focus on selling large works to fill space, ignoring the fact that small works can take just as much effort to produce as large canvass paintings. The image above for example took 15-20 hours to do. It sure doesn’t look like it to a layman, and it’s something that art sellers don’t really care for. They just want to fill space, ignoring both hard work and time.
And humor, there must always be humor. I’m an incredibly depressed person. Not only does drawing keep my hands busy, it also keeps me from dwelling too much into my negative thoughts. An amusing image now and then helps lighten my mood.
Apparently NFTs are still a thing and there is still much about them that I don’t know about. I’ve written negatively about them before, but a friend of mine who works in fintech has been educating me a lot about them. Now, of course I’m still very wary with investing in anything, and I’m really in no position to buy any bored primates, but I’m now more open-minded about them. A few things about them however.
1. They could be one of the only ways to truly sell and monetize digital art. Digital art is still art, and it is a bit unfair that they haven’t been able to be part of the art market until NFTs came around. This is similar to my complaint about anatomical/scientific illustrations. Why are they not seen nor exhibited as high art? There should be room for them in galleries, the same way there is room for most kinds of art. The only difference with anatomical/scientific illustrations and digital art is that the former can be monetized while the latter hasn’t been able to until NFTs came around.
2. The NFT market, much like the cryptocurrency market will always be in a state of ups and downs. I prematurely predicted the demise of the NFT market months ago and yet they are still here. Many NFTs have lowered in value since then, but many are still worth the initial investment. And me, I’m sitting here eating crow.
3. Many if not most NFTs are bad art. The percentage of bad art among NFTs compared to just plain digital art is considerably higher; I’d say 98% of NFTs are bad art. And it naturally will be that way for two reasons. One is that most of the NFT buyers are in it for the investment. They are not in it for the art. The second reason is that much like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, lots of NFTs are a set of similar images with a randomized set of traits that are digitally generated. Make 10,000 similar drawings, randomize their features, have people bid on them or set prices on them based on the rarity of the features an image has.
4. I don’t think many artists are making digital art and turning them into NFTs on a 1:1 ratio. I think that’s a rarity. The story of NFTs helping unknown artists in developing countries finally make a living off their art is a fairy tale that is only true for the smallest percentage of the market.
5. Most NFTs will not increase in value. There’s simply too many of them, and the initial prices of NFTs that made the news last year were so high that there’s nowhere else to go but down. Just check out what happened to the NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. It was sold for $48 million, and on the most recent auction, it barely got $300 in bids.
6. Celebrities who promote NFTs or who show off their purchases are in it for themselves. They are actively trying to increase the value of their NFTs before selling them. Did anyone really believe Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton when they mused about the uniqueness and artistry of their bored apes on the ‘Tonight Show?’
7. As incredulous as I am about the metaverse, NFTs will be an integral part of it. Basically, anything that is traded over the Internet for monetary value that has a limited amount functions as an NFT. The only difference is the blockchain element. If the metaverse does become all-encompassing as Mark Zuckerberg wants it to be, then we have no choice but to be involved in things like NFTs.
8. I am still skeptical of the element of the artist earning a percentage each time their artwork changes hands. This was one of the initial selling points of NFTs and I didn’t really see a point in it. Why would they get a royalty for items that they already sold? If I sold a painting, I don’t care if it increases in value when it gets resold years later. Good for the buyer. Good for me too because it means I’m talented enough to command such prices. But getting a percentage of the sale? Why? And when does that stop? Until I’m dead?
9. I am still dismayed at the cost of minting NFTs, both monetarily and environmentally. Apparently, the technology is getting better and the process will become greener, but who knows when that would be reality and whether that would also affect the price of minting NFTs.
10. Will I be making NFTs in the future? Who knows? I dismissed them prematurely last year, and now I’m no longer sure. I will need to talk to more people about them. I still need a lot of education.
11. I believe there are two camps when it comes to looking at NFTs. One camp are old school artists and the other are artists willing to try out new things online. During the beginning of the pandemic, I was trying to sell an idea to a friend of mine who owns an art gallery. It was a virtual art gallery that people could navigate in 3D online. She dismissed the idea as too fanciful and would require too much effort on her part. I tried to volunteer my services but she shut me down. Two years in, many galleries and artists are doing shows online one way or another, including virtual 3D galleries. Boy, did I feel vindicated.
I don’t want to be in the old school camp with my friend. I’d like to be more open-minded.
The Weekly 