A few weeks ago, we spent an hour getting to know Darkblock user and Web3 artist, Angie Jones (@stixandjones). For those of you who missed it, here is a link to rewatch the full office hours. Here are some of our favorite moments:
Angie, who are you? What do you do?
I am an artist that lives and works in downtown Los Angeles. I have worked in animation and visual effects for over 25 years. I just took a job with a company here in Los Angeles called Halo Entertainment as their lead on Fortnite cinematics. But what I really like to do in my spare time is paint, create things and I make video projections and 3D sculptures…and I am now getting into NFTs.
How was COVID for you as an artist?
The thing is, both through a pandemic and through a financial crisis, I think entertainment and art always does really well. People need that escape. I sold more paintings during the pandemic than in the previous three years.
What are your daily driver tools you use to create things?
Well, an old dog doesn’t learn new tricks…I use what I use for movie production, Maya, the software by Autodesk…I use Maya primarily and Redshift for lighting. Redshift is a godsend. It is so beautiful. You can create as a painter. That’s so important to me. That’s all you’re doing when you’re painting is painting light and it’s super powerful to create the kind of glowy stuff that I’m trying to create with these NFTs that I’m making. There’s an element of realism to the lighting that I try and create, but there’s also this sort of fantasy dreamlike quality to it as well.
How did you get into NFTs?
I don’t know if I would’ve gotten into it if it had not been for Saatchi Art. Saatchi Art is one of the oldest online art galleries. They’re not really a gallery, they’re sort of like Uber for artists. So, um, when you used to buy art online, you might feel a little bit weird buying from a complete stranger. So they were the go-between.. They’ve sold over half my inventory. Last year around November, they contacted a bunch of their artists and said, ‘hey, we wanna do an NFT collection.’ They had each artist (154 total) do between 15-20 images (mostly physical), and it added up to over 2,500 images for the collection. So it was like a PFP collection, only every single one of them was a 1/1…The whole collection sold out in 20 minutes. That was so much fun and so creative for me. I thought, ‘I wanna do this again, but I wanna do it for real for myself.’
What about utility?
Utility has become a huge part of what people are going to eventually understand a NFT is. Right now, unfortunately, it’s attached to some apes and the possibility of meeting Mark Cuban at a party and that’s about it. No one really understands the capacity, the flexibility, or the most important part, the straight line direct from the artist to their audience that it provides.
Ethereum is the premium chain…have you ever considered others? Do you collect other people’s works on other chains?
I have only bought under Ethereum so far, and I haven’t bought a whole lot. People can see this, that’s the cool thing about this space. Everything’s transparent…but yeah, I am very interested in other avenues.
What is the most interesting part about your entry into NFTs?
I have met some of the most kind, interesting, creative people, which is so weird to say because the reputation is all bad actors.
Then we dove into her art! Go check that out for yourself here!!!
How did you hear about Darkblock?
I worked with Jeremy Sahlman [Darkblock’s co-founder] on a bunch of Disney stuff here in LA years and years ago. And I guess I’m on the Black Math [Jeremy’s other company] newsletter and I saw this thing [Darkblock] and I’m like, ‘what the hell is that?!’ And I started clicking and clicking, and I’m like, ‘oh my God, this is what I’ve been looking for.’
The hardest disconnect for anyone that’s bought an NFT and are interested in art and interested in the artists that made it, they want a physical. So you have a few obstacles…How do you get the physical to the person? Many whales don’t want you shipping things to their house. They don’t want you to have their address. Then there’s also the idea of do you give them something really high res now they have exclusivity to print…if so, how do you handle that? All these different things. So I love that you not only provide the asset, but you provide an asset attached to the token. So the person who has the token has the asset.
How will you use Darkblock?
I’ve definitely committed to the usual stuff that’s going to come with the NFT, which is access to private, IRL gallery art shows, and the allow list for future drops. But I absolutely will be putting in high-resolution NFT content, PDFs, and eventually I plan on putting in models and animations.
One thing I want to try is…I can find certain people that I can send a special asset to, they can go print it, roll it up in a tube, go on social media and say, ‘Hey, I got a beast mob. I’m putting it right here. You gotta come find it.’ Then they put it outside of whatever architecture is famous in that area and people go try and get their free art. Things like that are what I’m after…just the gamifying…exciting your community and your audience and your customers.
Big thanks to Angie Jones for sharing her experience with us. Stay up to date on her NFT project launch on her various socials (twitter, website) and set your reminder for next week’s Office Hours (Every Thursday on Youtube Live). As always, send us your thoughts, questions, and suggestions on twitter and discord!