The Wolf Of All Streets - The Future Of Art Is Digital, with Trevor Jones, World Renowned Artist

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Trevor Jones formally started his art career at the age of 38. He started small, selling his paintings at local gallery exhibitions, catching the eyes of collectors worldwide. His newfound fame allowed him to begin experimenting in the amorphous space at the intersection of technology and fine art. After diving face first into NFTs a year ago, Trevor began striking gold, selling interactive one-of-a-kind art to collectors for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Trevor is now regarded as the lead artist in the NFT space and is spearheading the charge towards mainstream acceptance. Scott Melker and Trevor Jones further discuss the artist checklist for success, drinking wine for inspiration, Trevor’s very first art exhibition, painting QR codes and augmented reality, Picasso’s Bull, Nonfungible tokens, an abstract understanding of ownership, selling one piece for $300,000, opening the NFT floodgate, accidentally giving the cold shoulder to Tyler Winklevoss, the different ways to invest in NFTs, emotionally detaching from your own work, how to display an NFT and more. --- ROUNDLYX RoundlyX allows you to dollar-cost-average into crypto with our spare change "Roundup" investing tool, manage multiple crypto exchange accounts in one dashboard and access curated digital asset content and services. Visit RoundlyX and use promo code "WOLF" to learn more about accumulating your favorite digital assets when making everyday purchases and earn $4 in free Bitcoin. --- EQUOS Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurrency exchange to be listed in the US. That exchange, EQUOS, has been built to institutional standards, but is available to everyone. You can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum spot, as well as Bitcoin perpetuals, and get a 5% discount on all fees, by signing up using equos.com/wolf. --- CELSIUS With the Celsius app you can earn up to 15% APY rewards on over 30 cryptocurrencies. Have crypto but want cash? Celsius also offers the lowest cost loans against your crypto with interest rates starting at just 1% APR. Enter promo code WOLF when you sign up and get $20 in BTC! Users must transfer and hold at least $200 of any coin for 30 days to be eligible for the reward. --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

I'd like to thank my sponsors, Celsius, Equus, and Round the X for making this episode possible. Stay tuned later in the episode for more info. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, and this is the Wolf of All Streets podcast. Today's guest is a well-known artist that's blended his passion for traditional painting and technology to push the limits of digital art. Not only are his creations masterfully designed, but they have engaged viewers in a new way that seems straight out of a futuristic film. Trevor's begun to tap into the crypto art space, specifically NFTs. His art is now the most sought after and frankly, expensive

in the space. I actually have a bit of experience in this area, releasing my own NFTs at a very much lower level, but can't wait to learn from the master himself, Trevor Jones. Trevor, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Thanks so much for having me. It's quite the intro. Yeah, we try. So before we get into the questions, once again, you're listening to the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast where twice a week I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, and politics. The show is powered by Blockworks Group, a media company with over 20 podcasts in their network. You can check them out at blockworksgroup.io. If you like the podcast, you follow me on Twitter,

then you should check out my website. Think about joining my newsletter. You can do both those things at thewolfofallstreets.io. So now that we got that out of the way, let's get on to what's important. So Trevor, you wrote a checklist for success for artists that was really popular. And one of your tips stood out to me. It was number 60. It said, drink wine often. Do you have additional insight into this tip? Because I'm really ready to take my art career to the next level. I think I actually mentioned it twice. I think that was actually two tips, the same one. Yeah, no, it was just a lighthearted joke in a sense.

Possibly. I do drink a lot of wine, but. As do I. I think with this checklist, it was, it's more like a, I call it like a tips, artist tips for success, because as soon as you start putting out something like this, you're immediately going to have people who are going to try to contradict it or to say that's wrong or this. So for me, it wasn't about I mean, I was honestly trying to create a list from my own experience of things that have helped me or that I've learned along the way that could potentially help others kind of getting into the space or getting into art in in general um but inevitably there's people going like i don't think i agree with that thing exactly and i was like you know it's it's i said also you know just take what you want um and and leave the rest

whatever helps is great so and wine is one that helps me a lot especially a lot of avenues i found that it became much more helpful when i have children but uh that's a topic for another day i guess my wife showed me the uh the little clip was it yesterday with the howling at the moon and it was so cute i'm really oh like one and a half year old is such a is, like little, just, it's just a perfect age for cuteness. It's unbelievable. So I have to ask, you know, a lot of people feel that they're born an artist or some feel that it's a hobby they pick up in high school and realize they're kind of good at it.

As you know, I've had Michael Johnson on the podcast, Micah Johnson, before on the podcast, and he had never tried art until he was already a professional baseball player. Now he's also one of the biggest artists in the space. So what was your development like as an artist? When did you realize that this is what you wanted to pursue and was your passion? I knew, I mean, I was always good, you know, I mean, when I was going through school, you know, and I mean, I think most kids, they all love to draw and create things and there's just no pressure and then kind of hit high school you become a teenager and the the insecurities come in but you know you for me I always I took art in high school because it was easy you know

not because I was thinking I was going to be an artist right um more interested in sports and music and parties and and that kind of thing so I I didn't, I left high school, I graduated, and I didn't go straight to university. I was moved to Vancouver to become a rock star and that failed miserably. I learned a lot of lessons through that process and that actually helped me become an artist later in life. So for me, it was, I knew that there was talent there. I could draw what I saw. But being an artist, it's not just being able to draw what you see. And to be honest, actually, even nowadays, there's so many different components and elements.

What kind of art are you creating? Is it digital? Is it physical? Is it conceptual? So being able to draw is one. I think it helps because when you have something in front of you whether it's a person you know figure or a still life or a landscape and you're literally just drawing it you're getting to understand what that thing is that object, what it is from a very, very different level than just by looking at it. And you're also developing your own personal language,

and that's what art is. You have these different genres, but every person has a different approach, different techniques, different mark-making abilities and skills. Some are good with color. Some people are good with drawing what they see more representational. So everybody has different skills and abilities. I guess it's just, the biggest, the most difficult part is learning how to get over the insecurities and to

just to really drive forward with, with your work. And to, to just blind faith and hope that it keeps on working out and that you keep on developing so it's practice practice practice practice i taught for seven years a little art school private art school for after i graduated and it was adults i was teaching like kind of evening classes and and weekend workshops Saturday afternoon life class and 99% of the people who were coming to the class they weren't coming to become artists they were you know bankers lawyers doctors nurses who you know just who wanted to get away from the family for a couple hours or you know explore something different so I saw you know really how people could improve some had literally no artistic skills at all but they kept

on coming back you know week after week month after you know some could come for years and they did learn so you can learn to become a better artist i think with something like singing or you know playing a musical instrument some people are just gifted some people have a gift and and they will always have the advantage because they just have something a god-given gift but what's interesting is there's millions of people who can sing there's millions of people who are masters at instruments you can go, arguably, and find people with 100 views that probably appeal to you more than the music that's on the radio. So how do you actually make it a career and a success

as opposed to just a hobbyist who never gets noticed? That's the secret. And there's no formula. There really isn't, you know, unless you're talking about a formula like boy band or something and Simon Cowell puts millions into it. And then you don't actually get paid anyways. So when I was a late start in the sense that I was 32 when I decided to become an

artist. So I, I learned from my experience as a failed 19 year old musician trying to make it big and with 80s ballads in Vancouver that I had to approach this in a very different way than I'm really passionate about it I'm willing to put in the time but I had to look at it as much more of a strategic approach because I was going to be 38. You know, when I did a foundation year, I did five years at Edmund College, a split between Edmund College of Art, studying drawing and painting, and at Edinburgh University,

studying history of art. So I was coming out at 38 years old with no money, a lot of student loans, you know, massively in debt, and nothing really to go with, you know, except just pure drive and determination and the ability to sacrifice. And that was it. You know, I knew I didn't have a second chance. You know, I wasn't 23 years old graduating. I didn't have, you know, it was this or nothing.

And to be honest, you know, my first, even my first two solo shows, it was 2010, 2008 when I graduated. 2010 was my first solo show. So by kind of all, you know, all things considered, that was a huge success to be a recent art school graduate and to have a solo exhibition at a mid-range Edinburgh gallery. The show was a huge success. I sold probably about 80% of the works. I mean, I was over,

I was scared shitless, you know, opening night, even like on the run up to the exhibition in my head, I was thinking, I'm going to, I can't do this. I'm going to sell nothing, right? I'm just, I'm going to sell nothing. I'm going to show up. There's going to be three people there. Oh God, dude, I mean, I've played music my whole life. It's terrifying every time. It's not even scary to go perform.

It's just scary to wonder if anybody will be there to see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have all that self-doubt and insecurity and I was ready to quit. And then the show happened. It was a big success. And then the reality hit me is that you know i sold like several 80 which was fantastic i mean it was a huge huge success

um my prices were were at that kind of low-end price range of student you know recent art graduate um i think i'd sold about 25 000 pounds worth of paintings, which again, I'm like, this is brilliant, you know, fantastic. And then, you know, you realize, okay, the gallery takes 47, 50%. So that's immediately cut down to about 13, 12 and a half thousand. I pay for the framing, which yeah, two and a half, three thousand for framing. I'm down to 10 grand. Then there's all, that was a full year's work. So I've got studio costs. I've got overheads, all the materials,

all that kind of thing. And so by the end of that first huge, super successful exhibition, I had about maybe 7,000 pounds profit, which I had to pay taxes on. Not very much because it was so low. Right. So I realized at that point,

okay, I'm going to have to look at this in a very different way to to separate myself from all those other super talented artists out there and i you know scotland's a small country and you go through the system and you know it's like i was working at an art college that at a little art school i was running an arts charity so i knew so many artists who were ridiculously talented and were still struggling and I'm thinking like how can I make a living doing this and that's kind of where my checklist or my tips for success came about and it's just and it's it's like I said there's no formula. It's just hard work and, and, and motivation and, and obsession,

almost sacrifice to the point where it cut into all other aspects of my life. I couldn't, I didn't have relationships, you know, you know, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It's tough on a wife. You didn't exceptionally, I believe that was actually one of your tips, was a supportive partner, right? Something to i remember and i mean yeah i get it i remember my wife being like yeah you're coming home this week well violet um my wife she's we've been together for five and a half years now and she was basically the first one to to be able to put up with with my shit um so you know give her credit and and She's stuck with me from the point when I was literally

putting on exhibitions and just making enough to pay the bills for the next exhibition. You've got to have that supportive partner to really be able to lift you up through those tough times.

It's incredible. You said touched on, you said, we were talking about what kinds of art there are and what you could be. And you said physical, digital, conceptual, you're all of them, right? Is that it's in my mind from looking at your art and seeing at least where it's evolved to, it seems that you've found a way to incorporate basically all of the senses, you know, every aspect of possibility and that you're sort of pushing the envelope. So how did you go from hanging your paintings in an exhibition to these

incredible interactive pieces? Interestingly, it was through music because obviously I was interested in music and played in a really shitty band when I was younger. But I was interested in my degree show in 2008 was basically split between huge red abstract paintings, mostly red, and huge blue abstract paintings. And I was investigating the response, the physiological response that humans have to color. So that got me interested in how we respond to imagery in general. My dissertation at the university was investigating the connection between landscape painting and the healing process,

how we respond to our natural environment. And then in my first year after, second year after art college, I started looking into synesthesia, which is the mixing of the senses. So some musicians can actually see colors while they're playing the guitar or their music, or you might be able, see letters of the alphabet as colors, all these different types of phenomenon of mixing of the senses. So my first exhibition solo show was literally using one song, a contemporary Scottish song, which had about 16 to 18 of them, and listening to that song over and over and over and over in a, on my, my, my iPod, uh, back in the old days, uh,

until I created some kind of abstract representation through color and mark making that for me represented that particular song. Interesting. And I did, did that for the whole exhibition. And then the exhibition itself, we had, uh, MP3 players at the front desk and people could then listen to each song that was the inspiration for that particular painting it was a bit of a gamble because you know somebody might i thought somebody might really like the painting but then they listen to the song and they hate the song right yeah i was gonna buy that but uh but i just i like the the concept of it and then my second

exhibition again the second solo show was uh looking at a particular classical uh artist um 19th century um composer and on the run-up to that show, that was 2009? No, sorry, 2011. I started to see QR codes around. I didn't know what they were, so I was like, this is interesting, a box or whatever. So then I started to research QR codes, which then immediately, even before the exhibition just started,

I was thinking, I wonder if I can paint these. This is a really cool idea where people will then engage with a painting in a completely different way than they normally do. And I think that's where, you know, I've always been interested in, maybe because my dad was a mechanic. He was a heavy-duty mechanic, and he liked to fix things and solve problems, and he was that kind of a person. And with paintings, it's such an abstract response, how people have some kind of emotional response to this painting,

but not that one. So I was interested, why do people respond to paintings? How can I find ways to increase engagement with a painting, firstly through music and headphones to listen to the song, then through QR codes and scanning it to see what's behind that painting, and then into augmented reality in 2013. So it's been this constant for the last, whatever, 12, 10 years, kind of balancing act of trying to create paintings that are, to me,

that I'm passionate about, that mean something to me, but somehow incorporating technology in a way that can maybe push it to another level or help people engage with or tell the story in a different way, completely change the meaning of a painting through the technology that's being used. And then when NFTs came along, this NFT marketplace, all of a sudden it opened up an entirely new door for me because I could then look at animations, you know, like

Picasso's bowl and I could play around with, you know for my 2018 exhibition, it was all augmented reality paintings, Crypto Disruption each painting was representing some part some aspect of the crypto space and then i created pretty short little

videos um that kind of told another story about that painting that you scan the painting and then with some of them i've taken them to another level creating animations so really those paintings become three different things there's a physical painting there's a a video that produces and creates another storyline byline behind it and then there's an animation that adds another element to it and it's just with this sorry go ahead i was gonna ask do you produce all those i was wondering like do you actually like you edit video you produce the video i mean you literally do all of it i do i was doing all the videos um and adding them um soundtracks and that kind of thing but with the animations i have done the and sat that has been quite interesting as well there was uh that's how the whole uh jose delbo

exhibition oh my god that thing, man. It was crazy. So amazing. So sick. That's the Batman for anyone who hasn't seen it, but you have to, yeah, man. So my first NFT drop was with Money Alotta in December of last year. And we did a collaboration and he used one of my paintings,

Ethereum Girl with a Mandolin, picasso inspired painting with a big ethereum logo in it and he and he uh basically animated it um I gave him some basic ideas of what I'd like to see and then he created his magic with it and what I realized at that point is that it was a huge success 70th um you know I mean smashed all records I had no idea what I was getting myself into it was it was phenomenal blew my mind and then I thought okay well what where do I go from here I I can't learn these skills um that Mani Lata has in two months or even a year and i'm a painter and i don't want to compromise my paintings well i want to keep on developing my skills as a painter and work on the ideas and the concept behind them so then that's when i started hiring people to create

the animations for me so i would do all the grunt work in photoshop i would take my paintings apart and create the layers and then i would give all that information to somebody else. And I'd give them a brief and say, you know, okay, I want this to happen and this happened. And then, you know, and they'd send it back and say, okay, fix that, change that. And what it turned into was a really big, once people found out that this is what I did,

I didn't hide the information because I actually wrote a blog post about it immediately after my second drop, but it wasn't common knowledge. And what happened was that there was this huge discussion debate online on Twitter about the fact that I was hiring people to create these animations for me, but I didn't credit them in the process, which. It's always something in this community. So, but that, what I did was gave me the whole idea of Jose Delvo. And so I contacted him and said, look, I've got a really crazy idea.

I want to, if it's okay with you, I would like to have one of your artworks and I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do with it. I'm not going to say anything. You're just going to have to trust me and let's see what happens. And he was crazy enough to say, yes, okay, let's do this. And what I did was I took, he actually gave me two paintings or two drawings. And with one of them, what I did was I just gave it with a brief to an animator and they created the entire animation. I did nothing to it at all. I hired a musician to an animator and they created the entire animation i did nothing to it at all i hired a musician to create this the soundtrack for it i produced the whole thing in the sense

and i put it on there and i paid them you know and there was no in a sense creative input overly creative input from their side they just played what you told them to play and they did what you did. Right, of course. You produced it. And I guess it was kind of poking the bear, just stirring it up a little bit. And this is what we dropped. And I wrote a long article about it. And I just wanted to generate the conversation, you know, just to kind of stimulate it and see how people responded to it. And it was, again, I had no idea it was going to be so successful.

I mean, in total it sold over for over $300,000, right? I mean, I thought it was 200 something and then a hundred for the original. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was crazy. I mean, that'll shut them up. It's funny. I, I, i love watching you read your dms and i mean there's so much negativity in the world the only thing in my listen i used to i would have probably been triggered by a lot of that stuff in my younger years at this point it's like entertainment and i flip it into something positive and that's how i view art, everything in life. And kind of, it was a very

troublesome for me early in music as well, because as you said, that vulnerability, no matter how tough you act, you want people to like what you put out, right? I mean, it's, and so it's very hard, but I mean, there's nothing, as you're obviously proving, there's nothing like success to quiet those voices and sort of give you all the confidence you could ever need. But what strikes me here is, I mean, you said you sold that for 70 ETH last year. Most people in the crypto community have just heard the term NFT for the first time in the last three or four months, right? We see Ari Paul and Pomp and Jason, who I know, bought the Picasso's bull, and I believe you said just received it today. So, so you're far ahead of the curve and yet again, completely rolling the dice on something

new. I mean, you could have taken all your focus and continue to solely paint and, you know, and, but you were willing to kind of trailblaze. I mentioned before that when I first heard about NFTs in April of 2019, and at that point, I didn't think, I thought nothing of them. I thought this isn't for me. You know, it's okay. Some thing that people are going to be using for games and et cetera, et cetera. And I create physical paintings that are related to cryptocurrency and had that successful solo show in 2018. It wasn't until about six months later later I've been kind of keeping an eye on things and seeing some of the people I knew that I was following

on Twitter start to sell work. I'm like, this is really interesting. That's when I started to explore it a bit more. So it's definitely been a learning process. And, you know, God, it's just, it moves so fast, so crazy fast. And I'm just an old guy who paints, who's not afraid of technology. I don't know what all these guys are talking about. You know, they have different podcasts and I'm like, I don't even know what that means,

you know, but I'm interested in the, I guess, more of a holistic approach to the whole space. And that includes the psychology of the market and the buyers and the artists and the Twitter storms of bitchiness and all these things that kind of drive this whole space. And, you know, I just want to do the best I can to keep at, you know, as much in the lead as I can. That didn't come out the wrong way, but to kind of be at a point where I know what's going on. And what I see potentially happening in a very short amount of time is that the floodgates are going to open up and there's going to be a massive influx of ridiculously talented big name artists with huge profiles um traditional artists as well who are who are pushed and pumped by like the big international commercial galleries or the christies and sotheby's, you know, auction houses and, and the billionaires and the, you know, the people who are buying the Picasso paintings and the, the Dali's.

And I, so I'm always thinking like, how can I navigate through this? And when this happens that I don't get crushed by it. And so that's, you know, I think that's an important thing for all the artists in the space right now to look at um and you know i always kind of go with you know hope for the best but prepare for the worst because i'm a trainer we have no idea what's going to happen um so yeah i mean don't get too comfortable and that's why i don't ever want to

get too comfortable um interestingly though actually um two things there uh i was talking to i got an email from um somebody about maybe two weeks ago asking me say you know he's got he's got this drop happening on nifty Gateway and it was really nice. And he was like, I'd like to chat to you about these things. And that was literally the day of the, the Batman drop. And I was, it was just ridiculously crazy. And I was getting inundated with emails and everybody wanting something. And, and so I just politely said like, you know, good luck with the drop.

And, you know, I can't really help you out. I'm a bit too busy. And, uh, and then yesterday I was watching a, a podcast with Colby and he was interviewing this guy called Mike Winkleman. And I'm like, that's name sounds familiar. And then,

uh, listen and talk some more. And there was, uh, I think it was her name is lady Phoenix. And there's a three of them having conversations. He was hilarious. He swore like a sailor.

Um, who's absolutely hilariously engaging. And and then I'm sorry. And they talk about people. That's his name. And I'm going to check out who this guy is. So I'm checking out. I would go to his Twitter. It's like he's got like one hundred and seventy five thousand followers.

And check his Instagram. He's got like two million. I don't know. And it's like, oh, crap. He actually follows me. Also, nice girl down. two million i don't know and and it's like oh crap he actually follows me all of a sudden i scroll down i see the video that he's dropping on nft and on nifty gateway and it's he's the guy he's the guy and i completely you know gave him the cold shoulder it happens to me all the time actually just because like the sheer volume as you said of like messages that you get,

I've definitely, I mean, I can't, I sometimes joke with people how much money is just like in my, being left on the table, probably in my DMs and stuff. But I mean, there's just incredible people reach out to you and you don't have the time to like, to do diligence on a hundred people a day. So you just kind of miss those things but it is an interesting it does speak to something i definitely believe which is that like every relationship is important and never never make an assumption when you you know we receive a message for someone and always you know have an open mind because i mean what a opportunity for you if now maybe oh you guys will do something it'll sell for a million dollars who knows yeah and i actually emailed him today and said like dude i'm so sorry i don't know um i finally actually i actually um gave the cold shoulder by accident to tyler winklevoss too in december uh right after

the youth girl drop and he messaged me on instagram was like i don't even use instagram you know i'm just really bad for that so I saw like this message three weeks later, all these other messages. It was usually people trying to sell me Bitcoin or something. It was like Tyler Winklevoss. Oh, that's just a fake account. I click on it. It was actually him. And I'm like three weeks after that.

So sorry, Tyler. But, yeah, you just have no idea. And there's just so many forms of communication these days. But another thing that I talked to Mike Beeple about today when I messaged him back and said, I think it's important that what had really happened at that point when he messaged me and I just politely declined to talk to him is that I was just so overwhelmed with all the stuff that was happening. And, you know, from the cast was bull drop in July,

just taking on more projects and constant emails and, and so many lovely people saying like, you know, love your work, brilliant, et cetera, et cetera. But it got to the point where about two weeks ago, I was really starting to feel depressed and low and and that's the point when my wife said to me it's like you know trev you need to take a bit of a break here because you if i all i do it's like from the moment i wake up to the time i go to bed thinking constantly obsessed with what's going on what's happening on my phone and I wasn't even enjoying anything of all the

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I mean, you know, I can definitely, I've felt that before, you know, where like I've had some of the most successful times in my life, but I was too busy to enjoy the success. And then it was gone by the time I even became a fond memory as opposed to a great experience and definitely don't want to live life like that. But I'm really curious about, and I think the people here will be really interested to find out, I mean, why crypto art? Why Bitcoin? When did you find Bitcoin? And I mean, deciding to do a 2018 show solely based on crypto seems kind of left field. I had a show in 2016. It was uh and that completely changed the way i

looked at things and that was my political portrait so i painted uh trump and hillary and boris johnson and you know david cameron and you know these kind of world leaders they made out of garbage i'd found on the street and oil paint. And they're all augmented. I produced short little video clips of these politicians talking a lot of rubbish. And what that was about was, you know, I'd been working with technology, QR codes from 2011 and then augmented reality from 2012 to 2013,

and nobody in this quite conservative Scottish art market were interested in from the gallery perspective they weren't interested in art with the tech spin to it so that show there with the politicians it wasn't I really didn't think I would sell anything. I was 10 big portraits of politicians that nobody liked. And it was simply at that kind of Hail Mary throw to get some eyes on my work with the technology and say, nobody's doing this. And what happened, funnily enough, is on the opening night, one collector, somebody came in and bought all 10 paintings. Oh, my gosh.

And I couldn't believe it. I was like, this was the the best case scenario it never even crossed my mind that i'd sell any of them um because it wasn't even about that it was about getting some media attention a bit of publicity and people going like okay what's this is an interesting way to create paintings with augmented reality and video so what that did was it for the first time gave me some financial stability as an artist, which rarely happens. And then from that point, the next year, 2017, it gave me a lot of confidence in the fact that I didn't need to go through commercial galleries anymore to sell work.

I could actually paint things that were really important to me, maybe a bit edgy, maybe whatever. And there would be somebody out there who would be interested in them. It was at the same time I had some extra money in the bank that I started to look at different types of investments and that led me to Bitcoin. So I bought my first, you know, got a Coinbase account. I was like trying to figure out all my way around this. I bought my first, you know, I got a Coinbase account. I was like trying to figure out all my way around this. Bought some Ethereum, some Bitcoin in, I think, June of 2017. And for the next six months, just, yeah, went absolutely crazy.

Found out I was a really, really bad trader and a much better painter. And so I thought, okay, I need to put the trading aside and focus on my painting. But what I've discovered over the last six months is that this is this crazy, ridiculous, chaotic, toxic world filled with personalities and ideas that I could capture in paint. But then I had no idea if there's going to be a market for it. So again, that was just another giant risk that I would spend all of 2018 working towards an exhibition, hire a gallery space, put it on myself because no gallery would take this work, and then hope that people would buy it,

knowing full well that there would be probably nobody in my city of Edinburgh that I would have to find overseas buyers. And it worked out. You know, it was just a huge, huge gamble, calculated risk, and I ended up selling almost everything in that exhibition, which then gave me the confidence to continue down this path and explore more and make more contacts and try new things and get into NFTs.

So I guess the moral of the story is take risks and hope for the best, prepare for the worst, see what happens. I mean, what would you say to, okay, I guess there's two parts. Start with someone who's an artist and wants to get into NFTs. You know, what are the first steps? What do they need to understand? I know, obviously, and we will point people towards your already existing list of nearly 100 tips, but very brass tacks. I'm an artist. I've got talent.

I want to monetize that. I have a vision. Now what? That's a really dollar question i mean first off you need i think what's holding back a lot of people right now and you know i know so many traditional artists here who are so talented who will never get in the space because just there's just so many barriers of the technology. What's a digital wallet? You know, how do I, what's Bitcoin?

You know, and there's a fear of, you know, even wanting to know what is like, there's that, you know, phobia of technology. But I guess, you know, first thing is like, just get into grips with technology, get a wallet, set up an account. You know, you can, there's various platforms like SuperRare, KnownOrigin, Maker's Place, Nifty Gateway. There are more curated, but there's other ones like OpenSea or Rarible

where you don't actually have to. Yeah, you just throw it up there. Just put it up there and see what happens. And I guess, and that's where the big debates come in. There's this constant debate of scarcity versus abundance um and i'm kind of in team scarcity and there's others who are team abundance and there's always battles going back and forth but which is the best route to take again from from my experience it's you know i've kind of proven that scarcity is the way to go

you're a painter because yeah i'm're not going to paint 10 paintings. I mean, you paint one painting and you send it into the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just by the nature of the work that I do, the fact that, you know, if I am creating an NFT out of it, I need to hire somebody that can take weeks of going back and forth to finally get the piece that I want. So it's a very slow process. But, you know, I think if you're just starting out,

that's where the debate is. Do you just put everything out there for everybody, you know, and mint everything, or do you only put out the absolute best of the best? And I'm of the opinion that you only put out your best work. And that may be because I've come from the traditional art background where you work all year long and you have loads of crap and you curate your best pieces and you have them in a show and you present them in the best way possible and everything leaves up and there's a lot of pressure.

But then, you know, there's others who people say just throw everything out and get as much visibility, as many eyes on your work as possible. But then I'm thinking, well, why would somebody want to invest in you if you're just putting out everything? It would be like me having an exhibition, a gallery exhibition, and putting up unfinished paintings and things that aren't framed properly and, you know, a couple sketches on the wall with thumbtack in and putting a price on it.

I think it's, for me, it's that, you know, coming from that working class background of, you know, really taking absolute pride in your work. And I would not want to sell anything that I didn't think was the best of my best because I'd feel like I'm ripping off somebody. And also, I mean, arguably the most valuable aspect of an NFT is the proven scarcity, right? That you can put one out. It cannot be duplicated. It can't be forged. It can't be faked. It's guaranteed to be one of one or even one of three or one of five, but you

know it, the buyer knows it a hundred percent. There's no question, which does not exist in the art world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I've done nothing against additions. You look at Picasso's bowl on Niffy Gateway. That drop was phenomenal, and there were editions. I did a Cuba Satoshi edition of 21 on OpenSea. There are artists out there who are quite prolific. For example, Hakatao, their who who but their work is very very professional very slick they've got you know decades of experience behind them they've built up their

brand they've built up everything and so you know with there's always exceptions to the rule you know I can't say this is the one way to be successful as an artist because that's going to be wrong. You know, everybody has a path to get to, to where they want to be. But it's, you know, I guess the only offer of advice that I've got is that it's, it's most likely going to be very slow path, you know, and, and I, I'm thinking, you know, for me, when I graduated at 38, I wasn't thinking I want to be rich and famous at all. Because if you come into being an artist, you know, thinking you're going to be rich and famous, you're going to be really, really sadly mistaken.

I was thinking, how can I actually make a living as an artist? And what are the steps that I have to take to get to the next stage and the next stage. And, and I was literally thinking decades, you know, I want to peak at 65, 70 years old and then live off my, you know, my golden years. And, and, and that's it. It was never thinking about, you know, what, what's happening right now to me is beyond my wildest dreams. I never, ever thought this would have happened. I think what you just described is probably the reason that you're successful though, because I think that most people, especially in the NFT and crypto art space are very young. And the nature of people who are very young, myself included at that time was, I mean, when I was in college, I thought I was a failure when I wasn't a millionaire

when I graduated college, right? I had like, what's wrong with me? I should have already done this and that impatience. And it's the same with investing in Bitcoin and trading, right? Like you, as you said, you were a terrible trader, but if you just hold your Bitcoin for 20 years, it'll probably be totally fine. It's the same sort of mentality. But I would say that you probably had learned so many lessons in life by the time you were 38 and knew that what, what it took to survive and therefore were able to be successful.

So those aren't lessons you can probably pass on to a 22 year old that they aren't going to learn on their own right i mean it's just life yeah somebody had tweeted that actually a few days ago something like you know what what kind of motivation do you need as an artist to to continue to create and i responded like it really depends on so many different things but what motivates a 22 year old artist and what motivates a 50 year old artist are very very very different things so i guess that's again the problem with twitter is that somebody throws something out there and it just riles everybody up because yeah yeah it's hard to hard to understand like the context there it's funny i mean my artistic journey was ending at the time that yours was beginning in my life. You know, like I had kid, my daughter, I guess I was about 36 or 37 and I wound down my music career because I wanted to be home and parent. And that's what got me into crypto. But I think that I've been successful here because I did it when I was in my late 30s and not when I was in my early 20s. So it's funny,

I was ending my artistic journey, but I think it's a very similar sort of situation in my passion for the thing that I took on, you know, at that point. Do you see yourself going back, you know, like, you know, you're doing well, do you think, you know, man, you know, maybe in five years or something? As a hobbyist, I think that I will like re-refine the passion that I had for it because it was everything to me. And it was it was interesting when you were talking about your art earlier and doing it to music. It was sort of making me think about the way that I have collected memories in my life. And they're always associated with music. I don't know if that's unique to me or other people. But if you ask me, like, you know, what was that trip like in 1992, the first thing that comes to mind is the song I was listening to on the airplane or that I

heard at the club or something, and that formulates the memory. So music, I think, is deeply ingrained in me. And so I'm sure that I will come back to it in some manner. But I would never, I mean, you've got balls, man, I would never want to depend on it at this point. And at this age, and music's a little different. I mean, you can age out of man. I would never want to depend on it at this point and at this age. And music's a little different. I mean, you can age out of music. And I think as an artist, it's more like fine wine. You know, you can do art when you're 70. You can't DJ when you're 70.

Yeah. I mean, Violet and I, we don't have children. So that's, you know, I mean, that's a big, big, big thing. Because if we did. You'd be selfish. Yeah, It'd be very, very selfish. And I don't know if I would, you know, who knows, you know, it's, it's obviously life-changing. So you, you will look at things very, very differently as soon as you have a child.

And the fact that we don't we didn't have that responsibility to think about. So we don't have expensive tastes you know we like to travel and that's you know an airbnb and budget places and that's you know we don't really have so it was never about money for us um but uh yeah it's it's interesting the choices that we make in life and and the paths we lead so the flip side there's a lot of ways that people can get into it they can obviously choose to go the scarce route they can choose to put everything out into the internet, but basically you just got to go and try something. But the flip side, I think, is probably the more interesting side to some degree, which is the space is exploding. As you said, we're seeing it explode.

Likely a ton of more money is going to come in. How does someone who wants to participate, but who's not an artist start to invest in this space? How do you make a sound investment? How do you know what's good and worthwhile or what's complete garbage? And, you know, what do you think the future looks like? I mean, there's people who are trading these, like they're trading altcoins, right? They're literally buying them and putting them for sale the next day. It's like

eBay and Jordans or something. So there's this whole other market that's like degenerate traders who have just found another thing. And it's all part of the ecosystem. And I can say one thing, and I guarantee you, there's going to be people who completely, you know, attack me and say, you know, that's crazy. You know, that's not the way to do it it depends on what your i think your your strategy is if if you're flipping i don't think you know i don't have a problem with with buyers flipping my work because you know but i also like the fact that i've got other buyers who are holding it you know um I've got pieces that you know somebody bought for you know maybe two or three thousand pounds six months ago and they've

been offered 30 or 40 or 50,000 for it recently and they've declined and I think like you're crazy I could take that money man but uh and they don't so for me I like the fact that I've got collectors who are hodling my work and others who are flipping it because that generates excitement. I think there's space for everybody. I think with regards to, again, there's different ways, I think from a collector's perspective, you know, you can hit that altcoin that just skyrockets and nobody knows about it. And you get lucky.

You can buy the first piece that's been dropped by some artists you know that nobody knows about and you know like your sister you know or you know it's some of these you know younger artists are coming up for exceptionally talented and they've got like a lot of energy and a lot of skill and talent and and and and now they getting a lot of backing like jason and pomp coming through so um you can take a chance or you can buy bitcoin you can invest in artists who you know like myself or you know hackatow or pack or you know some newer ones coming on who who have literally 10 50 and 20 years of experience and the academic background. And, you know, you know that it's a sound investment, hopefully,

because, you know, we're in this for the long term. We didn't just kind of come into the space as hobbyists and all of a sudden we're making a bunch of money and say, okay, now I'm interested in learning more and becoming a better artist. Like this has been a lifelong, you know pursuit so from the kind of view of a collector now i'd say probably if you can diversify you know try to buy some work by some of the bigger name artists um but at the same time you want to keep this whole economy going as well and and investing in new artists and and up-and- coming artists and some of the bigger

name artists who are coming in like people you know um it's it takes a huge massive kind of movement to keep the whole thing growing and at the pace it's growing right now it's just gonna take more and more and more people so i don't suggest it's just kind of one way try you know invest just spend as much money on any fees as you possibly can. That's my, that's my advice. Only spend what you can afford to lose, right? The same disclaimer that we get with every, so I love that analogy. So you and a couple other guys are Bitcoin and everyone else is a riskier

investment in an off point. I mean, you, but I mean, unless the market implodes, your work will appreciate. I mean, it's at that point where we're seeing that, that that's almost a foregone conclusion. So it's a proven, a proven asset. And I never thought about what you just said, which is like, probably like, uh, emotionally you want people to hold your art, right? You want somebody to buy it and want to keep it forever no matter what. But from a business perspective, it's the secondary market and that FOMO that's going to actually raise the prices of your future pieces. Absolutely. Yeah. You need both. Definitely. And I love the fact that I do

have, I know a couple of buyers, big, big, big whales who literally are going, they just, they love the work and they're, they're long-term investors. And, you know, some one guy saying like, I just, I want this, I'll give it to, you know, I'll hand it down to my, my, my sons, you know, when I'm not here. So, um, that's, it's again, mind boggling to even be talking to somebody who's buying my work in that way and, and, and thinking about my work in that way, that this is like a generational

investment. It's crazy. It's awesome. So how do you suggest that somebody displays your work in an ideal manner? I buy an NFT by putting it on my TV. Do I need to buy a specific projector? Am I projecting an MP4 version of it for people to look at? Or am I actually, is it the actual NFT that's being projected on my wall? Tell me how that works. I think that's a huge question mark for people who want to not just buy them, but actually display them. I think that's something that I didn't even know when I first got into space is that when you're buying an NFT, you're, you're buying a token. So it's not really the artwork. The image is the image. And I didn't understand. I didn't know what that was. I thought, okay,

I've uploaded an image to, you know, super air or whatever, open sea. And so when somebody buys that, they're actually buying that image, but they're literally buying a token, the abstract representation of ownership of that digital thing. And so once I got my head around that, I thought, okay, now I understand this. So with, I guess, displaying it, again, what it is is you're displaying a digital image that is represented by a token, that you own the token. So how you choose to display it is entirely up to you, whether you want to put it on your flat screen TV or your mural,

which is basically another digital screen to showcase your NFTs on, your phone, buy one of my prints although i've taken the print side down for the time being just because i'm so busy but then you know you have if you have the physical representation of one of my paintings through a print or the painting itself then you can also you can scan it and you get the access to the augmented reality elements of it um the metaverse you know so there's places like somnium space or crypto voxels of the central land which is all really really super cool where you can actually walk into yeah and just see the work whether it's on your phone like crypto voxels or on your

your desktop or if you have got some you know vr goggles and you can literally go in and see things you know like seeing my picasso's bowl painting which is the size of a building it's it's crazy um i think that's probably right now the best way to besides seeing the physical painting of mine if you can see it in in the metaverse you know in so many space uh a museum of crypto arts were the ones who bought the one-on-one Casas bowl. They got a few other, my pieces as well. They've got them in this spectacularly stunning. They just actually uploaded a video to kind of showcasing some of their,

their work in these gallery spaces that they've got in some new space. And it just blows my mind. It's like, I have no idea what's going to be happening in five years from now when things have progressed how much did they buy that nft for if you don't mind me asking that was 55 555 dollars so in fact and that's about what you sold the physical painting for as well correct 58 57 so that's it so being an actual painter and artist, you effectively get to double dip on your artwork, which is an incredible, incredible thing. So that's really an interesting way to view NFTs for people who may not understand them as being a non-fungible token. It's almost like you're,

it's not the painting you're buying, it's the provenance or the proof of ownership that is actually being transferred to you yes exactly exactly and i think that's what a lot of people right now struggle to get their heads around the thing well why can't i just right click save that jpeg image or that animation and i i own that but you don't own that you know you you you have that you can check it out on your screen but the person who owns the token that represents, like I said, it's an abstract understanding of ownership. And that's going to, you know, how this is going to play out NFTs over the next two, three, four, eight years, it'll get to the point when it's just,

everybody knows what that means. And there's not going to be a discussion about it anymore. Curious as an artist what do you think it is about scarcity the feeling of owning the only one of something why do people care about the rare shoes or the rare art or or whatever it is what why do you what is deeply baked inside humans that make that of such value probably two things i think there's just the personal satisfaction of of you know this is you know it's like uh golem you know and and my precious type thing this is that kind of attitude but then also the other side of the flip side is the status. You know, it's that ego-driven of, you know, I own this,

and everybody knows I own it. You know, they can see it on the blockchain. There's, you know, you go to Super Air and you can see, and this piece is owned by this particular buyer. So, yeah, I think it's two things. And everybody's different. Some people might literally be collecting. It's like they collect stamps.

You know, it's like it's not the coolest thing in the world, collecting stamps, but it's something that they do because they just genuinely love doing it. It's about the whole concept and the history and these kind of things. And then there's other people who collect things you know high-end paintings or you know that that really is it's partly about investment but a lot of it's about ego and status it's like when you know you go to a commercial gallery and you you buy a painting for let's say i don't know here in scotland you know by a well-known artist that it's going to be like eight nine ten thousand pounds

you know why buy that painting when you get a print of it most likely or you could go to ikea and get just a random print for you know, why that painting by that artist? Right. Because, because it means something. It has, you know, that, that artist is, has a name in Scotland. They, you know, they're, they're well-known the people in the circles you hang out with. They're impressed. They will impress. They walk in and they go like, Oh, that's, you know, I know that, you know, that artist or that kind of thing. And it's funny cause I,

I've had this conversation many times before with back home where I grew up. It's a very small town working class. And there's still a lot of money, you know, whether it's the village or the city that I kind of lived in for a little while. And I've got friends who've got, you know, the business owners. They've got a ton of money, really, really successful businessmen. One of my best friends know he's got all the

toys you know the beautiful cars just bought a jag you know he's got the trucks and the snowmobiles and the the speed boats and the giant house and and the art that he has is just disgusting money doesn't give taste right i mean yeah and... Yeah, but I understand, you know, my argument, kind of the way I described that, I got my head around it was that it's very much... Here in the UK and Europe, it's much more common practice to buy really nice artwork and put it up as that stage kind of thing.

Whereas, you know, where I grew up, you're having a nice big truck, you know, and you can lift up that hood and you can explain, you can talk about the engine to all your friends over the barbecue, and that's very much a status thing. That's where the status comes from. Whereas if my buddy just spent $20,000 on a painting and put it up on his wall and his friends come in,

and he was like, you know, check out this painting by so-and-so, I spent $20,000 on it it he'd just get the you know ripped to pieces like why would you spend 20 grand on a fucking painting right so there's that that status that understanding of status and why you collect things whether it's a expensive truck or an expensive painting is the one-to-one or not so then i guess it begs the other question uh as an artist what is it like to let that one go i'm just getting to the point now in my career so what 12 years since i graduated when i'm i'm i'm feeling like oh man i just i wish i didn't sell that you know there's and every single exhibition that i've had you know and usually it's been every every year i've had a solo show since i graduated there's always been two or three paintings that really really were special for me but the fact

that i was an artist and somebody was going to buy it and i was going to get money for it you know it is what it is and you have to emotionally detach yourself from these particular works. But I'm getting to the point now where I have regrets, you know, I shouldn't have gotten rid of that painting, but I had to. So I guess, you know, I'm in that position now where finally, financially, I can keep some of my works. And I think that's important as well to be able to hold on, you you know who knows what's going to happen down the line if I'll have like a retrospective exhibition when I'm 60 and it's a lot easier to put works together that I own there other than trying to find out where they are

around the world um I like the fact that people own my work you know um but there's definitely some that I wish they didn't get away so Maybe there comes a point where you just paint for yourself. Maybe, maybe. But I like painting for people as well. I just had these Picasso bull prints, limited edition 21, that went out and they sold very quickly. And now I'm starting to get all these pictures, DMs and videos of them being framed and put in that, you know,

these houses all around the world. And that's just an incredible feeling, you know, and it's really nice houses too. It's like, Oh, that's quite this spectacular place. And that's a feeling that, you know, if I only painted for myself, I would never have that feeling. So I, you know, I like, I like the fact that my work is being appreciated by people all around the world that I've never have that feeling. So I, you know, I like, I like the fact that my work is being appreciated by people all around the world that I've never even met before. So what's, what's next? Obviously. I mean,

it seems that we're in the infancy of this space and probably what you're doing here, but what, what are we going to see from you in the next couple of years? Next year, a couple of years. I know I should probably ask next couple of weeks or months because I know how it is in this space. Next year is like 50 years in the normal world. I've got a big project planned for next year.

And again, like I said, because I just was completely overwhelmed and feeling overwhelmed. I've had to adjust things and push some things back i've got a collaboration with pack uh which i'm really excited about that was supposed to happen in november but i had to push that back to sometime early next year just to give myself a bit of breathing space um the the um project that i've got happening next year is a 12 artist collaboration. And it's going to be on Nifty Gateway.

We're going to have most likely it's going to look, it was going to be like one drop every month, but that was just going to take up so much. My entire year would just be. The whole year. Yeah. So we'll probably have three drops with four different artists. Very, very cool idea behind it.

I can't list all the, I'm not going to list all the artists, but some really big name artists in the space. So I'm really looking forward to that. That's also going to be a fundraising project as well. So 10% of all the sales off the top is going to go to a fund that is going to be distributed to other artists in the space um you know for people who apply for it for kind of grants type thing and and there'll be themes and ideas that that people are able to to apply for this if they you know as part of it's about collaboration um you know diversity um you know, diversity, you know, hope, future, innovation, different things.

So I guess what that, the concept behind that was about, there's this toxicity in this space, and a lot of it's on Twitter, and it's really overwhelming at times. I wanted to try to bring something together that hopefully doesn't get ripped to pieces that hopefully generates some some some good feelings and some positivity uh and helps other artists in the space um gives back to the the community and you know we'll see so that's that's as far as i've got 2021 is sorted out and who knows what 2022 is going to bring. Fair enough. Yeah. I tweeted the Batman and even in my limited experience there,

it was like polarized, crazy comments about NFTs are trash. This isn't even art. Someone should have flushed their money down the toilet to people who are like, I would have paid $20 million for this. It's crazy how like opposing the views and I'm the latter. Like if I had, like, I just, I had the thing blew my mind. I get it. You know? And so I, I, I can definitely sympathize with the pain that you feel from,

from the community in trying to, you know, put yourself out there in this world. So I commend you for that. And so where, where can everybody find you and keep up with you after this? Twitter is obviously the best place. That's kind of where I go to. Instagram, I don't. Tyler Winklevoss found that out that I don't check my Instagram at all. I've just started up my e-newsletter again,

which I'll be using more often. So you can go to my website, go to my contact, and subscribe to my e-newsletter. And that will be a place, especially for buyers, collectors, and artists if you want to find out more about what I'm doing, that that will be my kind of first update of different projects, different drops. Maybe if I'm going to open up my prints back up

again or you know nfts or i'm working on a new painting that information will come out there first and then it'll siphon through to twitter later on awesome i guess my last question has to be do you do commissions and have you ever painted a wolf i actually have oh no i think i threw it out i actually of course you did come on. I had a painting of the wolf. Um, I did it in college and actually it was a really good painting, but I varnished it with shitty varnish and it turned yellow. And it was like, I just saw it actually about maybe a month ago. I took it out of storage. Like what happened to that? I would have given it to you.

I should have called you earlier. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I think it gives a lot of clarity to people in a space that just seems very confusing from the outside. I think that just people don't, don't get it. It takes like 10 times before you kind of clicks. Right. So I really hope that I didn't confuse your listeners even more because like I said, I'm just some old guy who paints and, and I'm trying to find my way around this space and and not to offend too many

people along the way but um it's definitely a crazy ride and I really appreciate you inviting me on and of course hey I'm just an old guy who listens to old painters right so that's all I am too so I'm right there with you thank you very much and uh we'll have to follow up very soon thanks very much scott appreciate it