Lithography and NFTs
Spring seems to have arrived early in Berlin after only about three weeks of snowy winter, so it’s been relatively easy this year (fingers crossed). With the pandemic disincentivizing social activity, I joke with people that I’ve spent most of the winter inside, but it’s not that far from reality.
This week I continued the lithography experiments with Klaus-Peter at Bethanien. He’s very generous with his time — he basically gave me a free workshop on the process, which is fairly technical and complicated. There’s a lot of chemistry involved.
The image was a failure because I may have drawn too lightly on the stone and Klaus-Peter may have etched the image for too long, but overall I consider the experience a huge success. Anyone who’s ever built anything knows that everything begins with failure and that starting is the hardest part. I told Klaus-Peter the reason why artists move to Berlin is for experiences like this.
With NFT trading cards and cryptoart gaining headlines, I decided I should refocus my efforts to release ‘The Peloponnesian War’ trading card art book. I bought the Canon pro-1000 printer last October for my exhibition at Fata Morgana, but also because I knew I could make physical trading cards with it. I made a test print and posted it on Instagram, and I was very surprised by the positive reaction. I thought my Instagram had gotten a little quiet so I was really just trying to add some activity. It made me realize the most important marketing of all is to just let people know what you’re up to.
I feel fortunate to have joined the curated cryptoart platform SuperRare in November, as now that crypto is going mainstream, most artists want to be a part of the action, so I imagine wait times are longer and acceptance is more difficult.
Today’s plan: Continue refining the print settings for ‘The Peloponnesian War’ in Photoshop and make more test prints (and get outside!).
