Trying something new...
Being a creative, I can't help trying something new.
Or, in this case, something fairly new that had barely made it onto the edge of my radar, since first learning about it, months ago.
I am referring to a NFT platform called Hic et Nunc ( Latin for Here and Now ) where digitized art can be bought and sold, in exchange for a cryptocurrency called Tezos (XTZ).
Where most creatives, collectors and celebrities seem to be drawn to ETH(ereum) based NFT platforms, as that is where the big ( crypto ) money is, this just didn't feel right to me.
Believe me, I considered it several times but I don't want to do things out of greed, no matter how big a coin ETH is by now and how much money could potentially be made on there.
No, I'm not saying all creatives/ people on ETH based NFT platforms are greedy
With the aforementioned in mind, I had stayed faithful to Hive's NFT Showroom, up till now.
In fact, this has been the only place where I have minted, bought and sold NFT art, since I first started out in this corner of the blockchain, in November last year.
I probably spent at least as much on there as I have made and I felt I lost traction and momentum over time.
Eventually, I stopped minting art on NFT Showroom.
But recently I have felt the urge grow in me, once again, to make ( more money or ) some kind of living from my creativity.
For starters, I set up a Ko-Fi page, where you can donate and support me in my creativity.
So far, only my younger brother has been so generous as to buy me some coffee, which makes me feel a little like the infamous ( only famous after his death ) Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh, who - during his handful of highly creative years - was supported by his younger brother, Theo.
If it wasn't for the latter, Vincent hadn't been able to buy any paint, pencils or canvases, let alone some food and we might not have heard of him.
The poor guy never sold a single artwork in his life time.
Now I don't want to complain. I also don't want to compare myself to Van Gogh ( aside from being a creative Vincent, born in The Netherlands ), but I can definitely relate to struggling creatives like him, having had my fair share of it in the last couple of decades.
( Us ) creatives are often undervalued.
Although I am doing fairly well financially these days, thanks to cryptocurrency, and I am about to sell my house, so I expect to be even better off soonish, I can't help but shake the feeling that my value merely lies in telling stories and creating visual stuff relating to my story telling.
It would be nice if I was actually paid for that a little more ( aside from votes on my blog posts ), without having to change my style or working for someone else.
Now that's where the blockchain comes in handy and I have felt that since I first set my eyes on it, over 4 years ago.
I strongly believe in cryptocurrency, but just making money by growing my portfolio and trading, as well as setting up some passive income streams, just doesn't satisfy the creative inside of me. In fact, it often sucks me dry ( like my jobs inside the system used to do ).
It is no lie that I have tried many times, in the past, to monetize my creativity, but often to no avail.
I won't go into depth here. If you are a creative yourself, or closely related to one, you will probably have an idea of how much I have struggled.
Saying that there's easier ways to make a living is a huge understatement.
It's just that they usually squeeze all the creative juices out of me, turning me into a shriveled, depressed, anxious version of the Superdino inside of me.
Where was I?
I didn't set out to write an essay on the struggling creative.
Let me return to the point I wanted to make and the platform I discovered and am dipping my toes in, since the day before yesterday.
Hic et Nunc.
A couple of days ago, I got myself two handfuls of Tezos.
To give you some perspective. 1 Tezos ( XTZ ) is worth about $4. Compare that to Ethereum ( ETH ), with a worth of over $3000 a coin.
This is one of the main reasons of why I decided to give an NFT art platform built on Tezos a try.
Not that I am necessarily undervaluing myself ( or my art ) but I am also not overvaluing it.
The fact that I saw creatives sell their artworks for 1 Tez or less appealed to me. It felt like the right thing to do, for me and the right place to be.
I saw an opportunity to monetize some of my sketchies, early process art connected to my upcoming dino book(s).
This is what I started doing yesterday and the following is the proof of it:
I added a fun little story to it, as can be read here
Now you might not be able to buy my art on there ( another reason for artists and art supporters/ collectors to go to ETH NFT art places instead ) but, if you like it and you feel like supporting me, you could always buy me a Ko-Fi coffee or two, by following the blue banner half way through this post.
Or, if you just want to continue following my creative journey without adding to my tip jar, you are already in the right place.
Long story short:
The cheapest but definitely not the worst place to actually buy my art now is 'Hic et Nunc', where I sell two editions of this speedy raptor - with a fun little background story attached to them - for a mere 2 Tez each.
This will be exclusive sketchies. I won't include them in my upcoming books ( although I can't promise to not include more or less related drawings haha ).
I also bought a piece from another creative, today, for a measly 0.3 Tez! Very, very cheap, although I must say that there were 20 plus editions of this particular artwork, so it's a little less precious or scarce than the above dino.
Let's see where my Hic et Nunc journey is gonna lead me. For now it feels pretty good and no matter how much of a thinker I am, I also value my intuition a lot.
Find my art on
https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/Hypersensitivosaurus/creations
https://nftshowroom.com/vincentnijman/gallery
Support me on https://ko-fi.com/hypersensitivosaurus#
If you're on Hive, you can also give me a much needed ( vitamin ) boost by buying me some berries with HBD. To do so, click on this cute little banner and follow the instructions:
