Sarah Zucker - Selling Screen-Based Artwork on Blockchain

JohnPaul: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. I’m your host JP Berwick and this is Digital Gold. Known to many as the Bitcoin Kid, I started my own cryptocurrency out of my parents’ basement back in 2013. The goal of this show is to simplify the crypto world and explore how it changes the way the world thinks about money through conversations with thought leaders [00:00:15] in this space.

[00:00:16] JP Berwick is the founder and CEO of Orm Capital Ventures. All opinions expressed by JP and podcast guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Orm Capital Ventures. This podcast is intended for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions.

JohnPaul: [00:00:42] Welcome to the Digital Gold Podcast. Today I’m here with Sarah Zucker who is an artist based in Los Angeles. Her work merges the gorgeous and through humor, mysticism and the inner play of cutting edge plus obsolete technologies. She works across medium specializing in mixing digital and analog video techniques including the use of VHS. Her gift card has been viewed [00:01:00] over 6 billion times on Giffy. She became a Jeopardy champion on September 27, 2013. She writes short form comedy, television, feature scripts and is in art and culture articles. Welcome to the show. I’m excited to hear about this crazy story you have and how you got into NFTs.

Sarah: [00:01:16] Hi JP, thanks for having me. I’m excited to tell you all about it. It’s been a crazy journey. You just myself learning about the progression of NFTs and seeing this pace explode. I actually listened to Snoop Dogg launch his NFT last week. I wanted to start there which is what got you interested in crypto art and maybe more specifically what [00:01:37] got you interested in art in general and how have you seen crypto art or NFTs allow you to express yourself more fully through this new technological medium? So, art has been a lifelong pursuit of mine which I’m sure is probably true of many artists you’ll meet. I got into photography as a teenager and that was my main medium for 10 years.

Sarah: [00:01:57] I was very active as a photographer in early social media photography scenes and I transitioned to more of a video art and motion approach around 2011. So, because I started really focusing on video and animated gifts around that time, that was also right alongside the rise of cryptocurrency and I would say it was around 2014, 2014, 2015 with the advent of Ethereum. [00:02:24] There started to be a lot of talk in like new media artists circles about this potential we would have one day with this new blockchain that would let us create what we now have come to call NFTs. So, really it was around that time I was that was primarily what I was doing as an artist. My primary pursuit was animated gifts which sounds like crazy

Sarah: [00:02:46] to people. It sounded crazy I’m sure to my parents. That was like what I was focusing on but it really just combined so many of my very specific skills and talents I think. I have played drums since I was 10 so I often think of the kind of work I do. I took my photography practice and then I just added in the drumming like animated gifts have this [00:03:09] rhythm to them. They have the looping effect. There’s a musicality. So, yeah, at that time I got really into the idea of cryptocurrency. I doke was my first crypto back then and I would certainly not say it was like a huge crypto enthusiast but I was definitely very excited about the potential of it. And so, really ever since that time I knew this potential

Sarah: [00:03:31] existed and I just had my eyes and ears open. I’m not the person who invents non-fungible tokens but I’m definitely the person who knows that’s coming and I want to be there when it arrives. And it was then in early 2019 an artist I knew through an event I used to curate. I curated this visual music event in Los Angeles called Prismpipe from 2014 [00:03:53] to 2016 and through that I got to meet and examine the work of so many incredible gift and video artists. Like a lot of people who now I’m very happy to say are big players in the NFT scene. And so, it was an artist I knew through that, a Europe moron who I had shown at this event. I followed a lot of these people on social media and I saw him

Sarah: [00:04:15] starting to post about, hey, come by my work. I’m selling an edition of my work on Super Rare. And I was like, whoa, whoa, like what now? Like how does one sell a gift? Is this that thing I’ve been waiting for? Oh, I think it is. It’s here. It’s time. And scoping out Super Rare and just being like, oh my God, this is the thing. This is the moment. These [00:04:36] are the people who figured it out. And part of that for me is like I said, having a background in photography, I worked for a time as a curator of fine art photography in 2011. So I actually had gotten this education in the fine art photographic print market learning what editions were, what’s, you know, how scarcity affected value, what was desirable, what was less desirable,

Sarah: [00:05:00] et cetera. So I think that for me was the perfect storm of this knowledge I had from my experience working in the fine art print market, realizing that is exactly translatable to what NFTs are. It’s allowing us to create editions the same way a photographer or any artist could create a print of their work. It’s allowing myself and others who do animation, [00:05:25] who do video, who do things that I would call screen based art. It allows us to have that same container of an edition. I applied to Super Rare and I actually just celebrated my two year crypto art anniversary on April 4th. Yeah. So April 4th, 2019 was my first, my Genesis token as we now call them, we didn’t have names for any of the stuff back then,

Sarah: [00:05:49] which I’m saying this like at the olden days of 2019, but crypto people get it. That is like olden days in crypto terms because so much happens in this space like every single day. Yeah, it’s been this incredible journey. I’ve been, like I said, I think very fortunate that my unique combination of skills and experience just coalesce to make it something that I, [00:06:12] from the second I got into it, was just, I ran with it because it just, it just, it makes sense to my brain. As you mentioned, working for that fine art studio helped you connect those dots of, okay, how can this digital artwork actually have scarcity? I feel like a lot of people are starting to ask that question right now, which is, why does NFT have value? Why is this one selling for

Sarah: [00:06:32] $69 million versus only a couple hundred dollars here? Here’s this market that I’ve determined. What type of stats are going to be necessary for to support an NFT, what type of attributes? When it comes to working in the NFT space, what are you most excited for in the next, let’s say, three months for just improvements in the space or opportunities that you’re working on, either on [00:06:53] a platform level, a feature level, even an art NFT level? Yeah, that’s a great question. I think what I’m most excited for is something that it’s particular to myself and probably other artists who are in the same sort of place with their work that I am. But I think it’s something that will, in time, it’s something that ultimately will be good for all artists. I’m always careful when I am,

Sarah: [00:07:17] when I’m preaching the virtues of NFTs, to make it very clear to people that I think every artist should get into this, every artist should explore it as part of their practice. But I would never tell people, hey, come on in, it’s easy money. Like, it has not, for me, it has not been easy money. I work my ass off on this, and I’m deeply passionate about it. I just qualify that to point [00:07:40] out when I say these things that this is where I am after two years and having put a lot of work

JohnPaul: [00:07:45] in. So that’s to say that what I’m excited about is that we’re going to see, I think, new platforms

Sarah: [00:07:51] emerge. I’m already, I’m working with a platform that’s called Blank Network. That’s, I think, by the time this comes out, will be live and other platforms. I think that we’ll see all the platforms lean into this, that we’re going to start to see more customizability for artists, because like myself as an artist, having really developed my audience and my following and the excitement around my work, [00:08:14] what works for everyone doesn’t necessarily work for each individual artist. And I think the more we see tools being given to artists that lets them really get their own vibe going with their work, get set their own royalty standards, set their own standards of doing things, I think that for certain artists, that will end up becoming a huge catalyst for just a whole next level. And

Sarah: [00:08:39] what I mean by that is something that we already have the capability to do, but that I think we’re going to see be used more and in more creative ways is artists having their own smart contracts. We’re in this position right now where we’re all very dependent on the platforms and have to work under their banner and under how they want to do things. And like I said, I certainly am not [00:09:02] complaining that has served me very well. And I think the platforms we have are excellent

JohnPaul: [00:09:06] and they each have their own, they each have their own merits that recommend them. But what I’m excited

Sarah: [00:09:11] about is as someone who now has developed more of my own universe within crypto art, within NFTs, the ability to hop to my own smart, smart contracts, which other artists have done, John O’Ryan Young is a great example of someone who has always worked with his own smart contracts. I think it’s just going to add that extra layer of collectibility and that extra layer of [00:09:33] defineability, which for someone like myself, I am a writer. And I think that plays a huge part into how I meant my work and how I categorize my work. And I’d like to think it’s what excites people about my work is that I really put a lot of thought into these different series I’m creating and the different levels of scarcity of each different thing and different price points for

Sarah: [00:09:55] different types of art and different types of editions. So I’m just excited about that. I’m personally excited to explore that more. And I’m very excited to see how just this new granularity is going to benefit artists and collectors in the space. And that brings me to my next question, which is I want to hear more about the process of

JohnPaul: [00:10:16] launching an NFT. How has that changed over the past two years? And where does it sit now? Is

Sarah: [00:10:23] that you’re launching one NFT at a time? Are you launching a collection of five of them with different scarcity metrics? And how are you doing that promotion? Is it through Clubhouse? Is it on an email campaign? Is it through Twitter? Where have you seen attraction? What are you seeing working well today? Or what has work all in the past for you? [00:10:41] Yeah, again, I can only speak to myself and in saying that the first the grander answer is that it is absolutely different for every creator. I was just talking to an artist friend of mine, Matt Kane, the other day about it’s hard to keep track of all the lines in the sand at this point, because everyone in this space has a very strong opinion about how things should be done. And I

Sarah: [00:11:02] think that’s great. You should have a really strong sense of how you should do things for yourself. But to start proclaiming that this is the empirical way that all artists should make drops, it just doesn’t make sense. For me, my art is it’s a digital analog video art hybrid. There’s truly, there are other artists I’m now seeing entering the space who also work with analog tools. But [00:11:24] really, I think you could say my work stands completely on its own. It is not really comparable to anything else that is on the market. And that’s been both a blessing and a curse for people who get it, for people who like vibe with what I put out there, it’s just that excitement of wow, there’s nothing else like this. And it’s a Sarah Zucker piece. The second you see it. But the down side

Sarah: [00:11:46] of that for me has always been questions around pricing questions around exactly what you’re saying of how do I do what I do? Because I look at other artists in the space in their art, just the art itself is so different from mine that I can’t really model what I do after what they do. I’m often very open on Twitter and such with other artists to go, guys, the way I figured out how [00:12:09] to do what I do is try something and often fail and then figure out, okay, that was not the way to do that. I am going to do it better next time. And the funny part of blockchain, right, is like, you can’t exactly sweep those fails under the rug. Everything’s public and historical at blockchain. And so I’ve gotten really good at actually embracing that my mistakes are what have allowed me to

Sarah: [00:12:33] develop best practices and being very open and proud of that fact that I am unafraid to just try something because we invented this, right? Like this group of us who came in in those early days, there were no best practices. There were not terms like Genesis token. There was no coldy method, coldy made it up. And now we all get throughout the space. So to speak to your question of what has [00:12:57] changed is obviously we have way more platforms than we used to and way more options of how we do things. And like I said, that’s about to be it be exploded once again and to even more options of how to do things in the early days. And when I was only releasing my work on Super Rare for that first, I don’t know, year and a half of it, Super Rare didn’t have video capability, I think

Sarah: [00:13:18] until early 2020, I’ve lately been seeing this huge uptick of interest in my early tokens from 2019. And not just myself, like really all of us who were on the platform in 2019, those pieces have become really collectible. And part of it, I think is it’s funny enough, it’s the constraint of it, right? Like that it had to be gifts. And I think back then, I think we had a much smaller [00:13:39] file size like now you can do up to 50 megabytes. And I think back then it was maybe only 25. So when you see some of my earlier pieces, there are a lot lower resolution because I had to play with the constraint I had. And I think that’s just an interesting factor of collectability, right? It’s not always the thing that is the most high def high quality thing that is the most collectible.

Sarah: [00:14:02] Often it is the thing where we recognize that constraint and we recognize therefore the rareness of those early pieces. So that has changed a lot in that regard. I also at the beginning, I think I minted three things on my first day on Super Rare, because I was thinking of it coming to it as someone who had done art sales in the IRL world in the past. I was thinking [00:14:24] of it like, this is my shop, this is my store, and I’m going to put a few items in my store. And then some people bought them and I went, that’s so nice. Now I’m going to put new things in my store. And the idea of a drop, we really, I didn’t know anyone who was like doing that in those early days. Really, I think a lot of us were doing it that way, where it was just like, here’s some nice things.

Sarah: [00:14:45] Here are my wares. Would you like to check them out? And then that really, I think by the end of 2019, we saw this fascinating acceleration happen. I specifically remember it being artists like Trevor Jones and Coley, his work, like where all of a sudden by the end of 2019, the amount of money people were making started to get more into the thousands, which now that’s even that sounds quaint. [00:15:12] But in those early days, all of I have this massive collection on Super Rare and it’s things I picked up for 50 bucks here or there. And I was selling my work for 50 bucks here or there. It was a completely different mindset about what we were doing because it was also like gas fees back then were like a dollar or two. It was not the kind of, you didn’t have to agonize over every

Sarah: [00:15:34] transaction the way you do now because the gas can be so punishing. And yeah, so then it was really with within 2020, early 2020. And I weirdly enough, it certainly wasn’t intentional on anyone’s part, but I think the pandemic created this perfect scenario for crypto art to take off. I’ve said this another podcast where it’s like the entire world had to go online and they were terrified [00:15:59] about it. How do we exist online? And they came to internet people like myself and other crypto artists going help us. How do we exist in the metaverse? So I really think that weirdly enough, the story of the rise of crypto art and NFTs is directly correlated to the pandemic. And so yeah, we started Nifty Gateway emerged terrible, really became a thing in 2020. And that’s when you started

Sarah: [00:16:24] to see more of this idea of limited editions taking off. Known origin was around. And I was on known origin around the same time I started on super rare and I did a few limited editions there. But it just it seemed through all the 2019 limited editions weren’t really what people were interested in. So I personally didn’t put a lot of attention into that. And then for me in 2020, it was when I [00:16:46] checked out rarerable around the summer, I went, okay, this is really this is an interesting space. Again, they offered us way more tools, way more customizability for how we put out drops for how we released things. And I saw that limited editions were actually selling very well on rarerable. So I came up with an entire game plan. I’ve been creating analog video art since 2015. And I had

Sarah: [00:17:10] all these pieces that were like early works of mine before I’d even upgraded my hardware to have like really nice higher resolution transfers of my work. So I had all these pieces that I thought these are great, but they’re earlier you can tell they’re earlier they they have just a different different energy to them than my more recent work. But I thought these are fantastic. And again, [00:17:31] my background in the fine art photography market, I recognize the importance of having work available at multiple price points, especially now I’m in the position where my single edition sell for quite large sums. It’s not just about wanting that sense of that sense of approachability and that sense of equality of part of it is that for me. I want collectors of every stripe to feel like

Sarah: [00:17:53] they can participate in collecting Sarah Zuckers works, right? Like I don’t want it to only be for a very small group of whales. So part of it’s that and part of it is also just recognizing that a limited edition, if you do it right, can still have a great degree of desirability and collectability around it. And the fact that more collectors can hold it is actually making your work. You’re [00:18:16] just building your collector base. I really I think that for me is when my market overall really took off was this series of early works I released as limited editions of 10 on Rareable, a back in like August, September, October of 2020. And these things would just sell out like immediately because I was pricing them very thoughtfully. It was pricing them to move quickly. And really ever since

Sarah: [00:18:39] then I’ve only seen my market accelerate and it put me in this position now to be exploring new models of how I sell my work. So that’s been my experience. And again, it’s obviously I’ve always been balancing the fact that my work does not have any other comparable artists that I can compare myself to. So I have to make up my own thing as I go. Well, also I’m very involved in [00:19:01] the community and I’m very I’m always studying what other people are doing, what’s working, what isn’t working, and figuring out ways to adapt that for my own for my own body of work. That was a great explanation of just how the process has changed of publishing on these platforms. Because most people I feel like in the NFT space just came in the past three months.

Sarah: [00:19:20] And they’re understanding, okay, rarerable, what’s all these different platforms, how wise are so many. So it’s great to see that it has been a journey that you’re able to share. And not only for yourself, but for the platforms and the features sets and the creating of the art. And you mentioned bringing back the vintage stuffs older pieces of art you created. That’s where I want to take [00:19:37] this next question, which is how do you create that vintage look or what technologies do you use when you are creating these pieces of art? I’d love to hear more about maybe the creation process. And as we just touched on like the NFT and the distribution process. Sure. Yeah, I’d love to talk about my particular process. So like I said, I’ve been making art

Sarah: [00:19:56] my whole life, but specifically like in a professional or semi professional capacity since I was a teenager, I got into photography and I was particularly drawn to film photography as a teenager. So even back then I was always accumulating old film cameras and like hacking them doing my own stuff with them. And that’s I think really gave way to this practice I have now that is the same [00:20:18] idea, but with video. Like I said, I started in 2015 doing analog video art, meaning the most simple way to put it is like VHS and old, the old type of video before everything went digital. But I’m also not a purist. And that’s something I often point out to people that I consider my work a digital analog hybrid. And it’s because for me, of course, the aesthetic is retro, right?

Sarah: [00:20:40] If you see something that’s on VHS, you’re instantly like, whoa, that’s like the 90s, man. And I like that. I like that people have that response to it. But I specifically bring in a lot of digital techniques and a lot of cutting edge techniques, right? Of like, I use AR and 3D and all these things, because I really for me is less about making things look retro. And it’s more [00:21:02] about just taking us out of our present moment. I’m very fascinated by transhumanism and the singularity. So it’s actually connected to that for me. We’re on this like parabola of technological advancement. So I’m purposefully taking up these tools that are like as old as I am to just make everyone take a step out of the sleek shininess of our current digital experience and kind of just

Sarah: [00:21:26] experience my art mediated in this different way in this way that at once you go, whoa, that’s familiar, right? That’s what things look like when I was a child. But then as you sit with it a little longer, you’re like, but things couldn’t quite look like that when I was a child. We didn’t have the technologies we have now. So it’s really about that, right? It’s like an aesthetic intervention, [00:21:46] I like to call it. It’s a way of bringing the viewer into my dimension, because I often think of everything I make is like this grander kind of story I’m weaving over time. As I myself am exploring my own transhuman experience and what it has been to, I was born the year the internet was switched on and I’ve been online since I was a child. My screen name I used the Sarah show I came up with

Sarah: [00:22:12] when I was nine and I’ve used it ever since. And now I feel a little funny about it because it sounds like a screen name like a child would come up with. When you’ve had something that long, you just got to commit to it. You got to stick with it. Yeah, so that’s to say that the way I work is that I have built what I call, it’s an analog rig. I also sometimes call it my video altar because part [00:22:33] of it is this big like vintage CRT TV that I have bedazzled with gems and I have a whole, it’s an altar, right? Which is just funny to me. It’s not I’m not I love to play with mystical terminology and just the idea of mysticism, but in the slippery tricky way. I’m not I’m not actually I would say my belief system is not actually that new age exactly. I’m a rational person in many ways

Sarah: [00:22:58] and how I approach things, but I love the narrative of it. And I love just taking up the language of mysticism and the language of alchemy, really, because I just feel it is a much more poetic way of explaining what I do and describing what I do. So yeah, the way most of my work works is I create animation on my computer. I use Adobe creative suite, like every other creator working [00:23:23] today, because I often try to make that clear to people if I’m not like, I’m not like an old timey person. I’m not I’m not a purist. I’m not like, oh, it all has to be created as though computers didn’t exist. Like I am a computer person for sure. So I do a lot of digital animation. I also do a lot of footage. I have I’m fortunate to have studio space. So I film a lot of stuff live

Sarah: [00:23:45] and then I pipe it into this analog system, which is all these vintage devices, things I’ve rescued from the depths of eBay. And I have devices that let that are like custom built glitch devices that let me add all this these processing effects in within the analog ecosystem and mixers and the style I do called video paintings. I use this video painter from 1991. So I’m actually drawing like [00:24:12] on the VHS tape with this drawing pad that I’ve gone through like 10 of these things because they love to just die. Again, they’re pretty old for a piece of technology. So I’m always having to like rescue these things. And I’m hoarding them because it’s like the style I work in now has become so important to my body of work that I’m like, I can’t run out of video painters. You never have

Sarah: [00:24:33] too many. And then yeah, everything I do get created in that sitting right there. That’s the funny thing about an analog technique like this or an analog process is I can save things on my computer. I can work on something over the course of a week on my computer or a month or whatever. When it’s time to put it on tape, that has to happen in one sitting. So I have really developed a [00:24:54] symbiosis with my devices. I’ve been working with them for years at this point. So I know what every little button and knob does. And I really sit there and have had to develop a facility for myself with getting every little adjustment that I’m looking for because otherwise I’d be there all day. And sometimes I am all there all day. And it all flows out, like I said to my big TV,

Sarah: [00:25:19] my video alter, and I record it to VHS. And so then the way the work ends up becoming digital again is I either use this little system I built for myself where I upscale it out from VHS digitally. I upscale it to 1080p and I bring it in through HDMI back to my computer. Or another technique I use that again I think is part of the signature look I’ve developed is that I film my vintage TV [00:25:44] screen in 4K. So I especially for my more textural work, I really want all of that. All you can see all the little diodes of the TV screen. You can see the curve of the TV screen. I want that sense of physicality. I think that is what appeals to my collectors a lot. And that has been very much by design from the beginning for me. Both in creating GIFs and videos before I was making

Sarah: [00:26:09] NFTs, but specifically with the advent of NFTs and that technology being available to me, I just thought what is better than that sense of physicality to imbue this notion of this being a virtual object. That’s why I think people are so drawn to my digital analog work is you’re looking at it on your screen or in your VR headset or wherever you’re viewing it, but you’re feeling that physical [00:26:35] nature of the TV screen. And it’s again an aesthetic intervention, right? It’s taking you out of the fact that we are constantly bombarded with just every possible image every second of the day as we scroll through Twitter or wherever we are. And it’s giving you a moment to have a slightly

[00:26:53] different lens on the art itself. Orm provides a bridge to the digital currency mining world

Sarah: [00:26:59] for individual investors, financial institutions, and energy companies. By combining over 70 years of mining experience, 24-7 management, and directly aligned incentives, Orm’s managed mining program is the simplest way to enter the digital currency mining market. To learn more, please visit Orm CapitalFentures.com. As you were talking, I was checking out the different art pieces and that [00:27:21] you have on variable and no origin and super rare. So those are all we linked in the show notes for people to check out while the conversation is happening, to see the style that you’re referring to. I’m intrigued because I want to take a step back and see if your time being a multi-game winner on Jeopardy and can you also share that experience, how that might have affected or how

Sarah: [00:27:44] that affected your art style or work if it did it in any way. But yeah, I want to hear more about that experience than also if it’s affected your style of art. That’s interesting. No one’s ever asked me that. What I’ll say, I don’t know if it’s affected my art so much as it exists in relation to my art, right? Like, I wanted to be on Jeopardy since I was a child. I’d watch it with my poppy, [00:28:06] with my grandfather, and I’d sit there as a little kid and I’d say all the answers. And he was always like, you could be on the show. You’re going to be on the show one day. That’s just, it’s a gift of mine, right? Like, I have a semi-photographic memory, so I retain information like a sponge. That’s just, that’s just my thing. Makes me really good at trivia. I used to be a real hustler at

Sarah: [00:28:27] bar trivia when I lived in New York because my whole thing was I would really, I’m just an extravagant person, I think. I love to get where an extravagant, ridiculous outfit and go out for an item on the town. And I don’t know why it just always would tickle me that I’d show up in like my tiny flapper hat and a wig and a feather boa and whatever. I would wear some ridiculous outfit [00:28:49] where people would think, who is this drag queen? And then I would just cream everyone at trivia. And like, something about that just always. It just made it extra sweet, right? Because people don’t see you coming. Because they think you’re this, they think you’re one thing and then you turn out to be another. And I just have always delighted in that sort of just surprise.

Sarah: [00:29:09] Toss the answers. And that was actually my strategy on Jeopardy too. I wore a very, I wore this like vintage 1960s cocktail dress. I just went in very like, oh little old me. Because with Jeopardy, people probably don’t realize that you film like an entire week of episodes in one day. So all the contestants for the entire week, you’re held together that morning. Everyone’s talking, everyone sizing [00:29:32] each other up. And I just have always known that’s my, it’s, I don’t know, it’s like a hustler technique of making people think, Oh, what? Oh, I just, I don’t know. I don’t have a thought in my head. I don’t know why I’m Southern in this, but I’m gonna go with it. And yeah, so I just, the thing about me is so much of my knowledge is gleaned from the fact that I’m an internet

Sarah: [00:29:52] person that I’ve been on the internet since I was a kid and I’ve gone on many Wikipedia rabbit holes and stuff. And so my knowledge is like self taught. I went to public school and I studied theater in college, not that I don’t, not that I didn’t learn plenty in school, but it’s, I don’t have that in depth knowledge of British literature and history and math and the things people are [00:30:15] like supposed to know about. But if you ask me about bluegrass music and bears, as it turns out, I know a lot about those things. That’s how I won Jeopardy, as I like apparently knew all the stuff about bluegrass music and bears. I, who knew? I didn’t know I knew that much. But, but there’s definitely that thing about with Jeopardy, right? And that desire since I was a child to be on the

Sarah: [00:30:36] show again, and my screen name, the Sarah show, it’s just referencing that that sort of sense I’ve had since I was little of I want to go inside the TV. And that’s like I said, I studied theater in school. And for a time that that was what my wanted my career path to be I wanted to be an actor. And because I’m of a theatrical nature. And it’s something still I do use performance a lot in my [00:30:58] art. And I have it’s going to always probably be part of my practice and part of what I do in this world is performing. But yeah, like art took me on this different path from that. And yeah, I think there’s definitely this correlation between Jeopardy was that chance to jump inside the screen. It was the chance to go and now I’m inside the TV. And that’s pretty much what I’m doing with

Sarah: [00:31:20] my art all the time and why I continue to work under the Sarah show banner is this idea of like, when you come look at my art, of course, I like to think of it as fine art, right? I like to, like you said, I’m always weaving this ongoing narrative with it. And I’m bringing a breadth of knowledge and just experience to it that I’d like to think gives it gives it more than just that [00:31:43] surface appeal. You can’t deny that like every single piece of mine, what you’re seeing is a screen. What you’re seeing is almost like a new episode of the Sarah show. There is this thing I’m always doing where I’m just playing with mediation and playing with the idea of jumping between channels jumping in and out of the show. So I’d say, yeah, it’s that’s the correlation. And

Sarah: [00:32:03] then of course, just that being a person who is a trivia sponge. I definitely think that shows up in my art, right? Like, I love my art. There are so many artists I love whose work has great consistency to it. And that’s what you that’s what you admire about them that you’re like, oh, yes, every time it’s they’re always delivering, if not the, I don’t mean they’re delivering the [00:32:24] same thing, but they’re always delivering you exactly what you came for. They’re always giving you the greatest hit. And for me, my thing is that I figured out early on, okay, I could force myself to focus and just do this one style of mine. And in many ways, I probably would have been rewarded monetarily, like sooner if I had done that, because that’s easier for people to grok.

Sarah: [00:32:48] It’s easier for people to go up. This is her thing. She does this one thing. And it’s that and it’s that a variation on that every time. But I know myself and I know that like, my areas of interest are so widespread and so all over the map that I have very purposefully designed my art practice and my NFT art practice to allow for my whole thing to be that Sarah gets into weird [00:33:14] stuff and goes into interesting little nooks and crannies. And if you’re down for that journey, you’re never going to be disappointed. It’s always going to be a good time. Yeah, it’s about that bringing all that to the work. I love the concept of like you said, like that journey through the player, through the show, through the Sarah show. It’s like there is a individual one player game

Sarah: [00:33:35] you’re playing as you experience this jeopardy as you’re then you’re putting it out through the NFTs and the art. I wanted to touch on the Yo-Meryl studio that you run in Los Angeles and how that has played into this whole journey of yours. Can you share how you arrived first of the name and then what significance it holds for you and your partner? Yeah, Yo-Meryl is the animation studio that I’ve [00:33:57] been running with my now wife, Bronwyn Lundberg since 2014. And it actually, the name comes from an inside joke between us from our very first date where we were walking through West Hollywood. We’d left the bar where we had met and we were walking and sharing a joint. And I was telling her about this incident that actually happened to me when I was 18, where I ran into Meryl Street,

Sarah: [00:34:23] like literally, physically, I was working on a show at school that her daughter was in. Her daughter was starring in this play. And I was like the laundry wench because I was a freshman. So I had to do everyone’s laundry and wash all their like 19th century petticoats and stuff. And I thought everyone had left the building. And it was our last night of the show. And I was so thrilled to be [00:34:43] leaving that I was like skipping down the hallway because I thought I was completely alone. And there’s this blind corner in the theater building where I went to school. And I turned it and I just barreled into Meryl Street, knocked her on her ass. And because she had stayed late when everyone had left so she could come see her daughter. And it was when I realized who it was, I froze

Sarah: [00:35:04] like a deer in the headlights because she’s a god, like she’s an icon. She is someone who I have admired my entire life. And I just fully knocked her on her ass like the biggest cluts in the world. I didn’t help her up. I didn’t know what to do. I did nothing. And she like picked herself up and brushed herself off and gave me like that classic withering look that she’s so good at and [00:35:24] went on her merry way. And it’s just this weird anecdote of mine that I told my wife about on our first date. And then because we were maybe like a little stoned, I got paranoid because we were in Los Angeles. I was like, she could be anywhere. She could be. I actually should keep my, I have a really loud voice. I was like, I should keep my voice down. Like, what if she’s she could be right

Sarah: [00:35:43] there? Yo, Meryl, what’s up? Hey, sorry. And so fast forward to a year later, we had this opportunity to do GIF animations for the Brooklyn Museum, which was actually the first time that a major art institution had ever commissioned animated GIFs as art. And it was this opportunity that came to us through through Bronwyn’s networks, Bron actually created an artwork that went viral in 2012 called [00:36:08] the lesbian Last Supper, which you can look it up. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s Last Suppers now are quite common these days. But at that time, prior to meeting her, I had so many people share it with me before I met her being like, this is so your sense of humor. You would, oh my god, I saw this and I thought of you. So when we ended up meeting, that was her like claimed to fame at

Sarah: [00:36:27] that time. And so right. So in 2014, through kind of webs, she had woven with that artwork, we had this opportunity. And we had already had a few go around. She’s this incredible illustrator and animator. She’s so gifted. And I’m a writer. So of course, I have my own visual art practice, but there’s this whole side of my practice that I don’t really bring into the crypto space as much, [00:36:50] which is that I got a master’s degree in screenwriting. Like I’m, I write for film and TV. And yeah, so we were like, we’re gonna do this, but we need a name. We need a name for what is our partnership. And that’s what it came to be. We just remembered that thing. And we’re like, that’s it because it’s totally like our virtues are things that we value together. The yo is a like, punkie, like

Sarah: [00:37:10] almost 90s referential, like kid, hey, like Nickelodeon plus Merrill, who is like the height of feminine elegance. And we wanted it to really be that juxtaposition of those two things of like incredible glamour and elegance and refinement with just, Hey, kids, what’s up, Kook at. So yeah, so ever since then we have done some really cool projects together. We’ve done a couple murals for [00:37:38] the city of West Hollywood. We still a mural of ours is up in the parking garage at City Hall of West Hollywood called Business Park. And it’s these raptors. We do raptors and wigs. That’s really, I would say probably our most potent work and there’s stuff in the works there. We did a banner mural for the city West Hollywood that was like 700 feet long covered in the entire city block

Sarah: [00:38:02] to wrap this like fence that was around this big hole that’s like being dug for years. And they never put anything in this like empty lot. And so the city came up with a commission to be like, we got to cover this this I saw up. So we did a banner mural that was an ode to it was the anniversary of Route 66. So we did this banner mural that was the idea of all the different people of different [00:38:25] walks of life who’ve traveled route 66. So we made all these anthropomorphic shoes and did the entire length of route 66 as it starts in Chicago and goes all the way to the Santa Monica pier in California. And it was all these like crazy kooky shoes and people thought there was like a shoe store going up there because we were like, no, it’s art. It’s not an ad for a shoe store. But that’s cool that you

Sarah: [00:38:49] got really excited that there was going to be a new shoe store. But yeah, so you know, Meryl’s still going strong and we Bronwyn and I have actually tokenized a few pieces together. She is also a crypto artist. She is on super rare and rarerable. And we actually tokenized the first narrative short film on the blockchain ever. I’ve like my research extensively on that. I’m not [00:39:10] one to make claims that I don’t have a right to, but I have looked and I really think that is the case. It’s a short film we made together called glitch slapped. It’s about 48 seconds long. Again, keep in mind the file upload limits are very small for NFTs like relatively, which is why I think we haven’t seen narrative film really take off yet in the States. So yeah, that was in March 2020.

Sarah: [00:39:32] We tokenized this piece, glitch slapped on my profile on super rare because even still collaborative contracts or collaborative drops haven’t really been worked out by most of the platforms yet. And yeah, and we’ve done a number of other collaborations that are yo-marrel pieces that we’ve released, I think on her profile. So yeah, it’s been this incredible partnership. I’m very fortunate [00:39:53] that to have my partner be someone that I work so well with. It’s such a gift. Like we just, we understand each other so well and we plug in together in this way that like the sum of us together is so much more than each of us individually. And we just each bring really specific and unique gifts to the table when we’re working together. So I think that people always ask me that,

Sarah: [00:40:15] though, I could never work with my spouse. How do you do it? And I’m like, it helps that like, we’re not ever stepping on each other’s toes. Like what I bring and what she brings are like two very different skill sets. So there’s never us like butting heads over. But I wanted to do that thing. We always know who’s going to be doing what when we work together. And I, those boundaries [00:40:35] definitely need to be clearly set in creation of, I feel like any type of art or business relationship or relationship. But you mentioned the writing and I actually while you were talking, watch that glitch slap gift. And I was like, wow, that is so cool. Just the story and how you got a perfect

JohnPaul: [00:40:51] loop there on how it continues. Can you talk a little bit more about the writing experience and

Sarah: [00:40:56] the short form comedy television and the art and culture space and maybe how you’ve been able to take what you’ve learned there and add it to the NFTs or even just what you’ve that creative process that you go through when doing that more longer form writing. Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah. So it’s interesting for me, right? I have no education in visual art. Everything I do in visual art, [00:41:17] at least not since the age of 10. I told a story on my super rare spotlight about my art teacher when I was 10 telling me that art made on a computer is an art. And so I quit art because I was like, I want to make art on a computer. And you just told me my art isn’t real art. So since the age of 10, I have had no formal art educate visual art education. It’s all I’ve all been self taught. And that has

Sarah: [00:41:38] ended up being this gift I gave myself because I’m not precious about my art at all. I do not have that voice in my head that says you can’t do that. That’s not how things are done because I’ve been making up how it’s all done for myself since the get go. Whereas for me with writing, I studied it. I studied it in undergrad and then I ended up getting a master’s degree in it. And [00:41:57] I’ve taught screenwriting for a while. So I have a very, I don’t want to say rigid, but I have a very formal sense of how screenwriting and like narrative writing for the screen is done and how that format works. So right when I’m working with Bronwyn, like we did a number of series for Super Deluxe of people are familiar with the content, the incredible weird content space that is no longer.

Sarah: [00:42:21] But for a time there was like paradise for weirdos like us to get these visions out there. And it was basically that thing of the constraint of Instagram that whatever it was, it just had to be under a minute. And I don’t know how I come up with what I come up with. It’s just how my brain works. I keep running lists. Google Docs helps. I have all these running lists that I’ve been keeping for [00:42:40] years of just ideas for little shorts, ideas for little series. We had a contain the container of one of our Super Deluxe series was called panic attacks. And it was styled like goosebumps. Like it always looked like a goosebumps cover. But the theme was like a series of horrors of modern adulthood. So it was basically my inspiration for it was always like things I genuinely had

Sarah: [00:43:01] panic attacks about or had genuinely experienced anxiety over and then just laughing at that anxiety. Like we had one that’s just why is my phone ringing? Like that anxiety of like why is someone calling me without having told me they were going to call me? Well like that feeling when your phone starts ringing and you’re like I didn’t agree on a phone call with this person. Why are [00:43:20] they calling me? It must be something bad. It must be a bad it must be like an emergency or something you know what I mean? And or like we had one called the post that no one likes. And I was making fun of myself over that feeling when you post something and for whatever reason it feels like it got just no engagement. No no one saw it. And you’re like I slaved on. That was my art and I slaved

Sarah: [00:43:40] over it. And what do you mean no one’s liking it? And it was a cartoon we made of it’s me holding my phone looking at it looking around at everyone else on their phones being like why aren’t they liking it? And then I like melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. And just having fun with these things that we get anxious about that I find that anxiety is so close to comedy. You just have to [00:44:01] put the right lens on it. We are very funny creatures human beings, especially modern human beings dealing with this technology that has evolved so rapidly when we’re barely evolved beyond being monkeys who hopped out of trees. You know what I mean? And now we have all this crazy stuff we have to deal with. It’s like a lot to ask of ourselves. So I’d say that that is a big inspiration in my

Sarah: [00:44:23] writing. And Bronwyn and I are actually developing a TV show together that deals with a lot of this stuff. And that’s a whole part of this. I can’t really speak on it but because it’s all like in process. But I have this whole other side of what I do outside of the crypto space that I’m very excited. It’s like these two lines that kind of of my work that exists separately. But there’s [00:44:43] going to be a point where they’re going to cross each other. Right? Like the things I’m doing with my art in the crypto space and everything I’m doing in the entertainment industry, they absolutely are going to inform each other. And that nexus point where they meet and where everyone realizes, Oh shit, Sarah has a TV show. That is going to be a really cool moment. I’m just going to say it

Sarah: [00:45:05] now. Like I said, it’s all very like in process. But I look forward to it certainly. And I look forward to it for my collectors and for just my community, the people who’ve been my friends in in all of this all this time, people love to see the glow up. But the way I’d put it, like the way the writing really informs how I move in the crypto space. Like I was saying earlier is that [00:45:27] for me, I’ve studied how narrative works. That is my actual academic background is how one crafts a narrative, how one works with narrative in a weird way that gives you this gift of almost being like of like prophecy almost because you start to see in life, like the point you are in stories and recognizing as people often say in the NFT space, we’re still in the first act, right? We’re

Sarah: [00:45:50] still in the early days of the NFT space, we’re approaching that shift into the second act, I think that what you’d call the inciting incident in a story. In fact, maybe people was like the inciting incident. Maybe that’s actually we’re now in the early second act, screenwriter nerd right here. But like that, the people sale was the inciting incident of NFTs. And now the whole world knows [00:46:09] what NFTs are. And so now we have this whole experience of what is the actual middle of this story going to look like? Because yeah, we set the scene already. And now we’re really in the meet of here is what this story is going to be. And in a sense, my writing practice both gives me that perspective. And it also allows me to craft narratives around my work and craft different

Sarah: [00:46:31] degrees of almost Boolean nesting dolls of what is my greater body of work? What is each little series? How do my series interconnect? Again, that’s my trivia brain. That’s how I think everything is a wet, right? Everything is structured like Wikipedia. Every page has links to many other pages. Every piece I create has links to other pieces I’ve created, which has a link to [00:46:54] the whole the whole kitten kaboodle of it all. So I think for me, that is really my writer’s brain is what allows me to contextualize it that way to contextualize it for my collectors, for my audience on Twitter and for myself and to have the sense of where is this all going? What am I?

JohnPaul: [00:47:12] What’s the driving force behind all this? What’s the objective? What advice would you give to someone

Sarah: [00:47:18] in the NFT space or looking to enter the NFT space regarding releasing NFTs and building the brand in that storyline? Yeah, the advice I would give that I am giving, because I am, of course, every artist friend I have is like trying to figure out how they can enter this, this scene is be part of the community study the community. Like I said, that’s how I have learned my best [00:47:40] practices and figured out how to orient myself. I often say about the space it is self electing, that no one told me, Sarah, congratulations, you’re a crypto artist now. I told myself I was a crypto artist. I elected myself to this space. And that is I think one of the founding or foundational principles of crypto and of just a decentralized approach to the world is saying you must be self

Sarah: [00:48:08] electing you must say I dub myself this thing. And I have decided I am going to undertake this journey for myself. So part of that is the phrase we often hear in crypto throughout crypto is do your own research that you really you are going to get much further asking people questions. And once you’ve already started, because if you start asking questions that are based on experiences [00:48:33] you’re having, people in the space are more than happy to get into it with you and go, oh, here’s what my experience was. And let’s compare experiences and let’s figure out what’s really going on. What we think is really going on here based on our two experiences, but like it’s do what I did and start looking up some articles and get on Twitter and scope out what people are talking about.

Sarah: [00:48:53] Foundations blog and super rears blog both have excellent articles about how to get started as an artist in the space. And that’s often what I point people to go there, learn what metamask is, learn the fundamentals of Ethereum and how you engage with these sites because it’s not the same as how you engage with Facebook or Twitter. And I and that’s the other advice I give is get [00:49:15] on Twitter, start with look who I’m following, look who I’m if you know me because you trust me. So look at who I’m engaging with because those are people that you probably also want to follow because they’re going to be talking about the stuff that’s going to help you educate yourself about how this works. And to know that all of us, like I said, we’re all learning this space

Sarah: [00:49:33] changes every day. So you just have to be an auto-didact. You have to be the kind of person who knows how to teach yourself how to do things. And note when you’re presented with new information that you can assimilate that new information and move forward without going, Oh my God, what’s going on? I don’t know what to do for the first year and three quarters. I would try to [00:49:56] explain NFTs to other people and they would just go, you are speaking Greek to me. Like, I do not know what you’re talking about. You’re doing that. You’re doing some weird Sarah thing that sounds very technical. I’m happy for you, but I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see that. And now with people being on CNN and SNL, making a skit about NFTs, now it’s like the complete

Sarah: [00:50:19] inverse, right? Of now everyone I’ve ever met is like, NFTs, do you know about this? Tell me about this? Help me. And like I’ve said, I have always from the get go have said, Oh my God, if we can get this to take off, this will change the status of artists in the social structure forever. That artists have always been like the shit heat bottom of the social totem pole for years, [00:50:41] so that we’ve always been had to struggle and scrape by. And as an artist who’s done a fair amount of commissions and commercial work, I know that I was considered one of the lucky ones that I was like barely scraping by on commissions where you were barely paid anything and where you’re competing with all these other artists. And it was just a model where you just were not creatives are not

Sarah: [00:51:02] treated well in the current capitalist social structure. So that’s been really for me, the investment in this from all along is not just for my own art. It’s the part of me that is a curator and that is an art lover who is friends with a wide network of artists. I’ve seen from the get go that it’s wow, this can really change everything for people. But because that’s how I feel again, [00:51:26] that’s why I feel it’s important that I say to people, if you’re seeing the news and you’re seeing what’s happening for people and going, it just seems like easy money. Sometimes for some people, it’s the right person, the right art, the right place at the right time. And it is and it happens and it flows very smoothly. If not easily, it’s something where, you know, like seeing the woman

Sarah: [00:51:47] who had the meme of the overly attached girlfriend, she made like a huge sum of money this past week auctioning off that image. And I thought that was such an incredible story because someone who was in a meme that became popular 10 years ago, that affects their life. That can really, I’m sure that makes job interviews and stuff awkward when they’re interviewed. And I’m sure it has affected her life [00:52:08] in an untold number of ways. And I think that’s such an incredible story to see that now because of NFTs, she was able to be compensated for this image that has become so culturally used and so culturally widespread. So yes, there are those stories, but especially for artists, I go, you need to view this as just an extension of the practice you have that already exists. And if you do not

Sarah: [00:52:31] have a practice that already exists, maybe you should develop a practice and develop a little bit of an audience for it before you start releasing NFTs. I think a lot of people think, I’m just, I don’t know, maybe I’ll just doodle a thing and I’ll put it on open C and then everyone will buy it. And I see some belly aching from people when those things don’t sell. And I’ve been a digital artist [00:52:53] for over 10 years. That’s why my work is doing well because I have been dedicating myself to my practice, like completely and fully for a long time. And this is now just an extension of that. And that is what’s true, I think for a lot of NFT creators and crypto artists is this thing of, right, what you’re not seeing is the 10 years of work they put in to get to this place. So I

Sarah: [00:53:16] really like more power to you, anyone who wants to get involved. But I would just say be reasonable, be realistic, recognize that I don’t like to call it a bubble, but it’s definitely a boom. Recognize that you’re entering this market at a very saturated point. So be honest with yourself and assess yourself and assess what you’re bringing to the market and assess if you are really bringing [00:53:37] something in that is offering a new value proposition than what we already have here to use more of a business terminology for it, which I think is it’s uncomfortable for artists to think about it as business. But that is the reality of what we’re doing here. This is making art your business. So you have to put on your business woman hat and go to tea and say, yes, thank you very much.

Sarah: [00:53:59] Businesswoman special, let’s sign it by sell. I love that. Yeah, taking the NFT because I’ve had people say, Oh, this is like business, you’re buying and selling NFTs. It’s like, are you just making experience and NFT and trying to explain them that, yes, this is a huge opportunity to take, as you mentioned, artists from that bottom of the poem poll in the capitalist society [00:54:20] and structure to something where now they’re able to own that work, have that ownership and sell these amazing gifts and talents that they have and be compensated accurately. The gift was a great example of that. This widespread phenomenon that everyone can recognize that image or majority of people can. And at the end of the day, there there’s nothing that ends up in the creator’s hands.

Sarah: [00:54:38] I think that’s one of the things that I’m most interested in NFTs is the financial engineering behind NFTs and some of the scarcity supplies that people are adding, the resale opportunity to give money back to the creator continuously, you’re able to add like income streams, royalties to NFTs that I think is going to open up that middle section, a middle phase where, [00:54:59] as you mentioned, if you are innovated, innovative, if you are working with your community, then an NFT can be the right path for you and you actually can make it a feasible opportunity to support your life, basically as an artist without having to just scrape by and enjoy spending more time

JohnPaul: [00:55:13] creating art. So I appreciate, Sarah, you jumping on and sharing all of this about NFTs and this

Sarah: [00:55:18] was an amazing thing just for me to hear the process that you go through and the dedication of two years. Like I’ve been on the cryptocurrency side since 2013, been experimenting with different things NFTs, but more in the mining space. And that’s more the physical assets of the blockchain infrastructure. So hearing your journey about creating and just consistently putting out a [00:55:36] story and doing the work, it’s what’s needed in the blockchain spaces. You mentioned like, you’re not going to be able to come into this space and say, Oh, I don’t understand this. Someone to tell it to me without actually trying and failing and learning. So to end it and wrap it all up, where is the best place that people can connect with you online? And is there anything you wanted

Sarah: [00:55:52] to share with them that your community should be aware of over the next 30 days, 90 days, timeframe on stuff you’re looking to drop or launch? Yes, definitely follow me on Twitter. That’s where all my crypto art dealings are going down. My screen name there is the Sarah Show. And that’s pretty much my screen name again. I’ve had it since 1996. So I’m the Sarah [00:56:15] Show on Instagram as well. And the Sarah show calm is my website. Yeah. And coming up soon, I have a drop that is called the Cassandra complex that is a series I’m very excited about a series of video paintings dealing with this zoomed out lens of the nature of prophecy and the way that we tend to look for easy scapegoats when we’re scared about the future. But all told in my sort of

Sarah: [00:56:39] humorous mischievous way on videotape, of course, and that is going to be dropping on blank network, which is a new platform that maybe you’re aware of by the time you’re hearing this. And maybe you’re not, I believe it’s blank network.com. That’s very exciting. Matt Kane is doing the first drop there. And mine will be the second. So I don’t actually have an exact date for that at this time. [00:57:04] But I think it’s going to be coming up probably in the next week or so from the time this episode comes out, you know, follow me on Twitter and you’ll get all the the good details about that, the Cassandra complex. That that sounds like a place to be. And when is, do you know when that drops going to be? Do you have a date yet or time or where’s the best place people to find out

Sarah: [00:57:20] Twitter when that’s going to be happening? Yeah, just follow me on Twitter. Yeah, the date is still TBD right now, but it’s definitely this month. It’s definitely in April. Awesome. Sarah, thanks for coming on and sharing that your experience. It was an amazing time. I enjoyed it. And thanks again for listening into the digital gold podcast where we learn about cryptocurrency, mining, and

[00:57:41] NFTs. Have a great day. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of digital gold. Be sure to subscribe so you’re notified when the new episode drops. Don’t forget to leave us a five star review to

Sarah: [00:57:53] support our journey to become the number one crypto podcast. Thanks so much for listening.

[00:57:57] And until next time, mine on.