Latest / TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast / 120: The Story Behind Tezzardz and Everything Around It

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120: The Story Behind Tezzardz and Everything Around It · TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by George Goodwin, also known as OMG I Drauded.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people in Tezos know him through Tetzards, but there's a much bigger story there than one collection.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's built a style people recognize right away.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bright colors, strange characters, packed scenes.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the longer you sit with the work, the more you realize there's usually something deeper going on underneath it.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to talk about how that voice took shape.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: What drew him to Tezos, what Tesards really came from, and where his work is heading now.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: George, thanks for coming on.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hey man, thank you for having me.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to be here.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is a snazzier setup than last time.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, I want to start before Tether's, uh, before Tezos, before any of that, before people knew your name through this space.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of artist were you trying to become?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what did you feel your work was missing back then?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Good question.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I so I studied I studied illustration at university.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, I mean, I I finished uni with the intention of being like more of an illustrator, like in a commercial sense.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um that was kind of how I started out.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is is that I didn't ever really like that kind of direction massively anyway.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd I kind of always wanted to do my own thing.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um having to kind of find commissions and and approach art directors and stuff is it was fine, but it was just like I've always wanted to just be making stuff as much as possible.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So as soon as you have something that takes you away from that, it it becomes laborious quite quickly, obviously.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, I I um my plan was to just be a kind of standard commercial illustrator.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I grew up um drawing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I didn't go and and take my university degree until I was much older.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'd always been somebody that kind of made made drawings, paintings, um, music, quite quite a kind of tactile, creative person my whole life.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, the the illustration angle was more, I suppose, because it felt appropriate to be able to move into something that was um like financially secure, I guess.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not secure, that's the wrong word, because there's no guarantees with with an illustration like path or degree, but but in terms of like the broader art world, working on that kind of in going in that path, I think feels like there's more opportunity to to have a kind of more um traditional career, I guess, uh in terms of making a living.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that's that's kind of what my initial plan was.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah, the the kind of the illustration came because I did the degree in illustration and and sort of went down that path more with my artworks rather than being like you know, more of a painter, or or I guess like you know, it's so difficult because now you like now I look at what I mess around with in terms of my art and it's like so unillustrative in a lot of ways.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not just using a pen or I mean I was using an iPad pencil, but you know what I mean.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it feels very different to that in the way I've ended up going with like using various other tools and and uh you know, even like I I mentioned today, I've I've started kind of making my own tools now as well, with the help of AI.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, uh that's that's become like a big thing that's that's going crazy for everybody, right?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I was never sure where that led.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, to be honest.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But like I'm fine, I'd love it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but like I I've been struggling with trying to understand where AI fits for me because making it, using it to make images and and the output be the image that that it's made me, and that then be like, here's my artwork, uh, is just never like I I've never felt like that aligned with how I like to create or how I like to feel when I create.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I recently literally like a week or two weeks ago, I I got a Claude subscription.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um for the it was my and this is my first uh like proper AI subscription rather than just using it like as a free thing to kind of smart Google or whatever.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, started realizing that you can, you know, you can vibe code, which is cool.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know anything about coding like at all, but I was like immediately starting to see what I could do that would allow me to kind of work on my art in a way where I wasn't making finished artworks, but I was making actual tools again to be able to make the artwork.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been kind of making very small and very you know primitive, but but kind of digital art tools to to make new art for myself, like drawing tools with animated animated pens and and uh glitch effects and stuff that are pretty cool.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I've been doing the last like few days, really.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I sort of suddenly had this sort of I guess a bit of a penny drop moment where I was like, rather than using AI to make the artwork, I'm gonna use it to make tools that I can then make artwork within.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's seems like quite a cool thing to me.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I can see this, you know, I've been doing a lot of thinking with regards to to where AI is taking us as artists.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, I've started to realize that, and and probably for many others, it's gonna be um that we're using it to make our own tools and our own um you know apps and and stuff for making art with rather than using it specifically to make art, if that makes sense.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, absolutely.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I came across some something one of your tutors told you that really actually stuck with me.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: As you improve, remember this piece.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do whatever you can to not lose your style.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is special.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: When someone tells you that that early, does it land right away, or does it only become meaningful later once you realize how easy it is to lose your voice while you're improving?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um honestly, that that uh that lesson stuck with me has stuck with me like massively.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wish I could remember it was actually it was like a uh um like a masterclass at uni.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like a a teacher, like a separate like mentor had come in for the day.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think they did end up working at our uni for like a more like uh like later on, I think they came and worked as a lecturer a bit more, but this this initial interaction was just like a masterclass, and it was quite near the start of my university degree.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is is that like I I thought I was okay at at drawing then, but like you look back and it's like okay, I was pretty bad, to be fair.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think there'd been like a little bit of a there'd been a bit of beef between me and one of the other actual tutors because of various reasons.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: One of them being that I'm I was like 10, nearly 15 years older than everyone else in the class.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like I was having a very different experience anyway, and because of that, I was like, I guess maybe a bit more ballsy with a teacher, and and and when I was being spoken to like a first-year student, which is fair because I was, um, I kind of found it a little bit like boilerplate for that that for everybody the same kind of stuff was being said regardless.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, look, I I think you need to appreciate I've come here as like a as a 30-year-old.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um like can I get a bit more leeway?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he'd said to me, like, you're one of like about three people in the class that can't draw.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, okay, cool.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's pretty mean considering when you looked at my portfolio, you were like, This is awesome.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um I've I kind of took that in a bit of a bad way, you know, as you can imagine.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And like at the same time, I was just like, Well, what does he know anyway?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, so that kind of happened a few and that happened in like a uh like a uh tutorial, like a one-to-one tutorial a few days before.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had this masterclass, and this other guy came in and was just like, Tolt said to me this thing, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah, you know, sometimes with art, people see something in you that others can't see and they'll never see.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is um something that as an artist you have to grow to understand, especially as you get more popular, because like at the end of the day, I'm absolutely certain there are always going to be people that dislike my work, uh, dislike my take on things, my attitude, my way, like that's that's life.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I think like when you're quite susceptible to um like negative comments and you're in this learning environment, and you've just started uni as a as a 30-year-old that's like trying to have a whole huge shift, like re you know, reconsider their whole life choices up to this point.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the teacher says, like, you're bad, and then another teacher says, It's like it's bad, but in a way that's like very special, that was really nice for me.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of, you know, those two things kind of came hand in hand in hand.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, I feel like those two comments coming at a similar time have sort of encapsulated my entire existence as an artist, like the battle I'm always having, where it's like, do I, you know, do I do this or do I do that?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Who do I follow?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like trying to follow my own belief and my own um skill and and kind of trust myself is still something I struggle with massively.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, does that answer the question?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like it does.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it does.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like that's also a good place to kind of get into the part of the story a lot of digital artists probably relate to.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, before NFTs changed anything, what was frustrating you the most about the normal path for an artist making detailed digital work?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the money, the way the kind of labor gets priced, or the feeling maybe digital art still wasn't being valued on its own terms?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, all of those I would say for a start, but I mean, like for me personally, something that's always been a struggle is I obviously have a very laborious style, right?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Compared to some people like who can maybe smash out a few pieces in a day or like a few pieces in a week, if I set into like a like a kind of classic OMG piece, um, and really want to like what it wanna do it on a big scale, like it it's easily gonna be a month's work.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're getting um trying to get commissions that are like for like a small magazine or um a like a local brand or whatever, trying to price things in a way that makes sense is quite difficult because um at the end of the end of the day, I'm quite um I've been uh what's the word I'm looking for?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh that slips it slips my mind.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: But like I I've always priced my work more based on on my time, um, just because of the way that I've kind of learned as an illustrator to to be.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um it it always was hard to price because like if somebody was like, Can you make me something like this?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, honestly, that's gonna take me a month.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if if you commission me for a month, it's gonna be this amount of money, and they're just like, you know, laughing at the concept of it being anything other than like a hundred bucks or or pounds, obviously, for me.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm just like, you know, what can you do?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's very difficult.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like you want to you want to take on jobs, but also trying to like make work that you feel like isn't very good because you tried to squeeze it into a like a time, um a time scale that that doesn't work for you is difficult.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I found a lot of the time what was happening, especially in those early days, is that effectively work way more like for free, you know, because because I'd say okay, they'd be like, our budget is this amount, and I'd be like, oh man, like that's never gonna cover it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, like when you're trying to build yourself up, when you're trying to get more jobs, when you're um when you're aware of the fact that something's gonna take you a long time, regardless, you kind of have to um make a compromise.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I just feel like sadly for me, I'm always compromising because of the fact that I've unfortunately got this really you know eye-watering, laborious style that that's never really gotten quicker.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I want to do something super impressive.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's that's been the biggest.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your detail work is is unbelievable.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I find myself stuck in aspects of your work for a long time.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just I I I just caught Nin Ninindo the other day.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even notice that one before.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that one.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was very sneaky.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: What was that story?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nintendo and Nin Nindo.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I saw your Nintendo, yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So something something I've yeah, something I've always done is like so ever since I was a kid, I loved bootleg stuff.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I used to look at a lot of bootleg books.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like the I don't know if you've ever seen these where like um you'll get like fake toys.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And like, have you have you seen that kind of stuff?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And like I live down on the coast in the U.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I live on the coast in the UK, and like there's loads of tat shops that that pop up around like coastal towns in the summer where you can buy like stuff for the beach, but it's also quite often got like really cruddy toys that are like rip-offs of popular, famous toys.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always loved that kind of stuff, and those like the packaging and the branding and stuff that they that they come up with, I just think is amazing.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always tried to put that into my artwork.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people are like, Do you do that as a you know as a security system against like ripping off a brand or whatever?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the the truth is that I do I do do that, yes, but like actually originally it came from um I I wasn't considering that at first because I never thought that any of these pieces would sell or blow up at any point because you just don't.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, I I put in all of these like secrets because they're just like how I how I viewed the world when I was a kid, and still now, really, you know, I just love that kind of fake bootleg stuff.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, like I'll put little jokes in there, like instead of Nintendo, it's Nim9 though, you know, and if you do look, you'll find it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's awesome that you that you like looked deep enough to find that, you know.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's like quite a small is it on like the bedroom nostalgia watch or something like that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I love all of it, man.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I I uh this isn't about me, this is about you.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I I grew up in the in the 80s and and early 90s.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's my childhood, and uh a lot of the stuff that you've you produced just nails me, man.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, just from me.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen early hen, the the early hen period, the louder market phase, the downturn, the calmer stretch after that.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you look across all these phases, what do you think stayed true about the Tezos art scene and what changed in a way that taught you something?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, wow, this is a good one, right?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, I kind of was thinking a bit about this today because um Kika posted saying like it's five years since the first object to object for object today.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I joined Tezos like a couple days after that first object for object.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I actually wasn't, I wasn't didn't partake in that one, but there was another one like pretty soon after, um, which I did partake in.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, I think my first mint was like the 20 29th or 30th of March.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like we're like literally a couple days away from from my fifth anniversary of of minting on Tezos.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, I mean firstly, like it feels insane that it's been five years that I've been kind of pretty much every day logging in to X and um and GMing uh people in the Tezos community, and and yeah, like obviously it does feel very different now.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is is that like I have like quite a tight-knit group of friends, a lot of who are kind of some of the most OG Tezos artists, obviously.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we have like, you know, we have a group chat and we're all very good friends, and and we'll hang out at real, you know, at events and stuff that we're at.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um are kind of small, it's a small but like very tight group.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, very like with some very knowledgeable characters as well that are that are well versed across the um you know the entire world of digital art, not just NFTs.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I feel very fortunate to have that group of friends and and be in there.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a it's like our little dark forest.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know the dark forest?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you know, do you know of that?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: The like dark dark forest theory or whatever, where like when the internet kind of collapses to nothing but bots and like kind of kind of not far off where it is now.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Dead internet theory?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know if it's dead internet theory.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh it's literally the the article's called like dark the dark forest theory or something like that.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what it's called, but it's like there'll be pockets of like secret internet where people still hang out that are like just having a nice time and it's not like the hell hole that's all of the rest of the internet.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I kind of have my little my little dark forest gang, uh, which is cool.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, then there's like I guess so one of one of my friends said that they went to a real uh uh an event in LA that um I think Absadeity, you know, the collector Absadeity, I think he put it together.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was my my friend um Michael Fantastic Planet, and um he said that somebody was there third wave Tezos artists or like a second wave Tezos artists or something, and that made me laugh um a lot, to be honest, because I just think like just just that kind of stuff make just makes me chuckle, basically.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know why, to be honest, but but yeah, like I think there's like a I I guess you could call like a newer breed of of people in Tezos that are maybe not so I mean there's definitely like loads of people that don't have a clue who I am at all that have joined the scene like at a later date, and like that's that's totally fine.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm I'm not fussed at all about that, but I just think that it's quite interesting to like sort of sit back and be like a a kind of you know part of the Tezos furniture, you could say, and um watch things unfold and and find it all quite amusing because it's like you know, if you've been here since the very first days of of Hen, you've pretty much seen it all across the NFT scene by now, not just on Tezos, but like just broadly in crypto, five years is like a long time to be absorbing everything, and uh yeah, it's quite funny.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like a a wise old granddad, you know.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: But um are you Gandalf the the gray now?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or wait, no, wait, he's the white, which one is he do he become at the end?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the white rug.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm that far gone.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not that far gone, but I'm like no, definitely revered though.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it but yeah, I mean, like I I see a lot of a lot of conversations and things happening sometimes, and I think I have a little chuckle or a bit of an eye roll, and I just think like actually maybe with my experience I should be like weighing in here and saying something, but I've also just kind of got to the point where it's like like doesn't feel like it's worth the potential uh onslaught of uh of arguments sometimes.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah i kind of i kind of have my fill of that and in the in the most um you know extra time in early 2021 um so i now am quite happy to just sit back and let other people kind of hash it out and and just sort of chuckle and be like you know back in my day you know but um well yeah that kind of brings us to tethered right i mean which i think people can flatten too easily if they only look at it from the outside but from a distance it can get filed away as a collection success story but i think underneath that it feels like it came from a reaction to something were you actually responding to when you made tethered and were you also trying to show that if this format was going to exist on tether it could still feel more about the art than the usual PFE nonsense yeah um like a hundred percent I mean there's a few things I I obviously I've spoken about Tetzard so much by this point and it's kind of like it is I do feel like I'm kind of rehashing things a lot of the time because I've you know I kind of have said it but but the truth is is that yes they were a response um at the time obviously the I was responding to the kind of ETH projects that were popping up like 10 10 times a day um that were quite a lot of them are very bad let's let's face the facts like some of them are great and I'm never gonna I'm never gonna not say that there's some great ones um but there was like a a real onslaught of like terrible stuff and um it was just like we're you know Tezos was trying to do something that nobody really believed in it and like and a lot of the artists had popped up on Tezos and were realized and a lot of people were realizing that like a lot of good art was happening on Tezos early on a lot of people were using it as a really like an experimental playground and and um just some like amazing stuff was happening and still is to be honest but um at that moment like it felt like Tezos was this place the the place to be if you were like a a real like kind of underground artist like it it just felt like immediately obviously felt like home to a lot of people and it was the some somebody had said like what what would you do if you were gonna do a PFP and I was like I would do this and I literally it I was hung over I literally was like sat trying not to be sick having like a really hilarious conversation with a couple of my collectors at the time and say like you know I had that I had a bit of like I guess like I was feeling a bit jippy because I was so hungover do you know what I mean like I had a bit of like post-alcohol confidence so I was being a bit sassy like more more sassy than usual and I was like I would do this and I drew the very first hazard which was the the um pen tesards which I think are like there was like six um and I said like you know we'll call them fuckers like it was all this entire like thing was kind of made up on the spot as like a reactionary piss take to the concept of PFP and at the like this is what you can do if you have somebody that's an artist do it um especially someone who's like good good at character design hasn't has like a humorous nature um which you know all of these things kind of made for the perfect storm at the time and like I just I just did what I did uh and it it kind of worked you know but um yeah it was a it was a reaction to the it was a reaction to the concept of of PFPs and then when object approached me and said like this will be the first one this way like you know with its own contract its own like web page um like a proper minting experience for it um do you want to do it and I was like yes of course I want to do it because being the person to kind of to take on that responsibility and be the kind of um the sort of beacon holder for what came after I'm I'm really proud that I did that and obviously lots of other shit happened that I'm that that made me not happy and like I don't I'm not gonna talk about that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway like um sorry I lost my train of thought a little bit um I never ever would have done Tesids if I wasn't approached as the to be to do the first one.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if if object had gone to you know there were countless other projects if they'd gone to other people first and I hadn't been asked first I wouldn't have made Tezards.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: They only happened because of the concept of them being you know they're they're so Tezos and I just think that like at the time they really embodied and and and and and were what I was seeing on Tezos in terms of how I was trying to like portray this character or these characters and they simply wouldn't exist if object had gone to somebody else first and um I think that that's that's something that maybe a lot of people don't realize um that yeah they're you know they were one John Skelly or or neons or um or one of the others from being never made so I do think that there's like a certain element of like all of the things coming together in a way that were quite like I don't say fake but you know what I mean it's that kind of thing like Tim and Brian for object is yeah yeah that's the word isn't it yeah like um a lot of things came together and it and it it worked because of how they came together and if they hadn't it wouldn't have worked and if they hadn't it probably well like I say it wouldn't have happened um because I would have never I just never would have made them if they weren't the first ones um because I just think that they kind of had to be to like have that that thing that makes them special that makes them part of Tezos them being called Tezards like all of it just yeah this is it's the the serendipity of it all you know it's um it had to be that way and if it hadn't well who knows well I feel like that's a good bridge into the newer work because bedroom nostalgia feels personal and nostalgic well and forgive me if I mispronounce it disorderance feels heavier and more anxious it's more about carrying on through the chaos.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a shift in how you were feeling about life or the world that made the newer series feel necessary oh yeah a hundred percent I mean like I would say that the older you know the the bedroom nostalgia stuff is very much more um me thinking about how things had been up to a point and then the newer stuff is much more me now um how I'm experiencing the world currently uh I guess so I've been kind of playing catch-up with myself I suppose um the the thing with bedroom nostalgia is that it was because they're all each one's a is a true story of my youth you know and like various stories kind of mixed together and and certain elements that are kind of tweaked a little bit to tell the story in a way that that kind of makes it work for the drawing but all of it is completely true and eventually you run out of of those stories and um I always said that bedroom nostalgia would finish at BN30 right and I think it's at like BN27.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still there's still three to go like they are gonna I am gonna do them um it's just like you know finding the right moment really I think to be honest that's one of those things where I I worry too much about it.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: I should just make them and just just mint them it's fine.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I never wanted to push past the point of them being real stories and I think that like again like if you don't know me or you don't know the context of the bedrooms you could so easily just be like that's just like a series where he's just been like okay here's some cool stuff from the past let's just keep making a making a bedroom um grind them out whatever and to be honest it did get to a point where it felt like I was grinding them out because it was so popular and like it make like when you're an artist it makes you feel like bad if you're trying to do something that's like a true personal tale or or like real stuff about yourself.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then it kind of turns into something it's not supposed to be and I feel like that has happened quite a lot with my work as I got more popular like you know it's inevitable that things get misconstrued and taken in a way that that that become very financial and obviously the difference is that now it's very much not like that.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it would probably be a good time to finish bedroom nostalgia whilst like just the people that are still interested in me in the art are still looking.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah it was always about like telling the stories of my past and now I'm kind of telling the stories of maybe like my present um a bit of my like worry for the future um and yeah I'm also kind of a I wouldn't say I don't want to say a crossroads because I'm not like I think I think the new work looks more different than it does if that makes sense to you like like when I first put out disorderance I was like nobody's gonna get this because it's like way more naive and like um it doesn't look so much like what people are used to for me and then like it's had a really good response and lots of people have messaged me saying like I love this work and it feels like it feels like you've really like tapped into something new here that's really cool.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes the worries that you have aren't real they're just internal things that you have to get over and I'm I'm learning to get over that but also this is what these pieces are about as well you know it's kind of like a journey where I'm learning how to be less afraid whilst drawing about being afraid of everything that's happening.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sort of where those pieces are coming from I kind of wanted it to feel like it's being drawn by somebody who's literally like shaking at their desk drawing it you know like genuine anxiety is happening and that's why you're seeing like the the glitch and the the purposely like broken lines and it looks like it's been drawn like whilst I'm being chased by something.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: That was always the kind of intention and that was the intention with the series but then what's happened is I like working this way so much that I'm now finding that I'm making more work like this or in this kind of vein that isn't isn't part of disorderance.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's just become like a next step or an evolution in my style and I think that probably I'm going to be now working in this way until I feel like this is exhausted or I'm bored of it or new things come that I want to do or try and I'll I'll go in forwards I hope I'll have more confidence to make those changes as I feel like they're happening because the truth is is that I've been making so much different art but there's a certain there's a certain like part of me that always feels that this this kind of this brand that's that that I've created whether that's consciously or subconsciously I feel like I have a certain thing that people expect to see from me and I so desperately want to like break out of that headspace that I'm trying so hard at the moment to work on things to break out of that headspace and remember that I am an artist and that fundamentally like I can I could turn around tomorrow and just make a completely different bunch of stuff that's nothing like what I do now.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's fine.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be liked it doesn't have to sell it doesn't even have to be posted on the internet it just it it's for me and I feel that the cool thing that's happened with disorderance is that I've been kind of working on all this different stuff and feeling really good about all this different stuff but still putting out the kind of classic OMG I draw it stuff because of like a lack of confidence in myself or a worry in myself and now I've kind of found this place where I'm like I'm enjoying the work I'm making so much that I genuinely don't care how it's seen by anyone else and that's quite a nice place to be as an artist you know um and I think also that came I don't know if you listened to uh uh the spaces I did with the TES talks guys with um uh oh my god what's his name Yoshi um is that right yeah Yoshi over on Artsy Fridays yeah yeah yeah Yoshi on Artsy Fridays yeah so we talked about the fact that I I I kind of in the last year realized that I have aphantasia which is like no internal I I have no I don't see anything in my mind's eye um and like I didn't realize that that was something that I was different that was different to a lot of other people um and basically when I started exploring that and I've been doing an unbelievable amount of work on it internally through meditation through researching it um to try and establish like what it is I actually have how far along the spectrum of it I have it and like like because I do get some flashes of of visual internal imagery like in certain at certain times and I've noticed that like my visual memory is like I have more of a visual memory than I do of an visual imagination.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: So like for an example um if someone says think of an apple and I try to think of an apple with my eyes shut it's absolutely there's nothing and I can't picture it in any way however if I try to like remember the apple I saw in the shop when I was at the shop this morning I get like a I get like a millisecond of something and it's not it's still non-visual I still can't quite figure out what it is but I'm like I've been like going down all these different paths to try and understand what I have and then I can compare it to what happens when I meditate where if I get to a certain point of meditation I get quite strong visuals just like a I'll get like a static image that maybe will last for like a second or two seconds but I can see something there like so I then knew that I had something I could compare what my usual experience is like which is very much almost nothing like 98% nothingness.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have very visual dreams which apparently is quite a common thing with people with aphantasia is they still have you know they'll still dream in full you know full visuals but then in the morning when I try to remember them I can remember them like in word form but I can't see anything.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um something I've been trying to do although I'm not particularly good at it because who's particularly good at waking up in the night after a dream and writing it down I've been trying to do a bit of that um to see if it takes me off into another direction artistically what sort of stories that opens up what memories and stuff um and also like what fears and and just generally strange shit I'm thinking about in my dreams.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so anyway my point I was trying to make and the reason why I brought up the A Fantasia is because I realized if I can't see anything in my mind's eye why do I feel so determined to work in a certain way like why don't I just make stuff in a completely different way and then I was like okay let's try that so I started making very different work um even making a secret alt account um and minting various pieces like without anyone knowing who I was and that was a really healing process for me as well because it kind of answered a lot of questions I had about myself who I am as an artist whether I'm like whether people are interested in me if they don't know it's me.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And all of those questions were answered for me.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to tell you how they were answered because that defeats the object in a lot of ways but they a lot of the questions I was worrying about and had for myself were answered through that and that whole process of studying my Fantasia understanding that I don't have to just make illustrations in this one style forever and making completely different art okay here's just I'm just gonna make some stuff and see what happens it's gonna be different I'm just gonna not even think about making it in that style um and weirdly it still feels a lot of it to me still it still feels like very me like a it's quite like there's still like some confessional elements to it and um it's quite like personal uh and you could say there's some elements of it being kind of nostalgic as well but it's like a very different it's all very different and then I was just like right well okay I don't need to do or worry about this anymore I'm just gonna make some different stuff and I'm gonna mint it and see what happens and shocker I was worrying about nothing just like I pretty much always do in my life well last thing when people look back at your work years from now what do you hope they understand about you that they still might not fully see right now um well that is a very good question what do I think like to be honest I'm not I don't care I don't I I'm not like somebody who's sitting here and thinking like absolutely for a fact like I'm gonna be looked at in a hundred years time like maybe because of the way that the internet is and because of being like a Tezos pioneer and we all know that the truth is that Tezos is gonna be the biggest blockchain eventually it just has to be right so um when that happens and our you know 100 years at time assuming we haven't terminated ourselves uh I hope that people like look back and just think like what do I I'd like man this is a such a tough question.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would like I'd like people to think that my stories were interesting and that I would hope that they would still even in like 100 years time I hope that people look at would look at my work and be like still able to find like shared memory in it.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: But obviously that's really hard to know because like so much of what we're making now is like will it matter will it be remembered in you know like the the consoles and the and the um the environments and the things that we're talking about and the things that I'm talking about in my art currently like especially with regards to shared memory will will it exist will those shared memories exist in that distant time you know but it would be cool if they did and if they do then I would hope that I can still get people to connect via being like wow I sort of see my own story in this and I relate to it.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And also I'd hope that people that bought my art now are still finding secrets in it in a hundred years time.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um I don't know if I've really answered the question to the best of my ability there.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I need a need a day to think about that one to be honest.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: I probably should have sent that one ahead my bad sorry well George thank you so much for taking the time and coming on today this was great uh and I appreciate you doing that.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: No worries at all man thank you my pleasure well that's been a lot of