A few weeks back I took a trip with my Dad & Daughter to Marfa, Texas to check out the Art Blocks Open House. I’m sure the majority of you know by now, I love generative art. I have been collecting on fxhash for over a year. About four months ago I started collecting on Art Blocks for myself and for the Culture Project. There are so many talented artists & beautiful projects, I had been missing out. I got to talk to a lot of different collectors in Marfa. The majority of them started on Art Blocks and are now collecting on fxhash as well. A good amount of people were collecting on both. I imagine the majority of people at these kinds of events are hardcore collectors or are artists. Why wouldn’t they be collecting on both blockchains? I’ve dipped my toes into the Art Blocks world now, and there is no turning back.
Fidenza Wall in Marfa
The first event I attended was 100Proof held at Glitch. Glitch is a new store front that is “an analog gallery for internet objects”. The panel was held by Kevin Rose, Co-Founder of Proof, and Derek Edwards, a partner at Collab Currency. I’d never heard of Derek, but was impressed with him as an interviewer.
This was such a great event with several fantastic speakers. If you have time, I recommended watching the recording of it.
They had a great conversation with Snowfro about Marfa and why Art Blocks is there. Goes into great detail about his project in Mexico City and other things that he is working on. Really cool insight into the way he approaches art and the artists that influenced him.
Keven, Derek, and Erick / Snowfro at the table
Adam Lindemann was another amazing speaker, he is an art collector and gallery owner. Just hearing things from his point of view coming from a traditional art background was really insightful. Tim Ferriss was really cool, I seem out of the loop on him, but he’s very well known. He is an author of 5 #1 NYT/WSJ bestsellers and has an NFT project coming up that is connected to a book or story.
One of the highlight speakers for me was Phil Mohun with Bright Moments. Their passion for onboarding new people and giving a unique and fun experience when minting an NFT is amazing. I think Bright Moments is going to be another huge organization to pave the way for the gen art scene going forward. What they are doing with interactive minting is the next level in onboarding new people into this space.
Bright Moments event in Mexico City.
Keven, Derek, and Phil at the table
After this event I headed over to the Art Blocks open house. I got there a little bit early and sat in the back, waiting for it to open. Phil showed up and sat down by me and my daughter and we started talking about Bright Moments and generative art. Such a cool experience hanging out with him. We went down to a building that was running plotter machines and drawing designs on dollar bills.
Event by Steviepxyz picture by Rahul Iyer
It was a really cool setup and there were a lot of people in there. I wasn’t able to do one, but it was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone.
It was here I setup my daughters first ETH wallet. We sat down with Phil and did a minting experience. He does this with people that are new to NFTs and haven’t collected yet. She got to mint this Rubicon by Mario Carrillo right there at the table. It was such a cool moment to have with Phil and her.
Rubicon #179 by Mario Carrillo - My Daughter’s fist Gen Art NFT
This NFT moves in it’s live form. Follow the link to check it out.
After that it was back to the Art Blocks open house to look around and wait for the next group of talks to begin.
I wasn’t able to take photos during the Art Blocks talks. They recorded it all as well, but I haven’t been able to find it online yet. It was an amazing event. So many talented artists and people, I met to many to cover them all.
Memories of Qilin by Emily Xie
I did get to meet Emily Xie at the event. I geeked out a bit when I met her, she is incredibly sweet. She talked to my daughter and me for a little bit, that another cool highlight. Memories of Qilin is easily one of my favorite Art Blocks pieces.
I wish I could of took more pictures inside the house, but there were so many people and not a lot of room. After we toured the house they were handing out envelops at the exit. They were free NFTs for coming to the open house that you would mint later.
An amazing gift to top off the events so far. We were able to mint them a week later and now my daughter has her first ENS, carace.eth, and two amazing gen art pieces in her new collection.
Marfa Yucca #179 by Daniel Calderon Arenas
from my collection
Marfa Yucca #182 by Daniel Calderon Arenas
from my daughter’s collection
After that I walked around that area of Marfa for a bit and took some photos.
Later that night I went out to the Marfa Open House where I met some of the Bright Moments people I had met earlier. Lucky to have found this get together. The Marfa Open House is an artists getaway home, where you can live and spend time on your craft. It is a really cool place with an incredible host.
They had a Rituals from Bright Moments playing the whole time.
It was definetely a fun party with some live music, Peelander Yellow.
This was an incredible trip. Everything I got to experience with my daughter and being able to meet all these amazing people in the community. This trip solidified my belief in generative art organizations like Art Blocks, Bright Moments, and fxhash. I was aware of Bright Moments, but didn’t know the extent of what they were doing. These groups are paving a way for the future of generative art in art culture and that is huge. I think Long-Form generative art will have a long lasting spot in the art world. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this article.
Links to everyone from the article.
Kevin Rose - Proof
Derek Edwards - partner at Collab Currency
Glitch Marfa - NFT store front
Erick / Snowfro - Creator of Art Blocks
Tim Ferriss - Author of 5 #1 NYT/WSJ bestsellers
Phil Mohun - Founding DAO Member · Bright Moments
Adam Lindemann - Art Collector, Gallery Owner
Marfa Open - Art House
Emily Xie - Gen Artist - Creator of Memories of Qilin
Thanks for reading! This article was a lot of fun to write and I wanted to share this event with people that didn’t get to go. Please join us in our discord if you would like to talk about generative art.
The Culture Project Twitter & Discord
abnormality / Josh Ripple - Twitter