Sat 3/4 @ 1-2PM
Are you completed baffled by NFTs — non-fungible tokens? Completely clueless as to why people were paying millions for screenshots of tweets to claim “ownership” but have no real ownership rights? Join the club! Using the same blockchain technology that gave us Bitcoin (which many also don’t understand yet) yet it maintains that the buyer is the “owner” of the digital image which can still be reproduced online — no copyright is conferred.
That market has cooled off quite a bit since its peak in 2020 and 2021, leading many to pass it off as a fad that relieved pandemic boredom. But was it? Many looked at the work by an artist calling himself Beeple which sold for nearly $70 million in early 2021 — a mass of unremarkable graphic images — and probably thought “I know better artists selling the posters at makers markets.” (Beeple himself called NFTs an “irrational exuberance bubble.”)
You probably do. I know I do. One of them is Arabella Proffer, a highly skilled and imaginative Cleveland artist who’s become known for both her startling imaginary portraits and evocative abstracts, some of which reflect the cancer she’s battled for more than a decade and is now in the final stages of. Given the limitations of promoting her art, she made use of NFTs. And she’ll talk at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (if her health doesn’t allow it, she’ll talk on Zoom) where her art will be preserved after her death.
She’ll explain in layman’s terms what they’re about, what artists can realistically expect to get out of them (not $70 million!). “The crypto art world sounds complex, but I am here to tell you, most of it is just fancy-sounding terms for commands you already know,” she says. “You aren’t just buying an image — NFTs are a way for people to confirm ownership, provide community access and invest in creators.”
The program is free and there’ll be a chance to ask questions. Register here.
the-truth-about-nfts-with-arabella-proffer