I first connected with NFT Ignition last year, when she found my Damsels collection, and I saw her work with Fame Lady Squad. With both of us Minnesota raised and other life experience connections, I always have felt her to be a warm approachable human with a love for teaching and desire to help others. Her diverse background pre-Web3 further exemplifies this from her work in education to healthcare to working in carnivals (yes, she was a carnie). She understands the humanity behind the technology we are all building and brings empathy and compassion to the forefront while uplifting others.
Since 2020, she has cemented herself as a pillar in the NFT world with being a co-administrator of Fame Lady Squad, co-host of a podcast “From The Blockchain”, building educational materials, founding and curating Women.NFT and has worked on 29 projects and helped over 100 artists mint their first piece. When NFTCulture put out to write about collectors, she was on my short list of who I wanted to interview not only because she is one of my collectors as an artist, but also for how much space and support she gives to so many women from all walks of life in Crypto Art/NFTs. I am grateful for her agreeing to this interview.
How did you get into crypto/nfts?
A comment on Facebook under an article that was paywalled titled ‘the next greatest transfer of wealth’ because you had to pay for the article I simply scanned the comments to see if there was any good info in there. Every single comment was about crypto, mostly Bitcoin. I scrolled through hundreds of comments before I decided ” idk what Bitcoin is, but I need some.”
I first started minting NFTs in 2020 because I thought it was a cute way to flirt with a guy I had a crush on. Over time I sent him perhaps dozens of NFTs that were mostly selfies, but artistic selfies. It sent me down a whole rabbit hole of working with artists and commissioning my own pieces/onboarding them into the NFT space which then led to me creating projects or helping artist create their own projects. Not only did I end up right where I needed to be, in the middle of the NFT space, but even better I recently started dating the guy I sent all those NFTs to.
My main focus right now is on creating digestible educational materials for all learning types and figuring out a way to scale it. We don’t have one way to teach math, we have at least 8 ways to teach just multiplication, we need the same resources for the NFT space. Long term that goal includes summer camps for kids, they would be a choose your adventure type camp where you can choose to learn about anything from 3d digital art/blender, to contract auditing, to archery and swimming. I want to have a wide range of web3 content, but also digital art and mix that with all the typical summer camp activities. I would love to see schools incorporate these types of courses, but as a former teacher I know that is not going to happen anytime soon.
How did you get involved in Fame Lady Squad and would you like to share a little about your journey with that project?
When FLS launched it was run by a team of all men who lied and claimed they were all women, once this was found out the community was devastated. Artchick actually reached out and convinced them to send the project to the community, and then the community chose me, boredbecky, and data to be the ones to take care of it from there. It was really a wild ride, taking over a project with 0 funding, that had a large active community behind it.
As an avid collector, what advice would you give to projects/artists? What advice would you give to other collectors?
When you come into the space, do not worry about investing any money, you should first only invest your time. Spend a few months researching before making your first purchase or starting your project.
Who are some of your biggest inspirations in the scene and why?
@twerkyclub, one of the first people I saw building a community around his NFT project, long before bored apes minted. I watched his hard work change the entire NFT space around me
@kennethbosak was the person who gave me my first speaking position, and convinced me it was something I wanted to do. He saw something in me before I had even seen it.
3 artists you love in crypto art and why?
My favorite artist change all the time, as the space is always growing and new artist emerge, but I have recently been partial to @camibusNFT, I just love the recurrent theme of the long legs that come to a point, they are so graceful yet so isolated/disconnected from the world below them @izzyalright for her ability to depict emotions in a way that goes way beyond words @lambieartist for her bold colors and personality that really is just a whole vibe all around.
Any tips for newcomers to the space?
Safety should be the first thing you research as you get into the space, set yourself up correctly from the beginning to avoid heartache later on. Hardware wallets, dedicated computers, metal seed storage, multisigs, these are all things you should fully understand, or implement before putting large amounts of money into your wallets.
Where do you see the future of crypto art/nfts going?
At some point, I don’t believe we will even call them NFTs anymore. How often do we talk about the underlying technology we are using everyday? I think people will have multiple apps on their phones for different types of NFTs, maybe one for hotel rewards and room keys, one for your local coffee shop etc. Where they are using NFTs without even realizing they are NFTs.
Links to explore further:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NFTignition
Website: https://nftignition.com/
Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/YN4wdIR2