Oct 4, 2021
Living as NFT artist; fantasy or reality
Hello everyone. My name is Adriano, I’m an italian digital artist and NFT creator. As my first article I’d like to introduce myself a little and try to explain and share my personal experience and opinion about the recent most discussed topic on top of the chart since the last year: Blockchain technology and the cryptoart phoenomenon, that after just few years has become viral and one of the most influence argouments between critiques, mistery and reality surfing the web. Its popolarity is trend but still numerous people and countries do not even know what exactly cryptoart is, for example, in my country, Italy, this speech is unknown yet for the most percentage of artists (I was one of them ahah) even it could be hilarious hearing it.
Well, I discovered this world back in 2019 when I accidentally went to an art exhibition in Bologna, exactly at Booming Contemporary Art. I remember that I was attracted to a stand where wonderful digital, innovative and original works were shown so I approached for more informations. The doors to an unexplored and unknown world opened for me and that’s how I found out about SuperRare. It had been a long time that I had been looking for a solution to the problem of art as an activity seen as even more a hobby than a job, and where receiving a salary worthy of the name is very difficult as the artist is a little recognized ‘profession’.
After a few days I signed up out of curiosity given the fact that after having already tried a myriad of sites that had not led me to anything, I realized that one more attempt could not hurt me. I filled out the procedure and sent it without worrying too much about being contacted, let’s say you won’t be hoping for too much. After about a few weeks I received a contact where it was written that I had been accepted as an artist within SR as the team liked my works of the time. My reaction was particular, neither enthusiastic nor disappointed; let’s say I never expected it. After a few days I loaded the first drops. The first offers were not long in coming but they were very low and I was a little disappointed. At that time there were no very high offers circulating on the platform and obviously the newcomers take less. I got discouraged and stopped doing drops for a few months; the offers became less and less frequent but I noticed that they were a little more abundant.
For the first year it went like this, then by the end of 2020 things suddenly improved; I received 3 fairly high bids all at once and this impressed me greatly. I started dropping regularly this time and the offers started showing up about once or twice a month giving me the chance to make an extra paycheck. Since September 2021 I have received 4 consecutive offers, igniting new hopes for a future as an artist. In the last 2 years, among other things, I have had the opportunity to perfect myself and find my genre. I am currently working on a collection that I intend to launch on SR shortly.
(my workspace no study for now ahah)
Now let’s get to the point; many of you will be wondering at this point, but is it possible to live only on cryptoart with SuperRare or other similar platforms? well my answer based on my experience is yes it is possible, but very difficult for 3 main reasons:
1) the competition
There are thousands of artists only on SuperRare by now and competition is very high. There is a trend request of specific works, 3D animations for example, and if you make 2D abstract art like me, you could have a bit of matters, but I do not mean the it is impossible. If you work hard and you make a bit of work every day outcomes will surely come, maybe few maybe not the way you imagined but will; it depends by many factors.
- 2) you must be very original
Originality and creativity, are the 2 common magic receipts that every artist must have to be successful in his work; if you copy someone else style or create something banal or very ugly consider yourself finished since beginning. Personally I saw many simple works not technically masterpieces but, they had a specific detail or particular that hit you inside and sold for great money.
- 3) you must be excelent in promotion
Yes, there is nothing to do, I have to improve me too in this ahah. Promotion is the step important more than the quality of your art itself; if you work great but anyone could see it, you will never sell it. In my opinion promotion is like a pain in the neck (maybe also for the most of artists XD) but it is an unavoidable and incisive process to take seriously and not to be undervalued as insignificant. I spend at least the 50% of my time in promotion and cost a bit of investment. Then you must research on web about solutions, techniques, tools and a bit of strategies that works great for your personal case. In my opinion, do not trust whoever tells you to spend too much money and even who tells you to do the opposite, because it does not work.
Be gentle, produce interesting works of quality, be creative, drop regularly, promote the same also just a little bit per day, day by day without any day skipped and first of all; do not expect for make a ship of money! honestly I saw very easly to make 1500$ or 2000$ for sale, always more frequently people who made 5 numbers cash, but they are a minority, even if I admit higher sales have increased since the last year. My last sales, for examples, were around 1100$ medium and it is not bad absolutely. Another thing, do not be a asshole like me and submit to Twitter for sure, because there is a great NFT Community out there and I think it is the greatest social to be known now.
CONCLUSION
Having a second income or living as a NFT artist is a reality, I have no doubts anymore and it could be turned into profession if you make sacrifices and you are ready to pursuing your purpose. I hope this article could be interesting and useful for everyone who is a digital artist and thinking to join these world. I’m happy to be here and share my little experience resumed in few words. If you have any questions about SuperRare, cryptoart, NFT marketplaces or else do not esitate to text me. I’m happy to be useful and happy to contribute to help another artist who is searching for answers XD.
If you want to take a look to my SuperRare profile you can click this link:
Keep in touch! (the next time I’ll show a pic of mine LOL)
