1.1 The idea for this platform “materialised” when I got interested in the NFT’s (Non Fungible Tokens) and, after some reading, grasped to some extent how they work and what they could be used for. This event was the catalyst, the trigger.
1.2 I say “materialised” as ideas in my mind come with different degrees of “matter”, for lack of a better word. The closer they are to manifesting the “denser” they are. In this respect, even when still in my mind they have this attribute which indicates how closer they are to come out and become real.
1.3 Another word that comes to mind, besides “catalyst” is “convergence”. When reading about successful NFT’s artists (the ones I can relate to) and appreciating the possibilities of the technology for art in the digital space, I realised how a good fit this all is for what I have been doing for a long time. My gut-feeling, which is all important, is telling me that time has come for a number of personal expression workstreams to converge. “Confluence” is another appropriate term for this.
1.4 I am aware I haven’t introduced myself, not yet. The thing is I am not sure an introduction would be interesting anyway. I don’t think I’m an interesting person per se. Additionally, I have always been wary of the fact that appearances may fuel stereotypes and set expectations in people’s mind. Hence the decision of just leaving my artistic expressions tell about me. After all, they do have a direct connection to the “inner core” of me.
1.5 The “convergence” is the realisation that 1) all the activities and projects that in the past I kept separate now have a strong reason to be pulled all together, 2) the issue of identity has to be resolved in harmony with the distinctive traits of the projects and 3) I have to step up and embrace activities that I have always shunned in order to make everything work together well. That is everything related to social media and promotion.
1.6 I have always strived at keeping my artistic life separate from my professional life to avoid situations where the former impacts negatively the latter. In the daily job I do, this has always been a concern of mine, as employers not always look on that favourably, consciously or not. Additionally the variety of creative output can also impact the way the same output is perceived within the creative industry itself. Too much variety is often perceived as indicator of lower quality. I have to say that things seem to have improved a lot in the past few years.
1.7 These are some of the reasons why I have assigned different creative output to different “identities”, to different aspects of my persona. For example: the graphic novel and children book writer is different than the poet or the visual artist or the musician. By doing that I have also achieved a healthy separation of duties, at least in my mind.
1.8 I have also always shied away from social media and the related platforms, mostly because I have never thought of having anything interesting to say, not on the consistent basis. Additionally I have always been aware of the fact the often social media interaction attracts undesired effects that go beyond the specific project one is sharing. But by doing that I’m not obviously enjoying the positive side of sharing and perhaps contributing.
1.9 When I explored the NFT world something clicked in me. Most of my work over the past twenty years or so has been digital, natively digital. Both in its conception and execution. I thought: “this is a natural fit for me and my work and I need to do something about it”. I feel that now I have not only something to tell and share, something that hopefully, will bring some positive stuff into our world, but also an exciting way to communicate it.
1.10 So this is now the new creative project for me to which I will commit a good chunk of my energies: to harmonise the different creative streams and unify them by preserving their specific identities, and then share them with whoever is willing to spend some time on this. And Hopedia for me is the ideal platform on which to do the sharing of this journey and its story.
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