Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi. This is Malayan Vervier and this is Kim Azzarelli.
We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Women can Achieve Power and Purpose, And you're listening to
Seneca's conversations on power and Purpose. Hey. Everyone, this is
Kim Azarelli and I am so excited to be hosting
this special edition Women Rule Web three. Now. The world
(00:29):
of Web three is moving so fast from the metaverse
to defy two NFTs. On this show, we'll break it
down for you through interviews with incredible leaders, experts, and artists. Today,
I'm speaking with the taco Is for Short. She's a
twenty year old multimedia artist from the Bay Area creating
visually vibrant works that seek to uplift the beauty of
(00:51):
a black community and illustrate the black experience. Is one
of the six amazing artists that we're featuring in the
Seneca Women Equality Collection, a special NFT collection with nifty Gateway.
I spoke to Is about her work. Here's what she
had to say, Well, Is, thanks so much for joining us,
Thank you, thank you for having me. Well, we absolutely
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love your work. We are so excited that you're going
to be part of the Seneate woman a quality collection,
and we'll get into the piece in a little bit,
but first, you're certainly the youngest member of this collection,
and your work is so incredible. When did you discover
that you were an artist? Pretty much from a really
young age, maybe around eleven or twelve. I've always just
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gravitated towards especially in school art classes, just because I
felt like it was the one place where I could
express myself in other ways that you know, you can't
really do verbally. So yeah, I just sort of like
built up upon that as the year has gone by,
and you know, now we're here working together, and tell
us a little bit about your background. Are your parents artist?
(01:57):
How did you get into this? So? My mother is
a professional dancer. She's gotten to that point where like
if you name a dance, she knows how to do it.
So she knows salsa, she knows zoomba, she knows tap dancing,
flamenco hula, she's a kuma hula, she knows she knows
every single dance. So actually watching her teach and put
(02:19):
together work, it took me on an artistic trip more musically,
so I feel like I was able to travel the
world with her. You know, while staying in one place.
As for my dad, he now works in the wood business,
but he's always had a really huge passion for art.
It was just more of a hobby, so it was
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definitely something he kept on the backburner despite how good
he was. But yeah, they've been really supportive. When did
you start doing art generally? Um, I've literally been an
artist my entire life, So I've been just like doodling,
draw doing whatever I could throughout middle school, high school,
and then of course when COVID hit, you know, we
(03:06):
were all like bounced back to plan one essentially, and
I decided to choose art. So you started really doing
a lot of drawing and you got kind of more
into your own artistic vision when you were young twelve
thirteen years old and through your art classes. When did
you get involved in digital art? And why? So? My
(03:27):
aunt is she always valued making sure we all had
updated technology. She felt like it was something that was
really necessary, especially staying on top of the industry. So
I was working with the pen and paper for years
and years and years, and I was very comfortable with it.
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And then I she gifted me an iPad for my
high school graduation, which was June twenty twenty. Oh wow.
At first, I didn't really see it as an art object,
even though that's what she got me, that's what she
bought it for. But eventually, you know, when you're bored,
you start going through the settings and playing with buttons,
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and then I found procreate, started praying with the buttons,
and I was like, you know what, I could see
myself actually drawing with it, and discovering that I could
make money from it became a whole completely different story.
That was another roller coaster in itself. We want to
hear about that. Tell us about that too. Well. I
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worked at a gift shop because we are in the
Bay Area. Everyone loves postcards and you know, stuff like that.
So I was laid off twice by the same company
because of the COVID pandemic, and unfortunately, everyone at my
location was laid off, including the people who had been
there twenty fifteen years. So when I was laid off,
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I was back again at Square one and that was
my third job. My first job was at Starbucks, my
second was at Coles, and then I ended up working
for the gift shop and I just decided I hated
retail and the whole customer service thing. It was just
I was good at it, but I didn't feel like
that was my happy element. So in between that gap
(05:16):
and I would say December of twenty twenty, I was
a bit idle. I was also trying to finish high
school during a pandemic, which was kind of stressful. Yeah,
my neighbor or like a door over my neighbor. He
was a field hockey provider, so he made the sticks
in the packs and the bags and stuff like that,
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and his team that he was sponsoring was going to
the Olympics that year in Tokyo, so he commissioned me
to create, you know, a logo that was within the
Tokyo's regulations and something that suited the company. So that
was I don't know, my first project being for the
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Olympics was kind of crazy, I do. I don't think
I really understood that in its entirety. I just thought
it was cool, even though the limits were eventually canceled.
That was my outlet to discovering that I really had
a passion for designing on an iPad. And what I
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learned along the way from commissions is that you gain
a lot of skills you didn't plan to because you
have to get it done right. You know. It's so
interesting too that what you're saying about how kind of
what you don't expect you know, we don't what you
don't expect to be the result becomes the result and
how you learn along the way. I mean, I think
that's pretty important. Yeah, and that's interesting how like the
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Tokyo Olympics kind of forced you to have a product
that showed you more about yourself, that you learned more
about yourself through that process, especially given that it was
a logo. I think logos are one of the most
stressful type of commissions because you know, sometimes a client
doesn't know what they want and you have to create
that and make it what they want. If they don't
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like it, you have to go all the way back
to square one and figure out, you know, how are
you going to make this idea someone has and make
it real life and make it look good. So it
was a great learning experience. We'll be back after this break.
(07:29):
So you're doing the logo, you kind of discover the iPad.
It's now COVID. Everybody's getting laid off, and when did
you realize the potential of NFTs? So I learned that
further along the way. This is fast forwarding to about
last year. Literally a year ago, I had begun going
(07:49):
viral with my art style. I guess it was news fresh,
something you know, most people hadn't seen before, especially since
my goal as an artist was to draw people who
looked like meat in a very positive light, so I
think that also gravitated towards viewers. I started getting an
influx of comments and dms and like, hey, you should
(08:10):
ment this as an NFT, and like you should do
this and do that, and I seen them and I
really felt like, I don't know if you've ever seen
the four x trader spam comments on Instagram, but I
felt like it was literally that, but just Twitter, and
it was something I didn't understand. It was something I
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didn't have any interest on. I kind of hopped on
the bandwagon that NFTs were terrible for the environment, people
were going to die from it, and I was just
really really under the whole thing exactly. I saw one
of my artists friends he I guess, I don't know
how the wall the hole came to be, but I
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guess he kicked a hole in the wall by accident,
and he put a frame on top of it and
he minted it. I believe this was on open sea
and it sold for seven thousand dollars. Wow. When I
saw that, I was like, you know, that's kind of
like effortless art. I think I can do that as well.
(09:15):
And also at the time, I was trying to move
out to my house so I needed a down payment
and sales print cells hadn't been going the way I
wanted them too, so I'm like, you know, we're just
gonna try out into We're just gonna try it out,
you know, test the water if it's see if it's
really worth the hype. So I had gotten an invitation
onto Foundation, so I minted my first NFT there and
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if I'm not mistaking, it sold within twenty four hours
for one point five ethereum. Wow. Yeah. And at the
time I didn't know that you're supposed to start low
and then work up high, so I guess I just
I just went for it. But yeah, that was a start,
and I was like, yeah, I'm not I'm never going back.
And your work is totally taken off. I mean, it's
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just amazing and the fact that so many people can
see it so quickly. I mean, is that something that
appeals to you in terms of the NFT world. One
thing that I also I always value is that I
don't really like shilling. I would rather that you know,
the viewer saves my art and actually feels drawn towards
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it and you know, has curiosity and has you know,
wants to know what's inside my world. That to me
is way more than hopping in a Twitter space or
a clubhouse room and like, hey, this is my project,
is what I'm trying to do. I feel like everyone's
doing that now, so you know, they're becoming less and
less and less trustworthy. But yeah, if you feel, if
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you feel drawn towards my art, my price is thrown
out the window. I want you to just be able
to enjoy it. Well, it is so incredible, it really is.
At the piece that you've done for the Seneca Women
in a quality collection, it is really exquisite. Can you
tell us a little bit about how you thought about
this piece? Of course, the prompt was to show us
how you envision a quality tell us a little bit
(11:11):
about the process of making the peace. I knew straight
at the gate I wanted it to be a very
powerful woman I didn't yet know how that was going
to be. M I just I was I was just sketching.
I was just like, hum, what should I do kind
of hairstyle blah blah blah blah. And I came across
this picture of these bullhorns and it was it was
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the same um posture I should say, that was, you know,
in the woman that I had illustrated, And I was like,
this is actually really sick, and you know it, it
sort of portrayed like a sense of strength. It would
be cool. I thought it would be cool to like
put a horn on a woman, but not actual horns.
So I ended up um making the braves the horns,
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and I wanted them in a certain way that made
them look like they were really thick and strong and like,
you know, can hold on their own. Once I have
a pretty solid idea of what I want to illustrate,
the rest is completely freestyled. I think I went through
about eighty different color changes, just because I wanted everything
to be very specific, very important. Yeah, I was just
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I don't know. I was really going for that simple
yet very detailed look and it really shows and it's
super powerful. I mean, I think you really captured that
with the work. How have you found the space in
terms of women's art and the general NFT market. I think,
you know, the women who get it get it, and
(12:43):
what that means is you know it doesn't I don't. Personally,
I wouldn't get into a space and start complaining. I
would rather just be that confident person and do it myself.
And there's some women, there's a lot of women actually
in the space who understand exactly what that means, and
they're doing incredibly amazing. They know how to maneuver through
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these male dominant spaces and just be themselves and be
very authentic. I had the pleasure of working with World
of Women several times, and you know it always it's
a great reminder that you know, there are there are
spaces for us that allow us to completely flourish. I
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think it's just really a matter of confidence and knowing
that you are that person. I'm not going to cuss,
but yeah, it's just knowing that you know, we're the
reason why there are men at the moment. I love it. Yeah,
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I think I think you're going to be an inspiration
for a lot of people of all ages who want
to get into the space. It's moving so fast, and
so yeah, I guess you have to be brave to
beeo willing to jump in. And it's just kind of
amazing that you went from drawing to you know, the
iPad to what you've done in just such a short
amount of time. Did COVID have a big impact on
(14:15):
yougoing digital? Um, not really. I've always admired having cool technology,
you know, learning different stuff. I do think I missed
out on the in person aspect, so like now you know,
meetups are normal, and I just feel really uncomfortable, Like
(14:38):
I don't think I've been around that many people in
a single space since my sophomore year of high school. Wow,
And because I was mainly homeschooled throughout high school, but
we had weekly classes where you could be on campus
with a bunch of kids, and that was my only
source of social gathering in that time. So now it's
(15:04):
just really weird. But I don't think it had a
huge impact on, you know, how I progressed, maybe more
so on the entrepreneurial side, you know, learning how to
actually make money from home. I think that was definitely
a challenge, but yeah, it wasn't It wasn't hard well,
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I tell you this collection. I think what's exciting for
us about the collection is that we're representing, you know,
all different countries and we're talking to women who are
kind of representing their culture and being able to share
it across the world kind of instantaneously. I'm really excited
to see all the different work and to see it
come together and then to celebrate, you know, to continue
(15:46):
to add new women artists, and I think I think
you're inspiring to so many people, and your work is
extremely moving and we appreciate so much what you do.
So thank you so much for joining the collection and
for joining us today. Thank you so Lage. I am
so honored. I'm really excited to see you know everything.
It's so amazing to meet Is and her work is incredible.
(16:10):
Go to Seneca Women dot com to see her work
and the other artists in the Seneca Women A Quality Collection,
and join us tomorrow for another Women Rule Web three conversation.
Have a great day. You're listening to Seneca Women Conversations
on power and Purpose, brought to you by the Seneca
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