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I visited Los Angeles for the first time in February of 2001. I’d passed on previous opportunities to visit because I assumed it would be a place I’d hate. The only things I knew about it was there were lots of earthquakes and fake people. I didn’t work in the movies, had no interest in plastic surgery or fancy cars and generally didn’t think there was anything I’d find interesting there, so why bother? I eventually decided to check it out not for any grand reason other than that it was really cold in Chicago. I’d just carried my suitcase 5 blocks through the freezing ice and snow to get home after visiting family during holidays in sunny Florida, and couldn’t come up with a reason to say no when an LA based artist friend of mine proposed a visit. Fuck it, why not, right?

I expected to go, enjoy a few days of warmth and see some friends, check another city off the list, then go home having all my preconceptions confirmed. I was wrong.

It felt electric. Almost immediately I realized my assumptions were misplaced. This was not all glam and glitter, these were normal people doing normal shit. But there was a buzz that I’d never felt before and it didn’t take me long to figure out why. College aside, which is transient by design, everywhere I’d ever lived the majority of the people who lived there were also from there. They were used to it and comfortable with it, and had accepted their place in it. Los Angeles was the opposite. Most of the people I encountered moved there from somewhere else, driven by aspirations, chasing some kind of dream. At the time I joked that it might be a dumb and completely unrealistic dream, but it was a dream nonetheless. And that hope and optimism could be felt everywhere. People were trying to do things. On top of that, there was this feeling that everyone you met was a potential collaborator rather than what I was used to, which was competition at every turn. It was intoxicating, I’d never felt anything like it and immediately knew I needed to live there. 

I went back to Chicago, informed my boss of my decision, made arrangements and 3 months later I was living in LA. 

I spent 16 years in LA, almost 3x as long as I’ve lived anywhere else in my life. When I eventually left, I left not to get away, but because I realized that commuting back and forth to Tokyo every month was ridiculous and something had to change – however no matter how far away I was, Los Angeles stayed planted in my heart. It was the first place I ever lived that felt like home. It wasn’t painless and the city certainly dished out its fair share of drama but I loved it and it became a part of me. Metaphorically, but also physically as evident by the number of Los Angeles tattoos I got over the years. Los Angeles is like no other, everyone says that about every city and I’m sure it’s true to some extent but one of the reasons New Yorkers don’t like LA is because they expect all cities to work like NY – and most do – but LA explicitly doesn’t. It’s it’s own thing, and it’s proud of that. Something that became evident to me living there is that people in LA are actually fake, just like they are everywhere else, but only LA embraces that, celebrates it, and is up front about it. It’s a costume, all part of a show, which can be taken off without fear or concern of being found out, and this reveals the deepest vulnerability and humanity I’ve ever experienced. Imagine my surprise, the fake people I was worried about were actually the realest.

Another thing is that LA knows how everyone else feels about it. LA knows everyone thinks it’s just earthquakes and fake people, just glam and glitter. And it doesn’t care. It’s over trying to convince everyone it’s something else, and its just confident it being what it is. LA gets shit done, because shit needs to get done and no one else is going to do it. Whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever idea you have, LA can provide a way to do it and excited collaborators to help you out with it. Every project or company I started there, and there are many, started out with a simple “anyone want to riff on this with me?” post somewhere, or “oh! I know someone you need to meet!” It was beautiful.

And that’s just the people. The landscape, the architecture, the food, the history, the culture… there are so many things, all of the things, and I could essays about all of them. On a normal day anyway, but today is not a normal day.

I’ve been trying to write this for over a week and keep getting stumped because I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling, watching this place that I love burn and not being there to do anything. Not that I could if I was of course, which complicates it further. Balancing the knowledge that we all knew this might happen eventually, with the disbelief that it actually happened. I have friends who have lost everything and I want to hug them. I have friends who didn’t but their fear and stress is just as real and I want to be there for them, just to do something. But I’m far away, speechless and helpless. Just watching, and hoping for the best for whatever is left, and whatever comes next. We haven’t even begun to realize what was lost, or what impact that will have on the future.

To my friends still there, the survivors, I love you all. I miss you. I’m thinking about you nonstop, and can’t wait to see you again soon and deliver these promised hugs. Stay strong.

[This post was originally sent out to my newsletter, apologies for anyone who got it twice.]

In my last post I floated the idea that the Cryptopunks IP might be better stewarded by a non-profit foundation than a for-profit company. My rambling thought process might have seemed like I was suggesting Yuga Labs should start a foundation, and that might have been what I was thinking at some point, but that post has led to a number of discussions and I now think the best way forward is the formation of an independent non-profit with a singular mission that everyone could rally behind. A lofty goal I know, but also something I’ve seen play out before and in the conversations that I’m having and seeing, seems like it could be feasible.

For context, in 2009 I co-founded the non-profit community space, Crash Space in Los Angeles which quickly became part of the global hackerspace and maker movement. In 2011 I co-founded Safecast, an environmental non-profit initially focused on building an open repository of radiation data in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan. I was awarded a fellowship with the Shuttleworth Foundation in 2014 and over the following years worked with dozens of other non-profit founders as we helped solve each others problems with learnings from our own experience, and co-authored a book about it. I’ve sat on non-profit boards and advised, mentored or unfucked a number of others. All that is just to say this is a familiar topic for me.

The first thing I wanted to do was identify the problem that we’re trying to solve, this is important because if you don’t know the problem then you might end up solving for the wrong thing. This isn’t perfect, but it’s kind of a working problem statement at the moment:

“A single commercial entity controlling the Cryptopunks IP inevitably faces the challenge of trying to satisfy a diverse community with varying ideas and visions for the future. This situation creates an ongoing struggle to balance commercial interests with the wide range of expectations held by individual owners, making it difficult to take any action without upsetting some of the audience, leading to a kind of mission paralysis. While some may suggest that the company simply “do nothing,” this is not an ideal solution either.”

Once you have a problem then you can think of what a solution might look like. Right now, we have this:

“Separating commercial interests from IP stewardship presents a promising path forward. Establishing the foundation as a non-profit entity dedicated to the stewardship of the Cryptopunks IP, with a board of directors focused on preservation, offers a balanced and mutually beneficial solution. This approach ensures that the legacy of Cryptopunks is maintained with integrity, allowing the community, including Yuga Labs, to trust that their assets are being protected and valued by a dedicated group with a singular focus. By focusing on protecting the historical and cultural value of Cryptopunks, we support their enduring significance and value.”

Again, not perfect but it’s a start. Those two statement are related, so as we edit one the other changes as well. They also serve the purpose of helping understand what the point of all this is, which helps get to a mission statement. The mission is important, because it’s the guidepost that we can constantly check back on and be accountable to, ensuring that future efforts are in line with the initial vision. Another tentative bit of text which is starting to take shape:

“The foundation promotes and celebrates the cultural significance of CryptoPunks, the genre-defining cryptographic art project created by Larva Labs in 2017. Our mission is to see that the legacy of CryptoPunks is maintained with integrity, focusing on its historical and artistic value rather than commercial potential and act as guardrail against exploitation. Dedicated to preserving and maintaining access to the cultural and historical legacy of CryptoPunks, we provide a home for the intellectual property and develop educational resources for the public. The foundation strives towards building a secure future for this iconic work. We engage with a variety of supporters who share our vision of protecting and promoting the cultural impact of CryptoPunks.”

So these are shaping up to be some helpful starting points that we’re building conversations around, which so far are interestingly only a little bit about Cryptopunks generally and more specifically about the non-profit/foundation world, governance, process as well as some very high level “what do we see this doing 10 years from now, 20 years from now?” kind of discussions. There’s also a very big “if” that this hinges on around the Cryptopunks IP of course, so we’re also talking about time frames and things the foundation could do that would be helpful to the greater ecosystem even without having the IP in house. I think that’s an important discussion because if everything the foundation wants to do depends on the approval of a separate for profit company, that’s a pretty large weak spot. Conversely, if the foundation can do a lot of things on it’s own, and get real momentum and serve a purpose independent of anything else, that also helps justify things and strengthens the initial ask.

There’s another interesting thing in this specific case – with previous foundations and non-profits I’ve helped get going we’ve often had a clear goal. “What’s the thing we’re trying to do? At some point that thing will be done, so then what?” but thinking of legacy and art on the blockchain, right out of the gate we’re facing the reality that – if done right – all of this will outlive us. At least that’s something I’m thinking about a lot – so in addition to all of the above I’m thinking about the time I’m willing to invest in this, and what kind of future I’m hoping it enables. This is actually part of a larger conversation I’ve been having about (in my view) what kind of actions are beneficial to society (art, creativity, etc) vs what kind of actions are rewarded and encouraged (lots of douchebaggery) and how, with whatever time I have left, I want to try and help make things better. But yeah, that’s a different thing.

If any of this sounds interesting and you’d like to join us in hashing some of this out, let me know and I’ll invite you. I’ll certainly write more about this in the future as we get further along, but I wanted to put this out there now just as a bit of a marker, if only so that months/years from now I can look back and see what I was thinking at this point.

(excerpted from a recent newsletter)
Selling photography is a weird thing. Well, selling street photography is a weird thing. Well, that’s a subset of being an artist and trying to sell art being a weird thing. For most of my life I’ve maintained an emotionally safe distance from anything I was doing for money. Even things I cared deeply and passionately about, it was still a project that many people were working on or someone else’s art or music that I was trying to help sell. So something selling or not, or getting funding or not, or seeing widespread adoption or not was a reflection of a collective effort and not of me personally. I’m sure at some base level thats why I spent so much of my life denying that I was an artist because then I would have to take ownership and responsibility for that art. Even when everyone around me was saying “why are you being such an idiot, of course you are an artist” and I would say “No I’m not, I’m just a guy who makes some stuff which sometimes hangs on walls in art galleries and is bought by art collectors” because that gave me distance.

As most of you know a while back I gave up on that facade and admitted that fine, ok, I am an artist. I think many people on this list have actually bought some of my photos and I’m eternally grateful for that, as it’s those kinds of “voting with your dollars” which is encouraging and helpful in realizing “ok, maybe this thing that means a lot to me also holds value to others.” Anyway, that’s a tangent. I was talking about street photography. Back when I used to have an art gallery the whispered secret was that photography wasn’t “real art.” I didn’t feel that way and I think the number of photographers I showed demonstrates that, but when talking to other gallerists and even some collectors it would often get to “well anyone could do that” which is such utter bullshit, but it’s interesting to pick apart why people feel that way. There’s a skill in painting that everyone understands – can you paint a photorealistic portrait? No? But someone else can? Ah, ok that’s a skill. But get into something more abstract or street feeling and you start getting that “anyone could do this” argument from detractors. Talk to someone who “doesn’t get art” about Pollock or Basquiat and inevitably they will go there. The difference between could do it and did do it is hard for some people to understand. It gets worse with photography because everyone has a camera, and while most can understand that just because they own a paintbrush doesn’t make them a painter that same courtesy isn’t often extended to photographers. Especially with mobile phones and filters, the skill of photography is easily written off as “right place, right time” luck and not attributed to skill as it should be.

But I’m rambling again. Selling photography. When I had an art gallery and would show photographers, often people would come in and be taken aback and ask “oh, is this a photogallery?” which they differentiated from an art gallery. Because they didn’t see photography as art, they saw it as fantasy. Which is really one of the major selling points for photography. The best selling photography is landscape work, followed by celebrity portraiture and maybe a bit of historical documentary work. This is all driven by daydreams and fantasy. Which are good things, I’m not knocking them at all. If you think of buying art because you are going to hang it on your wall and look at it all the time, then you think about how it’s going to make you feel. Landscape work just begs for daydreams. You can stare at a good landscape photo and marvel at the beauty of the place and think about what it smells like or feels like to be there, you can hope to see it one day with your own eyes. It’s a launchpad for a million dreams. Especially if your normal life is boring or stressful, having an incredible landscape photo to look at is endless mental escapes. Because it’s real. Someone stood there and took the photo, so conceivably you could go there too. You can’t get that with a painting, where just by the very nature of the thing you are getting the artist’s interpretation. But a photograph, that’s real! Celebrity work is similar in that it’s an instant reminder of someone you might look up to, or aspire to be like. A really good portrait conveys some intimacy and you can feel like you know that person by looking at it better than you would just seeing them playing some character in a movie or playing in the big game. You can look into their eyes and and imagine what they are thinking about, or imagine they are looking back at you. Historical work reminds you of a time and place that isn’t there anymore, maybe nostalgia or fantasy about “the good old days” or even just a chance to marvel at how far we’ve come since then. These are all elements that drive people to purchase photography.

Street photography doesn’t benefit from any of that. It’s often gritty. The feelings and emotions it evokes are not things most people want to be reminded of. The subjects are most likely strangers, and if you can look into their eyes and imagine what they are thinking it’s frequently not something you want to experience first hand. It’s voyeurism, letting the viewer experience a reality that is foriegn from them – usually for a reason. It lets them see and feel what another part of the world lives. This can be entertaining but also gripping. This is why street photography books do well, because you can look at it and then put it away where you don’t have to look at it. There’s a beautiful ugliness in it. Not all the time, but often. I was talking about this on twitter and I noted that even with my own work, the work without people sells far better than the work with people – though I get many more comments about the work with people. It’s an interesting dichotomy.

I think NFTs actually have the potential to change that up a bit because they sit somewhere between something on your wall and a book you can put away. You can make a virtual gallery to see things big and on the wall, but you can also just leave them tucked away in your wallet and support artists you like without thinking about where to put the art in your home. This is going to continue to evolve especially as photography is only just now starting to find a following in the NFT collector world, but we’ll see. I still have some 1 of 1 editions listed on Foundation, Known Origin and MakersPlace and I also just made a lower priced edition of 20 on Rarible, and still have a very few of the first edition I minted back at the beginning of the year.

I’ve been progressivly making the move from physical books to kindle versions, I’ve talked about this in the past just from a physical space standpoint but the convenience of having all my books with me at any given moment is hard to downplay as well. And yes it has it’s setbacks as well but for me there’s more on the win side so my physical bookshelf is being whittled down to mostly hardback first editions of books I love and or books my friends have written – with some books even fitting into both those categories. 

The ease of buying books for the kindle is great too, but maybe too great. I often hear a friend talk about a book they are enjoying and quickly buy it so that I have it in my library and can read it later on. This has resulted in way too many books sitting unread in my kindle library, which is almost as bad as the way too many books sitting 20-30% read in my kindle library. To the point when I look back I forget why I have a book, or what is going on with it in the part I’ve read. It’s getting to be a problem. I think I’m going to put a moratorium on buying new books for a while to try and get through the ones I have. I know I’m not the only one who has this issue but I’m also not really sure I’m looking for advice on how to deal with it – I just need to focus on finishing books rather than jumping around to new ones all the time. I know some friends have told me they force themselves to finish a non-fiction book and then reward themselves with fiction and still others have moved entirely to audiobooks. Audible is a piece of shit on every level which pretty much rules out the audiobooks for me because of the strangle hold they have on that entire industry. Bastards.

If you are on my mailing list then you just learned about this because I just came up with it while I was writing up the latest edition of it. I turn 40 in February so I’m asking people to help me come up with a list of things I should before that date. Here’s the doc where you can add your ideas. Go for it.