Healing can have more than one channel. Tried Art?  . Andrea Reade, a Canadian multidisciplinary artist creates intuitive conceptualized artworks tailored to women empowerment, astrology and spirituality themes using 2D collage & AI mediums. Offereing a persepctive on NFTs that can be fueled by

a sense of enlightenment and self-awareness of the collectives unique vibration which promotes healing. Plug into some good NFT vibes!

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FIND THE MUSE-Andrea Reade

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (CEO & Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Andrea Reade (NFT Artist, Community Leader & Moderator for Joyn.xyz)

00:00

Nadja

Alright, 3 2 1. Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja bester from Engage to Earn investing platform AdLunam, and you are listening to The Future of NFTs, the show that looks beyond current NFT use cases and dives into what Non Fungible Token technology is evolving into. All this as seen through the eyes and built by the fascinating minds of the amazing guest speakers that we speak to each week. AdLunam is the only investing platform in Web3 that rewards attention with allocation. Our Engage to Earn platform features dynamic NFT investor profiles, NFT allocation fractionalization, and our one of a kind Proof of Attention allocation mechanism.

01:09

Nadja

And of course, be sure to set your clocks for the Future of NFTs used to be until today, live on Twitter Spaces every Tuesday. But I am extremely happy to announce that starting in the New Year, we will be moving over to YouTube, so you'll get to not only hear from, but also see our guests. And plus, we'll move away from all of these tech issues that we've been experiencing on Twitter Spaces. But if you are listening to this on the podcast, on Spotify, et cetera, don't worry, you'll be able to continue listening to it without any interruptions. It's just that the live version is going to move platforms. And you can also tune into our sister show Diving Into Crypto, which is live every Thursday on Twitter Spaces same time, same place. So join us for both shows because we speak to incredible thought leaders and change makers in this game changing industry, and it really allows you to have a finger on the pulse of what's happening.

02:11

Nadja

03:32

Nadja

So, Andrea, welcome to the show. So extremely happy and excited to have you on today. Are you joining in from, I imagine, very cold Canada, or where are you today?

03:45

Andrea

You are correct. I am currently in Northern Canada, home for the holidays with my family, and it's lots and lots of snow. It's very cold and the basement is quite cold right now. But thank you very much for the very sweet introduction. But yes, I'm currently bundled up in a blanket here as we speak here today.

04:06

Nadja

Yeah, I'm not in the basement, but I totally get the rest of it. I'm in Croatia, where it's well, in fact, I'm at the coast in Croatia where it's not at all so cold, but as a South African who just came from visiting home during summer, I am dying. I keep on thinking I'm developing hypothermia while I have the AC on 30 with a jacket and a scarf and a beanie. But the locals tell me it's not very cold. So if I die today, it'll just because I'm dramatic, not because it's actually a real threat. So Andreina, Andrea Sorry, We have Andreina on our team, so I knew I was going to make that mistake at some point. So. Andrea, Hey, I see you're here. Andrea, tell us more about your journey, your background, and really just what makes you tick. Yeah, let us get to know you a little bit.

05:01

Andrea

Thank you so much. Before I get into it, I just want to say I see a lot of familiar faces here in the audience and I just want to shout out to everyone here who came out. I mean, it's early morning for me here in Canada, but I see a lot of you down there, so I really appreciate you all so much. It's really sweet that you could be here with all of us today. So I just wanted a quick shout out to all of my amazing friends in this amazing Web3 community. I wouldn't be here without them. Let's see what I can do. And I know we have plenty of questions to go through, so I will try not to go too much, but enough that gives you an idea. My journey with art I started when I was a child. I've always known I was artistic.

05:49

Andrea

I've always loved playing with any medium, from paints to crayons, like, whatever. I was just such an imaginative child, just always just wanting to just be creative in some way. And then fast forwarding, My parents saw that I was very interested, so they actually put me in drawing lessons with a professional pencil drawer. So I started with pencil drawing first, and then I started playing more with paints. And as I went through elementary school, it became apparent that I was quite good at it and I was getting art awards in school. All my teachers said, you should pursue something in art, you're very talented. And I said, okay, maybe. And then I went to high school and I thought, maybe I should pursue architecture. So a lot of people may not know that, but I originally went to school for architecture for a brief period.

06:41

Andrea

Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly the route I wanted to take. So when I got there, I wasn't as passionate about it as most of the other students were. So I took that as a sign that maybe this is not the path I should take and should maybe re-go back to the drawing board. I say this in a very positive way, and when I went to university, it was a very tough program. I know there's a few here. I know my friend Pier Andrea, he knows architecture is not an easy career. It's tough, and if it's not something you're passionate about, then I think we should definitely go back to the drawing board and rethink our strategy of where we'd like to take our path in our careers. So it was such a negative experience in university. I'm not daunting on architecture whatsoever. It's a beautiful, amazing but it was a very difficult experience for me in university, enough so that I actually took a hiatus.

07:42

Andrea

08:36

Andrea

So I needed something. I needed to find an outlet. So I bought a brand new iPad with the Apple Pencil and I said, you know what? I need to start drawing again. I feel like there's something missing in my life, in this huge void. So I'm glad that I listened to my intuition, because I registered my business Crowned Pilots pretty much not long after that started with just drawing, and at this point, I wasn't even doing collage yet. I came across collage from various artists on Instagram. A few of them actually I still speak with to this very day, who are also here in web3. They've inspired me to pursue and try the art of collage, and I haven't looked back since. And I've always had a passion for astrology spirituality, and I feel it's definitely has become more mainstream in the last ten years or so that I felt more comfortable with the idea of potentially finding a way to integrate my passion for that, plus doing collage.

09:34

Andrea

And I am happy to say I built such a great community on Instagram before I came to Web3. I have a lot of amazing, loyal clients that I work with on a monthly basis for their small businesses. I create commissioned pieces for them. And I mean, it's become a daily practice for me to just create art based on astrological events from just feeling out the energy of the collective and just letting myself feel the way I feel and channeling that into my work. So what you see here today is a compilation of all of these things. And fast forward to now. I'm now in web3. I've been doing it for about two years. It'll be two years in March. I can't believe it feels longer than that. I think everybody knows here in Web3, one month feels like an eternity. So it'll be two years in March.

10:23

Andrea

And honestly, I know we're going to get to that question eventually. Web3 has completely changed my life. It has brought so much joy, so much love. I never felt so included, so accepted in my entire life. And I'm so glad that I decided to get back into my art again because I wouldn't be with these amazing people here in this audience today. I wouldn't be sharing my art, my energy, the way I am right now if I did not take that leap. Wow.

10:51

Nadja

I'm so happy that this is our last episode for the year because this is 100% the way that I want to close off the year on the show. It always strikes me when I speak to people on the show, and we've had a few artists come on before, how the way that someone shows up today might be the only way that you know them. But if you listen to the backstory and you realize it's actually so much because of Web3 that they've been able to embrace, really their authentic selves. I was reminded of my own story as I was listening to you because this whole idea of and I love the title of today's show, Find the Muse because I feel, in some sense, web3 allows you to channel the muse, right? In a way. That other industries I mean, as you say, studying architecture.

11:46

Nadja

Because that's the wise choice, the societal choice. I grew up as a writer, and I always wanted to write, but I always also knew that it wasn't going to be how I make my career. And I got into Web3 because I'd taken a career, hired as from my other career in marketing, and I got the opportunity to become a journalist. And I was like, oh my God, I have no idea what this Web3 stuff is, but I want to be a journalist. And really, I mean, from there, this is you say about one day feeling like one year. Very true. I've been in the space, I think, six years now, and it's like, whoa, man, if I'm not gray yet, I'm going to get gray soon after this year, that's for sure. But, I mean, coming full circle, it's just so beautiful to listen to people's stories and go like, this is the person that you always were.

12:39

Nadja

But because of this industry, because of this technology, because of the space of people, you are actually allowed to be who you are in public. That's not always depending on who you are. That's always a possibility in kind of society that you might move in. So, yeah, very awesome to just listen to your journey and very excited to be talking about it. I want to get a little bit more into NFT. How did you get into NFT specifically? And also tell us about your NFTs. Do you have any collections? Tell us more about this. Very excited to hear.

13:16

Andrea

Absolutely. I have to say, you're an incredible host. I always throw that out there for anybody that I've given opportunity to speak and share that because I know how difficult and how draining it can be to be a host. And it's hard work, it's not easy. So I just want to say you're an excellent host. So thank you so much. So for NFT, interesting. So a lot of Instagram artists that I've connected with on Instagram all decided not everyone, but a good chunk of them all decided to jump into web3, into NFT. And we all had a group on Discord. I know there's a few of you in here who know about this Discord group. Here, Andrea odyssey of the heart, He knows we have a specific discord group that was called Discuss Crypto. I was invited to this group and I met so many more Instagram artists that I've heard of before, but I never actually got to talk to them before.

14:16

Andrea

So that was almost like a Star Trek. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm talking to some of those most talented people I know on Instagram. And I can't believe we're all here kind of diving into this. Excuse me, my throat is not that great this morning. My allergies get really bad here up north, going from Toronto to northern Ontario. So when we all decided to jump into that, we all started on Twitter. And I was told, if you want to be successful in web3 NFT, you have to have a Twitter account. And I'm like, my God, another social media account at the time. You're like, God, I think I already have enough social media in my world. But I started a Twitter account just like everybody else. Yes, go ahead. Your hand is up.

15:04

Nadja

Sorry, I was pressing the wrong emoji. I mean, this is my hands are cold. So you're talking about your allergies, and I have freezing hands, so ignore my hands and please go ahead, no worries.

15:16

Andrea

I just want to make sure as a whole thing, as soon as you see a hand goes up, you're like, oh, stop talking and make sure that the hand goes but yes, so allergy is not fun. It's not fun. But yeah. So all of us jumped onto Twitter, and based on the information that was circulating throughout the discord group, through everybody I was talking with, they mentioned the community is big. And I think that was one of the things that struck me when that information was provided. I'm like, what do you mean the community is different on Twitter compared to because I think a lot of us can resonate and know what the audience is like on Instagram compared to Twitter. I think for those who have been on Twitter for a while now, the energy is totally different. I have so much love on Instagram, but the love is very different here on Twitter.

16:08

Andrea

I feel it's more accepting, more inclusive. I think we're all more supportive of one another. I just overall feel it's a much more supportive culture. And I just couldn't believe it at first. I was like, wow, it doesn't feel excuse me, I'm so sorry. My throat is not great this morning. I just feel that it's not so much of a course, there's a kind of partitive aspect to anything, but it does not feel as competitive as it can be on other social platforms. We're all here to support and uplift another and I'm like, oh my God, that is my calling right here. I love helping people. I love supporting people. And I feel like maybe I feel like this is where I need to be. I feel like this is where I'm going to thrive because I am all about supporting communities. And I think that's something that a lot of us had to really think about when we enter this space is what are intentions behind entering this space?

17:09

Andrea

Right? Because when I first heard about NFT specifically not even talking about the culture web3, how supportive it is, I did hear, without having too much knowledge about what NFTs are, the technicalities behind it, I did hear that it is another way for creators to potentially sell their work. And potentially in a much better way than opposed to selling on your website or through Etsy or through Instagram. So, I mean, of course, naturally, when you see dollar signs a little bit naturally, I think we're all going to be gravitated towards that. However, I came into this not knowing that it wasn't just always about the money specifically, I work full time. I think some people know this, but not everybody knows this. I work full time outside of NFT and working for Joyn, which I'll get into later as well. So I juggle three different job careers, all at the same time.

18:06

Andrea

So my time and energy is very precious to me as it is for everybody, right? So I do need to be conscious of when I'm spending my energy on something, it has to be something of value and I feel that it's going to support my growth, it's going to support my career, the direction I want to take with life, et cetera. So I mean, if I'm just in it for the money, it's not necessarily the biggest motivation for me. Thankfully, I do have with my full time career, I'm able to fund what is considered to be my hobby and my passion. I'm not reliant on making sales in NFT or in web3. Maybe one day that may be a reality, but for now that's currently not the direction I'm taking. I think there's a fear almost that if I were to become full time in NFT, it's kind of scary to me a little bit.

18:56

Andrea

For those who are in the audience, I know there's a few of you in here who are working full time in NFTs and in web3. Kudos to you. Kudos to you because it is not easy. It is not easy. It's a lot of work and I wish I could provide as much time and effort as those who are full time. But for now, again, so back to circling back to my point behind all this is that I wanted to set the right intention of entering web3 and making sure that I'm doing it for the right reasons. Because I do feel a lot of people who enter the space is specifically and no other reason than making money. And I think we all know that there's more to it than just making money. We have to be very community oriented. We have to support the community on top of building our brand, promoting ourselves, our art.

19:45

Andrea

A lot of us don't have that kind of background. So I'm just like a lot of people, I had zero experience with marketing, promoting a brand besides just being on Instagram. So I think a lot of us started at ground zero and I think that was a really cool experience. There's a few of us here in the discuss crypto discord group where we're all just kind of like the guinea pigs. We were kind of just figuring it out as went along and it kind of felt good to know that. I was like I had so many questions and everyone had so many questions that they felt they can actually ask, which is not normally a culture or an environment that you're kind of used to, which again was why I was so intrigued to just continue taking this leap. So the community aspect of it and of course, selling my work and making it more widely distributed and more seen.

20:37

Andrea

I think seen is the right word. Being able to be seen by more people, not necessarily just collectors, but just in general, sharing my passion and love for art with others who also want to do the same thing. I think it's such a beautiful experience, and it still continues to be that way two years later.

20:55

Nadja

Wow. Andrea, thank you so much for this. I didn't even ask you yet. At least what you consider the role of NFTs in the life of an artist or artists in the NFT space. But I think you really encapsulated a lot of what those answers might have been because so much of the narrative I mean, NFTs became as well-known as it is because of art, because of the I mean, we see an artist selling an artwork for $69 million, and everyone goes like, whoa, that's the place to be. And of course, those conversations were incredibly important because it does, I mean, for the first time, at least in my lifetime, but in how many generations before me, artists actually became someone more than just people over there drawing pretty pictures for very little compensation or even no compensation. So I definitely think the scales needed to be balanced and was, to an extent.

22:00

Nadja

But now, unfortunately, because of so much of this hype in the industry now, it's like, oh, the wave has come and gone. And before we had this possibility in front of artists, and now, okay, well, NFTs are obviously all a scam, so what's the next thing? And I love the way that you are approaching this, because not only not putting all of your eggs into one basket, in the sense like, okay, this is the one thing and it's going to work, and if it doesn't work, it just has to work. I think that's a very high pressure situation for any artist to put themselves in, but also just to understand that if you're only in this industry, I mean, it's a technology. And that's the beauty of being in web3 is at the end of the day, it's a technology. And so any use case, any application, any ideas that are built on top of it, but the fundamental basic is still that it's a technology.

22:58

Nadja

And so if you're in it for the money, that's a layer on top of the technology, but the technology is still the possibility. So it really sounds like you have a very healthy relationship with yourself as an artist in the space. And I think that's incredibly important because most of the artists that, I speak to a lot of people because I work in web3 full time, so I speak to a lot of people, including many NFT artists, and I feel like there's an unbalanced relationship. There's an unbalanced relationship in the industry in general with a lot of things when it comes to creating hype and not really so much of substance beneath it. But, yeah, really wonderful. I hope that artists listening to this, whether live or on the podcast later on, can really just take from this a sense of identity and a sense of ownership that you don't have to become someone else.

24:00

Nadja

Who you are is already enough. It's just that you're doing it in this very supportive industry. So I want to get back to Joyn. You are a community leader and moderator for Joyn. So tell us a little bit about what is Joyn.xyz.

24:17

Andrea

Absolutely. And I want to share a little backstory as to how Joyn came about and where they kind of came along in my journey, because I think it's definitely really important because I don't think everybody in this audience, a lot of them know me. None of them all really know the backstory of how I got to this point. So Joyn was actually rebranded to be Joyn in this last year. It was originally named Chester. So about maybe two or three months into my NFT getting into that world, one of my pieces was collected by Chester. And I'm like, who is Chester? Is it a guy? Is it a company? I didn't know. Right? I had no idea. I knew they were collecting a few works at that point, so I managed to message them, and it was actually a group from Toronto, so I was so happy to hear it was Canadian.

25:10

Andrea

They're a Canadian based startup. At the time, they were still very early in the stages of what they wanted to contribute to the community and what they were building. There's a few in the audience who know about Chester and how the first project that came about, but essentially they collected my work. I got to know Michael. He is the co-founder of Joyn and is such an amazing person. He is so inspirational, and I feel like he saw something in me enough, that something that I didn't really know at the time. Now I can look back and be like, wow, yeah. I think he saw some abilities that I didn't even know I had. So when they were building their discord, they were building what it is. That’s what they wanted to accomplish here in Web3. They're still figuring these things out.

26:07

Andrea

They asked me to be a part of their team. And at the time, it was just a volunteer situation, and I was totally on board with it. Because when we spoke, we talked a lot about our values, and a lot of them had to do with community, having a supportive culture, not getting so caught up in the hype. Just their values were very much in alignment with where I wanted to take my career with Web3. So without knowing fully what direction they were going, I still wanted to support them. And I did that as a volunteer. I was volunteering for about eight months, and I contributed to creating spaces and hosting spaces for them as kind of a start and of course, moderating, discord and whatnot. And then this past year, a lot of people in the audience know who joyn is at this point, we have skyrocketed behind the scenes.

27:02

Andrea

They were building a platform. So just to give an idea, it's basically a group of entrepreneurs, developers, creators, who really just want to push the NFT space forward. We have built a platform where we can build partnerships, connections, where there's opportunities for artists to be rewarded for contributing their efforts to the community. You can apply for exhibits for galleries. I think that's one of the biggest things we keep hearing from those who are web3 is I keep missing out on opportunities. I feel like I'm missing out on having my art to be seen. How can I apply for these opportunities? And so join? What we have is what we have in place is essentially that anytime we see a contest, or if there's partnerships or collaborations where they want to run a contest, they want to run a campaign. Just to give an example, we have a few going on for NFT Paris.

27:57

Andrea

We had a couple of partners who wanted to find some amazing, talented artists to be showcased in NFT Paris. So to make things easier, for example, I know a lot of these contests could be on Twitter. You know how many submissions those contests get? Hundreds, sometimes thousands of submissions. So the current structure of things is that if you're using a tweet, for example, if you have hundreds of thousands of submissions, my gosh, it is so much time to go through every single tweet, all of the replies, all of the art, and sometimes it gets missed in the replies as well. This takes hours, sometimes days or weeks to do that. So what we're trying to do is, of course, this is only one part of our platform that's very supportive to not just artists, but also to our partners. It gives them the option to create a campaign on the platform, so that instead of going through Twitter, for example, or through a Google form as another way of doing so, you're able to check every single submission on our platform for that campaign in an easier way.

29:05

Andrea

Their Twitter profiles are all connected. It essentially makes sure that whatever requirements that you have, so say, if you have to retweet, you have to like something, you have to follow specific accounts, joyn checks those requirements to make sure that each of the artists are following the instructions and that they're qualified to be a part of the campaign and they have equal opportunity. As for everybody. So again, that's just one of the ways that we're trying to support artists at this point. We actually started gathering data and stats for end of year and we have helped hundreds of artists to be seen to be given opportunities. Some of them have never been exhibited before and they've won contests for. It's helped change artists’ lives and I'm so proud to be a part of a team that truly just wants to support the community that wants to push Web3 forward.

29:59

Andrea

Despite the bear market, with crypto market not being in the most fragile state right now, we're still pushing through. We're still finding collaboration opportunities with people who actually want to push it forward. So I'm their host under spaces. Host? I support what they're moderating. I help them with ideas. We have a lot of new features coming up very soon too, that's going to be very helpful for artists that want to run their own campaigns, for example, and not necessarily relying on Joyn specifically to run these campaigns. So if somebody wants to run their own curation, for example, they want to curate for a specific gallery, or if they have connections with someone who wants to run an exhibit, they can run their own campaign. So I think it gives the power for creators to do whatever they want. It's not just relying specifically on larger partners to run these campaigns.

30:57

Andrea

Like we have the power here in Web3. We can do that too. Right? So our platform is built for pretty much everyone. It's as inclusive as it possibly can be. Again, the alignment is there with my value. So this is who Joyn is. They're incredible group of people. I've had the opportunity to go to NFT.NYC in June and also just recently at our Basel and I can tell you that those two experiences were two of the most amazing adventures. I will never forget those two trips. And I know this is not the last event we're going to. I know we're going to go to more moving forward, hopefully across overseas, hopefully to Europe. I love to meet some people at different events with Joyn. They're just so supportive of my journey. It also supports my brand. It really is just a great alignment with where I want to go with my career and I'm just so happy it worked out the way it did.

31:51

Andrea

It just was very organic. It wasn't forced by any means. It was like it was meant to happen.

31:58

Nadja

Yeah. First of all, I just want to say that listening to all of your involvement with Web3 is like a master class in how to be in the space. So I think that this conversation that we are having today is really going to be just one of those anchoring conversations in the lives of many people. So I hope that those who need it will be able to find their way to this episode because it really just encapsulates how to do this. Whether it is your philosophy about what's important to you and how to make that show up in your life in a way that doesn't get you to compromise on your own values or how to get engaged with a company. And I mean, the whole thing about how to get into Web3. There's so many people who have this question and approach it from the perspective of the way that things are done in other industries.

32:52

Nadja

But so much of this is really just from the community level upwards. So I think that is such an important thing to highlight. But yeah, in terms of Joyn, we recently had this non fungible talent season one, where we had artists, we had an art contest. And I know just personally, from the amount of submissions that we received, it was so difficult for the team. And we had judges like artist Mieke Marple from LA was one of the judges. It was really difficult for the team and the judges as well to just sort through all of the submissions because it was happening through Twitter. So from that perspective, I mean, it's super important to have a platform that offers these kind of things. But then also from the aspect of democratizing opportunities as an investing platform. This is exactly the same premise that we had when we started AdLunam was, wait, there are all these opportunities in Web3, but people who actually need the opportunities the most, they are the ones not having access to them because they don't have the right network, they don't know the right people.

34:04

Nadja

So it's incredibly important to democratize access to Web3, whatever it is that you're doing in the space. But the democratization is super important. So I want to know a little bit more about your art. What is your style like, what sets it apart? I know we spoke a little bit about astrology and spirituality and of course, also what is your biggest source of inspiration that inspires your art? Because you are at this very unique confluence of this is the future of technology and this is all of the opportunities that there are in technology. But at the same time, I'm a woman in this world at this time. And I'm not only a woman having this 3D perspective of how do I rise through the ladders of success, but I'm a whole human being and how do I show up in the world? Because this is really the sense that I'm getting from your work is it embodies a holistic approach to life and not just, okay, this is what's going to put me on the front pages of the art magazines.

35:08

Andrea

I love the way that you put it. And without even going too much into detail, I think you really did capture already an amazing essence of what I'm trying to accomplish with my work. So that makes me feel really good that is exactly how you feel when you see my work, that tells me that I'm doing it right. So I really appreciate that very much. So in terms of my work, I agree. I think it's from very much a holistic approach. When I was a kid, I honestly thought what I want to do for a career. And at the time, before getting to even thinking about architecture, I thought about becoming a psychologist because I truly just love listening, helping people, and I feel so sad when people are going through rough times. Like, I just want to be there.

35:59

Andrea

And I've always been that way. I always tell people, and especially those who are in this audience, they know that if they ever need someone to talk to, my DMs, my messages, they're always open for them. Because mental health, I think that's the topic there too, is mental health is a very important topic for me. I was born with depression. Depression is by no means easy to deal with and I'm open to share that and being vulnerable with everybody here because again, it's not always seen or very visible mental illness. You never really know what someone's going through at this point in time. I'm in the best pace of my life. There definitely have been points, though, where my depression definitely was not easy, and especially when you have a presence here in web3. Even to this day, I can't believe the following I've got, it's mind blowing to me.

36:58

Andrea

So when you have that in place as well, it almost feels like an obligation and responsibility sometimes to be present all the time and it's very pressuring. And there's days where I'm like, I just don't have it. And my cup is not full enough to give to the community today. And I feel sad, I feel bad that I can't be here. But we have to turn that around. We have to normalize how important our mental health is. So with that in mind, circling back to my art, I do incorporate some of those themes into my work as well. I think it comes down to the idea of our light and shadow. We have a light self and we have a shadow self. And naturally we always gravitate mostly towards our lights because these are the aspects of ourselves that we love the most. But when it comes to our shadow are parts of ourselves that we are not.

37:50

Andrea

It's definitely not the same in terms of how we feel about our light. These are aspects of ourselves that we tend to repress, push away, not be feeling, and accepting of. And this comes down to our inner child as well. And I think a lot of us can understand the concept of childhood traumas. If we're not taking the time to really heal some of our traumatic experiences as a child, this can go definitely into adulthood and we have to find ways of how we can navigate that. And I can tell you from my experience as a child, my parents got divorced when I was very young. So naturally, without not putting the blame on my parents, of course, because it was best that they did separate and that they're much happier in their lives with their new spouses. But naturally, going through that experience, is there's going to be a natural sense of abandonment there?

38:40

Andrea

So I knew growing up, going to see psychologists, seeing psychotherapists, I was very self-aware that I was going to have to learn to deal with anxious attachment and childhood abandonment. Just how can I navigate not feeling that abandonment is very tough ,sometimes? So when you're navigating through life and from relationships to career, how can I share in my artwork what it feels like to really embrace our shadow self? So that requires some darker work as well. On Instagram, I find it an interesting topic because on Instagram, I am very much involved in the spiritual community that's there, and I do think there's a bit of an unhealthy balance when it comes to shadow and light. I think the spiritual community really emphasizes on the light self. So it's always both light and fluffy colors and love and light as much as that's very important, too, to really navigate towards the light.

39:45

Andrea

It is so important to really embrace our shadow. And I emphasize that so much in my work on Instagram. But not everybody appreciates it. But that's okay, because to me, that's kind of setting the point there, right? You're uncomfortable with the idea of facing your shadow. So in a sense, I feel like I'm actually, I think I'm doing it right. If you're feeling uncomfortable with it, there may be a chance that maybe we should reevaluate and take that time to become more self-aware of our shadow selves. So again, I think I'm winning in that aspect, even if some of my followers may not like it. But then I also translated that here onto Twitter as well. The more dark art I share, the more love I get. I'm like I think it's just an interesting, it's a really cool experience where some of my art that wasn't getting that same kind of love on Instagram is the total opposite here on Twitter.

40:40

Andrea

So it made me feel more comfortable, more what's the word? I just felt more encouraged. I felt encouraged to really navigate down this path of sharing more artwork that is geared towards feeling our emotions, our shadow self, et cetera, besides the integration of our light and shadow self that I reflect in a lot of my work. I'm a huge astrology nerd. A lot of people in this audience know this. I'm a huge astrology nerd. I've loved astrology since I was a child, and naturally, I've met a lot of people in my lifetime that also were huge into astrology. It's just the way that it worked out. And I learned so much from so many, and I started to just integrate that into my own daily life without being like, did you check your horoscope today? Not like that. Not in that kind of format. I like to pick apart what people's signs are and not just your sun sign.

41:39

Andrea

We can get into the rabbit hole of our moon, our Venus, like all the planets in the sky, like you're getting into some of the cosmic stuff behind it, too. It's fascinating to me. It's fascinating. Why? Because it gets me to really understand who we are at our core and why we do things the way we do, why we act the way we do, why we speak or communicate the way we do. I find it so fascinating to learn about human behavior. And I have these conversations with a lot of people here on Twitter, too. A lot of people love it into astrology as well. So, again, circling back to how that is incorporated into my work, I would say 95% of the time my artwork is based on astrology, based on astrological events. So, for example, today is the 20th. So let me think here.

42:24

Andrea

Yes, the winter solstice and Capricorn season are in two days. So naturally, I'm going to pretty much have at least four to five new pieces in a month because of astrological events or changes in the planet. So, like, when Venus moves into Capricorn, for example, when you have a winter solstice, fall equinox, new moons, full moons, you're guaranteed you're going to see a new artwork from me because that's where my inspiration comes from. So to give a proper example, we have a new moon in Capricorn a couple of days after the winter solstice and the new moon. And Capricorn is actually one of the longest days of the year. So when you think about it that way, a new moon is much darker than a full Moon. A full moon is fully lit compared to a new moon. So when you think of it in that way, too, you're like, okay, there's less light.

43:17

Andrea

It's definitely darker. So naturally, the work will probably be a little bit darker than some of my other work. And I like that. It gets me to navigate using color schemes or just more of a darker moodier sense in my work. And then what does it mean to be in Capricorn? Well, of course, having my knowledge set in astrology allows me to take some of these key words from the Capricorn zodiac, for example, and incorporate that into the work. Capricorn is the Sea goat, incorporating potentially some horns in there, some more darker colors like blacks and blues, and incorporating the knowledge of astrology, plus the meaning of what a new moon is. New moon is all about new beginnings, setting new intentions, and again, with it being done the longest day of the year. These are all the different aspects of what I do to create my pieces.

44:09

Andrea

And of course, on top of that, including how my vibration or what my frequency feels at the time, especially with it being winter here in Canada, we have less sunlight, which really sucks. But that's just how it is. That's how it is in winter, so we naturally feel more somber, there's less sunlight, and we may be feeling less energetic. I mean, that's quite normal. So incorporating all of these things of how I'm feeling in the moment, plus the collective energy, plus just the keywords from all the knowledge that of my love for astrology is all things that are incorporated into my work. And it makes it for very fun and interesting. Some people may think, well, we have twelve zodiacs. You're going to go through the twelve zodiacs every single year. And yes, I think it's challenging when you do it the first time, it's like, okay, I got it.

45:01

Andrea

But now, a year later, here I am again. I have to make another Capricorn season, I have to make another Aquarius season. But what can I do differently this time? What can I do differently from an imaginative or a creative standpoint that's different from the year before? Not necessarily making it better, because I don't want to put that pressure on myself. Right. I think a lot of us know that as we go forward and growing as an artist, that we can be feeling that pressure of, like, I need to improve, I need to better than last year. And it's like, just go with the flow of your creativity. And it challenges me again to just take a different angle with the Zodiac that maybe a little bit different than from the year before. So that's my two cent and my take on why I do the art that I do.

45:48

Andrea

And I think it's a very popular topic, too. A lot of people like to learn about astrology, and I love sharing that knowledge with others. And I'm not an astrologer. I say this to everybody. I'm not an astrologer. I'm not trained to be an astrologer. I just know a lot about astrology. So with that said, I work with a lot of astrologers and spiritual healers that write insights for me. So we work together. This is collaborative opportunities that I get on a monthly basis. I work with them sometimes they'll have the words well before I make the art, and sometimes it's vice versa. But we work together, and it also helps them hone their craft as well as a writer. So it's kind of like killing two birds with 1st. We're both growing. We're both in our essence and what we love to do, and we get to come together and share that with the community that really looks forward to reading these insights on a monthly basis.

46:40

Andrea

And I love sharing knowledge, so there's so many different things that I get to do with just my art. That's not just the sense of just making art. I'm actually providing opportunities for spiritual healing for people. And I think that's a really cool thing.

46:55

Nadja

Yeah, wow.

46:56

Nadja

Thank you so much for taking us through that whole process and why you show up and how you show up. I think it's so amazingly A, fascinating, but also B, important to get this behind the scenes look, because so many people just see the art and they don't understand what all goes into it. I wanted to touch a little bit on what you said earlier about this light versus shadow. Definitely in this industry, I'm also very passionate about mental health, and I have been working with founders and CEOs for many years, and I've always maintained that some of the most successful people are the most trauma driven, and it's the way that they express their traumas. So I think if there's any particular industry where it's super important to talk about the light versus shadow, it's this one, because so many people are attracted by what's good about the Web3 industry, but get really damaged by the negative aspects of it.

48:03

Nadja

49:12

Nadja

49:51

Andrea

It's a great question. So from a personal side of things, I actually moved home pretty much at the same time. When I started NFTs, I actually moved home at 30 years old, and that was not easy for me to sacrifice my independence. But at the time, I had to be honest with myself. And I think what's hard for a lot of us is what can I do to fix my situation or to move forward. I was living in Toronto at the time, and Toronto is very expensive for those who know Toronto. And I was in a very different financial situation, and I had to sacrifice living independently and to move home for a year. And that's when I started NFTs and thankfully, honestly, the community and there's some amazing people here in this audience that I have so much love for that have got me through some of the toughest moments in the last two years.

50:48

Andrea

51:39

Andrea

Why? Because I got to meet some people who I've been talking to on Twitter, what feels like forever, and I got to meet them in real life. And some people argue these are just virtual connections, but I'm like, no, it's virtual here on Twitter. But I'm telling you, this will translate into in real life, and I kid you not, I've never cried so hard. I had so many happy tears. Meeting some amazing people who have changed my life. I think there's nothing can beat that. There's a few here that I still have not met in real life yet, but I'm already getting emotional even thinking about it. The moment I get to meet them in real life is going to be a very emotional but such a joyful experience. Like, I went to our Basel and I met, oh, my gosh, so many amazing women from the NFT.

52:27

Andrea

So I'm a part of one of the communities, NFT Goddesses. Anna, actually here in the audience is the founder of NFT Goddesses. Purely a beautiful group of female artists, uplifting each other, empowering each other. We're basically sisters, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. And I got to meet a few of them at Art Basel a couple of weeks ago. And I kid you not, like, I was literally full makeup and the nicest, cutest dress at the wow gala. I met Yam as well, the founder. Like, that was a very emotional experience for me. There's actually reasons for that, but I won't get into the rabbit hole of that. But just meeting some of these women, some of these amazing artists in real life, nothing can trade that it was all meant to happen the way it did, besides some of the trips I went on, because I know for a lot of artists here, they are not able to attend these in real life events.

53:20

Andrea

And so I'm very grateful that I get those opportunities to go. So besides that, though, I usually don't talk about this very often, but one of the highlights I probably won't forget pretty much for the rest of my life is Cosmo de Medici. So Snoop Dog bought one of my works in February. I probably cried for a whole week when that happened. I think the biggest highlight probably is the community that I built here I want to get into. I'm so bad at talking about my art. Like, people know this. I'm terrible at promoting my art and talking about my work, but I just love talking about people and how they impact me and how they make me feel. This community of people that I've met have changed my life. I feel so blessed and grateful to have the love that's poured into my world every single day from just Twitter, from whatever social media platform.

54:20

Andrea

55:12

Andrea

Not necessarily because of my talent, but more so, I wanted to pave the path of do. I feel like I'm in a good place now where I can, first of all, take on another platform, because I think we all know when we're on multiple platforms, it can be very stressful sometimes knowing where to mint somewhere, let alone SuperRare, right? So I wanted to be proud of where I am career wise before I start applying for a marketplace like SuperRare. So I will be applying probably the end of this month. So thrust my fingers there. There's a few people here in this audience that I know gone into SuperRare recently, and I'm just so freaking happy for them because they deserve it. But besides that, I think something that's important to emphasize is that when we plan for too many things, it can be very stressful.

55:58

Andrea

56:41

Andrea

57:18

Nadja

58:17

Nadja

I mean, community in general is incredibly important for our nervous systems, but if you found a community in the web3 space, you're in a very privileged position. And it's the amazing thing. It's super easy to find a community. Just know who you are and what you want. But last question before we leave. What is your philosophy about web three changing lives? And in light of.

58:43

Andrea

That.

58:44

Nadja

What advice would you give newcomers wanting to enter this industry?

58:49

Andrea

Excellent, excellent questions. And I'll do my very best to be mindful of time. I mean, in terms of how web3 has changed my life. I already mentioned time and time again that the community is what changed my whole life here. But I think if we want to get into more of the technicalities of other things besides just being a part of amazing communities, I think it allows us to really think about how we handle our finances, investing opportunities. On top of just being in a welcoming community of passionate people who aren't really, we're not really afraid to really challenge the status quo. I think that's something just to keep in mind with how Web3 can really change. We have to have that mindset of like we have to challenge that status quo of web2 mentality, et cetera. I think it allows us to have the opportunity and potential to do things that work for us, to have the power to build our own world, in a sense, and not rely on third parties or the middleman.

59:54

Andrea

Andrea

They're trying to support more Canadian entrepreneurs of how they can incorporate NFTs into the context of their business. So specifically for me, being digital art. But they've hired me to do this so that I can support and help more people get on boarded. How do you set up a crypto wallet to how to build a community and a brand? These are all very important things and sometimes it's very difficult to find quality information like that readily available on the Internet and what is considered to be reliable information as well, and even just crypt security is so important with the rise. I know we're in a very slow period right now with Web3, but that certainly is not stopping the scammers, that's for sure. Finding ways to just really just ruin the experience for a lot of us. So big advice to newcomers as well is get the security training, even just social engineering.

Andrea

How can you be using your discernment to ensure that you're not caught up in a bad situation. Not clicking links, for example, when you're getting emails or when you're getting DMs user discernment and not just fall for what's in the message, really take the time to ensure that this is actually secure. Even today. Actually a proper example of I was like, wow, I really use my discernment so much is since Elon Musk announced and then retracted the policy about link tree, I've decided to actually revamp my whole website and rebrand it essentially, which is not cheap for sure, but it's something I wanted to do. It cost me enough money. So I made my first payment yesterday and my bank sent me a text message saying this is a potential fraud alert, let me know if this is yes or no. And I'm like, no.

Andrea

I actually went and checked the text message number. I went and searched the number to make sure it was my bank right. But again, that emphasizes that I actually take the time to ensure that whatever information is being sent to me is actually coming from a reliable source. So that tells me that I'm doing it right. And I'm hoping that others who are entering this space will also take that time to do that security training. Because the last thing we want is for people to get scammed and really just be discouraged with the whole process. I think in order to be successful here, especially if you're going to be investing in crypto, you have to take that time to do security training, otherwise people would totally leave the game entirely. And I can understand why mainstream adoption I think there's a lot of things that are preventing people from becoming more adopting NFTs ,web3, crypto, but I think that's one of the biggest ones is that's going to scare more people away if people don't actually take the time to do security trading in that way.

Andrea

So that's just my two cent on this. I think we're just scratching the surface. A lot of larger brands, organizations are really dipping their toes and it's very apparent you're starting to see that more on the news all over the internet. And I still think in a lot of ways the general public doesn't truly understand what web3 is, what NFTs are, and that they think that might just be a trend that may fade out. But I do think that innovation in this space will definitely continue over the next decade. That's just my two cent on that. It's not going anywhere, regardless of bear market or not. Look at all of us here. There's a bunch of us here who are still building. We're the pioneers of this movement. We ain't stopping just because of the market, just because of the bear market. We're still here, we're still building because we believe in what NFT web3 is all about and how it can change people's lives.

Nadja

Nadja

I said on camera that I'm a nerd because I'm not really a nerd, but I'm a wannabe nerd. So welcome Nerd, the official nerd. Please go ahead and ask whatever you want to Andrea.

Speaker – Nerd Head

Thank you very much. Yeah, we are Nerds and we are all nerds in ourselves, in what we are doing. That was the point of starting these collections. And thank you, Andrea. Thank you. You’re informative, I'm very excited. Informative speech. It's very important to the NFT and the Future of NFTs for the next decade. And it's very important for NFTs, the utilities also. So we are also building utility for our NFTs. So my question is what's the success for the artist? Do you think when they sold out or after they sold out their collection, what they or he or she should do? What's the success of NFT? NFT is not like normal art, traditional art. For example. In a traditional art, you have your collection, your party, all of them sell. Maybe you continue your art, maybe it looked like a success. But in the NFT you have like for example, many apes or punks.

Speaker – Nerd Head

They have been a very cheap I mean, they sell out after they sell out. There is also secondary market and they pump there, I mean, get very popular. So what's your opinion about success after a mint? What they should do or what's the longest or feature of just PFP? NFT? It's only picture in some point. I mean, there are many kind of NFTs. So what they should do, in my opinion, it's a utility. So what kind of utility they should do to be successful in this ecosystem, in the future also?

Andrea

That's a great question. Thank you so much for asking. So when it comes to PFPs versus one on one art, I think that needs to be accounted for, right? Providing utility for PFPs or collections versus one of one art. So when you're talking about PFP specifically my experience and my growth as an NFT artist, I have not had the experience of creating my own PFP collection. But I can see based on my experience with collecting and investing in PFP projects, I know there was at one point it was a huge trend. There was PFP projects all over the place. People were jumping on that bandwagon. And it became difficult at one point to know which one should I be investing my time in, which one seems to me is providing the best utility for what I'm looking for. So for PFPs, I think they have a lot more pressure in terms of having a proper roadmap of what they want to provide to their collectors.

Andrea

Right. One of them I'm super gung ho about is World of Women because I know the founder, of course, Yam, she's amazing. But something that she does, she's had a very clear roadmap of where all the funds and profits were going to from going to charities for investing in real life events. So it's not just about owning a World of Women. We got opportunities to meet up in real life and I think again, that's one of the biggest things for me is meeting real and people meeting connections, right. For Bored Ape and whatnot I know I understand that I probably won't ever own a Bored Ape just because it's obviously out of my price range, of course, but I know they do in real life events as well. I know NFT.NYC, there was a few of them, a lot of token gated events that is very appealing to a lot of people.

Andrea

Right. If you have the resources and the money to do so. Of course, this is against, we're talking like some of the highest grossing PFP projects, of course. So because they have the resources and time and energy to do this is a totally different ballgame compared to PFP projects that are trying to move up the ladder. I do have a few PFPs from other PFP projects and I can say that there's a few of them that definitely have dropped off because they just couldn't keep up or they weren't able to continue with the robot that they had. So with that in mind, if you are thinking of doing your own PFP project, especially with the slow bear market right now, I could definitely see it being a bit of a challenge. But from a one of one perspective, this is more of my experience personally.

Andrea

I did one collection not long ago. I was the model in my own photography series. This was a new project that I did just for fun and it was very well received. And what I decided to do with this one, for example, to provide utility. Now again, this is emphasizing that every artist is different and what they can provide for utility. This also depends if they're a full time artist or not as well on how established they are in terms of what resources that they can provide in terms of utility. Because I'm not a full time artist, it is very difficult for me to provide a good sense of utility compared to others, whether they want to do raffles. For example, I actually did that with one of my collection pieces. So for those who are holders of a specific NFT in the collection that I created, I raffled off one of my one of ones.

Andrea

I know that's not exactly something that everyone can do, but this is something in my means and my resources that I was able to provide. And that was very enticing to a lot of people because, well, naturally, my One of ones are definitely more expensive than additions. For example, it's usually out of the price range. So this is one of the ways that I can kind of build my collector base a little bit is doing raffles. And I'm seeing more of that happening now, too. I think a lot of people in the space know this. A lot of people are raffling off one of ones or they're raffling off one of their additions for something to make it more enticing for people to first of all collect. But it also provides utility as well at the same time. So raffling is one of them. For example, for all of my Ethereum collectors specifically, I do random airdrops all the time.

Andrea

They get the special privilege and opportunity to collect more of my work because they invested in my work from even, say, if it was two weeks ago, it doesn't matter. That still is something I'm very grateful for. So I provide that utility in doing random airdrops. Now. Again, that depends on your resources. That depends if you're able to do that. But these are ways that I provide utility as an artist. And I've seen this also be applied for many other artists here in the space. But for PFPs, I wish I can comment more specifically on that, but I think the important thing is when you are wanting to create your own PFP project, definitely have the marketing resources available for the long term to make it sustainable so that you're able to continue to be reliable and effective with your roadmap. Otherwise you will lose interest.

Andrea

You will lose some potential interest in collectors because you may not be basically keeping to your promises. So I think that's something to keep in mind is be aware of your resources, what you can provide in terms of utility. Hopefully that answers your question.

Nadja

Awesome. Thanks Andrea. And thanks Nerd. Well, beautiful Nerd community. As you said, we are all nerds, so definitely celebrating that within each of us today. Andrea wow, another hour and plus has come and gone. But this has as I said at the beginning, I was very excited for this to be the last show of the year because I think the conversations that we had here today really just brings everything to this highly personal level, but at the same time is very representative of the collective as well. So I cannot begin to thank you enough for the insights, the authenticity, the honesty and just the realness with which you showed up today. I think, genuinely speaking, if I were an artist, I'm a writer, but I for sure cannot art to save my life. But if I were to be an artist, especially someone starting out, whether it's in art or in this industry, listening to this conversation with you today would have been incredibly inspiring to me.

Nadja

Nadja

Nadja

So come fail with me because I think as were talking about earlier, people who build in this market, they are those who really have what it takes. I mean, I speak to projects every single day of the week and I can promise you that these are hard times. But the projects building now, they are the ones that come the next beautiful bull market that everyone is going to be chasing money again. Those are the real projects. So whether it's a project or an artist, but anyone who is left standing during this market is follow them and be part of what they are building. So I'm going to be highlighting this as I speak to a lot of these people while I'm writing the book. So come follow along with me and you'll get to meet a lot of cool new people. So on that note, guys, I usually say that I'll catch you again next week, but in this case, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and I will see you in a few weeks from now.

Nadja

Andrea

Andrea

Andrea

Nadja

Couldn't have said it better myself and because I'm not going to try and top that beautiful ending to this show, to this season, and to this year. I am only going to say that if you want more amazing guests like this, then I catch you next time for the Future of NFTs guys. Love to you all. Talk to you soon. Cheers.