Portrait of a Collector
It all started with a bit of envy. I was noticing that all of the cool kids in the NFT community had a Cryptopunks or a Bored Ape Yacht Club profile photo. I really wanted one too, but they were expensive and they weren’t really my kind of thing. I was more of an art geek and wanted something that reflected that interest, so I decided to commission a portrait by one of my favorite artists, George Williams.
I discovered George when Marischa Becker gave him a shout out one day on Twitter. I immediately got lost in his abstract 3D art on OpenSea and his portraits had such a unique and distinctive style. They stuck in my mind for a long time and I ended up buying several of his pieces.
So when the idea of having a custom portrait commissioned came to mind, I immediately thought of George and asked him if he would be open to doing a commission. He graciously accepted and off he went to work his magic.
And oh man, did he work his magic. I was blown away by his first test renders and he kept on coming back with more and more creative ideas of how to approach the portrait. When somebody does such great work, it’s hard not to be inspired yourself and so ideas started popping up in my head left and right. And it wasn’t just ideas of what to do with the portrait, but they were ideas of how to harness all the creative energy that was radiating from George’s work and take what started as a simple portrait and do something bigger.
A lot bigger. Let me explain.
So what started out as one portrait to put on my profile page has now turned into a 10 portrait series each uniquely styled with exquisite materials, one of which was crafted from photographic samples of George’s physical paintings.
These portraits will be listed on Foundation one at a time with the first one dropping today at a very affordable reserve price of 0.12 ETH. We set a low price because we wanted to make the pieces accessible to a wider audience and allow more people to participate in the auction.
But that’s not all. That’s just the “Artist Series” of portraits that we plan to release. We are also releasing what we are calling the “Collector Series”. These will be white clay renderings of the portrait that will come in seven different colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and gray) and will be listed as 1 of 50 collectibles on Rarible and will have an even more affordable price of 0.02 ETH.
These are meant to encourage participation from as many people as possible and they are priced so that you could buy several of them if you wanted. You are encouraged to re-list them into the secondary market and speculate on which will be the most coveted colors or you can collect them all and be one of the very few with the full set.
And one more thing. We will be gifting a “Collector Series” collectible portrait of your choice (while supplies last) to every person who makes a bid in the auction for the “Artist Series” portraits. This is a way to reward those who join the auction even if they are outbid.
Finally, I’ll be keeping one portrait for myself to use as my new profile image. My portrait of choice will be “Williams Impasto”.
This will be my genesis piece on Foundation and I will be listing it with a reserve price of 43 ETH, which is the number of self-portraits that Vincent van Gogh drew and painted during his lifetime. I don’t expect it to sell, but it is symbolic of how much I personally value the portrait and also value George’s talent and art. It is also a very meaningful amount of ETH that would further my career as a collector and support me in my effort to give back to the community and help pave the roads and build the picks and shovels that artists and collectors will need to create a bright and sustainable future for NFTs.
