Thread
why I minted two cc0 derivs as well as why I sold/listed them for lower than my normal pricing… a thread about the power/potential of cc0 & my experience navigating new territory 🧵🔻 
roughly two weeks ago I couldn’t sleep and had the random idea to make a deriv of @GrantYun2 ‘s classic Cow piece. Grant is one of my favs( big surprise😂) & after he declared his works cc0 I thought it would be interesting to do an abstract take on his minimalist composition. 🔻
Upon sharing the piece I was surprised by the amount of love & enthusiasm it was met by including Grant himself as well as many collectors & artists I’d never really interacted with before. (⬅️That last part is a key takeaway regarding the power of cc0 works )🔻 
I had not planned to mint the work but soon had a dm from @P_Azuro , a well known collector who had yet to collect a 1/1 from me but who was interested in buying my Grant deriv. P has a great collection & taste in art, I was definitely interested in starting a relationship with🔻 
him. the more I thought about the point of cc0 the more I thought it was an interesting story to be a part of. It’s an extremely unique moment in art history where contemporary fine art gets meme-ified via remixes/tributes in real time with intense volume & speed.
Already being friendly with Grant made this part even easier , he loved my piece too and even though it’s unnecessary with cc0, having his blessing of sorts made me feel even more proud of the work and ok to mint & sell it. But then pricing became perplexing for me. I was
hesitant to sell a deriv for my normal pricing when I couldn’t get my mind around the notion it simply wouldn’t exist without the original. It felt intuitively correct to go lower but what about the price display? Would a lower sale hurt my momentum? We decided to do an OTC deal
for half of my previous sale of 3.55 E. Felt fine to me. I started to see more derivs selling for normal pricing over the next couple weeks and while it didn’t really change how I felt it did give me pause wondering if I made a foolish decision LOL. (I don’t feel that I did :))
P was very stoked on the piece & when tweeting, really praised the work. Response was big. In that moment I realized there was a huge narrative at play here with artists & collectors stories getting entangled through cc0 pieces. The beauty of it felt powerful & inspiring. 
Now fast forward to Tjo BLeU… (which auto-corrects on my phone now btw 💙😂) 🔻 
When I first saw the piece I instantly knew I wanted to create my own version of it but at the time Tjo hadn’t announced cc0. So I started working on it with the idea I would just share it with him in a DM to bring a smile or something. I did have a feeling it may go cc0 tho and
the moment he tweeted out that it was I was literally putting finishing touches on my deriv. I had it tweeted out shortly after the announcement & Tjo himself hit me with a loving DM and encouraged a mint. I asked him and few others, even did a quick poll about deriv pricing… 
Opinions varied wildly but a tight majority said lower than norm pricing felt appropriate. I decided to set the reserve at 1.69 E (what I sold my grant deriv for) & do this one on chain. No longer caring about any price variation that might show. Within an hour of minting 
@FlannelCapital met the reserve, eventually resulting in a bidding war
with @crowgmi who landed the piece for 2.42069 E (nice 😂) Couldn’t be more thrilled how it all went. My main motivation for minting these works was to become a part of the history of these iconic works by
with @crowgmi who landed the piece for 2.42069 E (nice 😂) Couldn’t be more thrilled how it all went. My main motivation for minting these works was to become a part of the history of these iconic works by
artists I’ve been lucky enough to interact with & gain the support of. Getting a decent payday & gaining two new incredible collectors on top of it was an excellent bonus. I also gained hundreds of new followers from each piece. Making deriviatives ironically helps me to hone
in on what makes my work mine. it helps me reflect on my creative patterns of thought and the various intuitional mark making I’ve come to think of as representing my various styles/modalities. Kinda BLeU was especially interesting because I was interpreting another abstract
minimalist work & making my own. Trying to do this in a way that was unique and not redundant was a fascinating & deeply informative exercise for me and I was so elated to see how many other artists joined in this phenomenon, further expanding & defining the relevance of cc0.
My derivs are coming from a genuine desire to tribute these artists, be a part of the conversation and challenge my ability to stay true to my artistic voice even while interpreting the work of another. I recommend everyone approach from a similar place & good things will occur.
I want to clarify that I have no judgment on artists that wanna price their derivs with normal pricing, I just did what felt intuitively correct for myself. Do what feels best for you, always. That’s the beauty of this space, there really aren’t many rules in this regard.
a nice little way to tie this thread up is some beautiful synchronicity… @0xTjo complementing my @GrantYun2 deriv a few weeks prior to me making Kinda BLeU and then referencing another amazing Grant deriv by @crowgmi who would become the eventual owner of my Tjo piece. ⭕️🔵 fin 
