I was 8, she was everything to me, and she just told me she had cancer (don’t worry it’s a nice story really). I hardly remember anything before that time in my life, but I do remember the few years after, they were full of fun and laughter, art, travel and exploration.
She would draw, paint, quilt, decorate etc. One piece of hers I remember clearly was of me, at the bottom of a waterfall. I’ve sent my dad to try and find the piece or a picture of it so I can share it with you.
Found it! My Dad tells me she didn’t like it so it got dirty and she folded it away, this is the first it has been out in 20 years!
Here’s another piece of hers ❤
Sadly she passed away when I was 10 but not before teaching me to love art, not be judgemental, treat people as I want to be treated, to fight for what I believe and protect my family, to never fit into anyone else's box and be myself, always.
Fast forward to my teens, I fucked around like most teens, and I ended up in jail for growing cannabis.
Fast forward again, I decided to move away from my shit “friend” group and go to explore Buddhism. What started as a 2 week working holiday turned into an opportunity to help administrate and education-program-coordinate at a small Buddhist Centre, it was essentially a year long meditation retreat and was incredible.
I taught meditation classes and requested ordination as a monk, but during the process I met the woman who was to become my wife and mother of my children. I fell in love fast.
>> again. My first son is born ill… He has a rare Liver disease that affects 1 in 15,000,000 children. He needs a Liver Transplant. At 4 months old he is fighting for his life but fortunately I have been passed to donate a section of my liver to him. He had a 50% chance of making it through the procedure and I had a 0.5% chance of dying on the operating table. There was no question, no doubt, GET ME ON THE TABLE NOW was my mindset, I had to lose a lot of weight and bring my cholesterol down before they would put me at risk… I ran around the hospital twice a day, ate salad and cold meat only for a month and made weight.
We both survived!
The transplant saved his life, but before I continue, consider my poor wife having to endure 12.5 hours while we were asleep, I did nothing, I went to sleep and woke up, she’s the hero in this situation, she’s the one who cared for us both as we recovered. I’m just glad I could do my bit.
We got home just before his first Christmas, our family, a little battered, a little bruised, but everything we needed was in arms reach. He’ll never be ‘out of the woods’ but he’s still here 8 years later and has yet to have any major complications.
Throughout ALL of the above I have been entrepreneurial, first growing and selling weed.., then exploring multiple business that I was passionate about, but all with little success.
I was continued to explore art for fun and study a graphic design degree so I could stop paying graphic designers to do a job I thought I could do better myself.
But here’s the rub, the fact is that my focus was in the wrong place, I worked 12–18 hours a day for the first 6 years of my sons life, I hardly saw him really and I justified it as “trying to provide a life of fun and laughter, travel and exploration like my mother did for me.”
NFTs changed everything.
At the beginning of this year I decided to put all my focus into family first and NFTs second, I moved my office into our living room so I could spend every possible minute with my son(s), we had another child by the way, and I started creating as an individual artist and as a family studio. I have never been happier. I haven’t made a ton of money, just enough to survive and my journey is just beginning. The biggest bonus is that I can spend ALL my time with my kids, we create art and learn to code together in their spare time.
Codename Pebble, my first son, inspired a project called ethRocks and if he likes the art, it goes in. “Do a Voldemort Nose, Daddy!” So we do a Voldemort Nose. “Do a Spongebob hat, Daddy!” So we do Spongebob hat, etc.
Yes it’s crude, but that’s the point, it’s his, he’s doesn’t care whether it’s perfect so nor do I.
A personal project is studies and exploration 3d space called vocks_.
Maximum 777 1 of 1 studies.
This brings us to today, I am writing this blog post because I just delivered a project in 25 hours that I am extremely proud of, The 6529 Calendar
inspired by the one and only Punk 6529 (we like the hoodies) and his tweet:
Using Mondoirs Your very own Smart Contract for NFTs to create the smart contract I wanted to deliver my first creator contract, my NFTs, not OpenSea, Not Rarible etc, mine.
I contacted a new friend and business partner https://twitter.com/AntonTheSwan1 to help when I got stuck with the Verify & Publish step.
We had to move from Remix to Hardhat, you probably will have to do the same if you follow the tutorial.
Anton is on the other side of the world to me but was willing to help, even though he had an irl job to get to and his own busy schedule to contend with.
The result of 25 hours straight work is:
6529 editions of the 6529 (Wednesday) Calendar @ a price of 0.006529eth
On my own website! https://www.6529calendar.com/
The unsung hero of this story is https://twitter.com/Luke360
When it came time to deploying the Smart Contract to mainnet I had nowhere near enough eth.
Like many of you reading this, hopefully someone is reading this, I frequent Twitter Spaces and Lucas is an incredible community member who delivers incredible, open & welcoming spaces.
He had previously collected a vocks_ 1 of 1 and invited me to speak in a space, I told everyone what I had been up to, with ZERO expectations of what would happen next, they collected more vocks 1 of 1’s and Lucas randomly sent me enough eth to mint my smart contract!
So there it is, my story, in short, up to this day.
If you have made it this far, I deeply appreciate you.
If you have collected any of my work please join my Discord and make yourself known! https://discord.gg/ZYE2Z3UgMv
If you don’t want to join Discord, please DM me https://twitter.com/vocks_ so I can thank you properly and ensure that I never ever miss you when I airdrop goodies to my wonderful collectors and community.
Have a beautiful day and remember to love art, not be judgemental, treat people as I want to be treated, to fight for what youbelieve and protect your family, to never fit into anyone else’s box and be yourself, always.
vocks_
