Charity on Chain: How Art Blocks is Raising 85ETH (or ~300k)
Two things are wildly distorted in crypto: time and value. Days feel like weeks, and 0.1 ETH sounds better than $350. This matrix helped raise an incredible amount of money for charity in a very short time when Rockland, Jeff Davis, and DCA all pledged a portion of their projects to charity. And when I heard the results, I was blown away. To put this in context, I thought it’d be helpful to spotlight the projects and the charities they support.
Stippled Sunsets — Jake Rockland
Inspired by his grandfather’s old silkscreen prints and longing for the ocean, Stipple Sunsets has an intentional beachy dreamscape vibe that conjures feelings of sandy toes, salty air, and an ice-cold margarita in your hand on a hot day. In a collection that’s reminiscent of a relaxing beach day, Double Prints are glitchy sunsets that combined two very different vibes into one with fantastic results.
Rockland shared in this post that a variation of the Double Print is the “Perfect Balance” that aligns the two sunsets. Unfortunately, none made it out of the test net. Another style that wasn’t generated was the boxy pattern — possible with the Homage effect. Both are stunning variations that are locked in the contract.
On paper, Stipple Sunsets seems simple: color, stipple size, stipple density, and alignment. But the visual variation, even between similar outputs, is amazing to see.
Give Directly
Inspired by Snowfro, Jeff Davis, and Dmitri Cherniak’s previous charity donations, Rockland took it one step further and pledged 50% of all projects to charity, starting with Stipple Sunsets going to Give Directly.
Give Directly takes a unique approach to charity by treating the people with radical dignity. Instead of prescribing things they assume people need, they let them decide for themselves — an unfortunately radical idea in the world of charity.
Since 2009, Give Directly has given 300 million dollars to 500,000 families. Their research found that most people use the cash for medicine, livestock, education, water, renewable energy, housing, irrigation improvements, and small business investments. In short, it helps people with the things they actually need.
Rockland’s project generated 16.2ETH for Give Directly, and on top of that, Art Blocks decided to MATCH that donation with another 16.2ETH that would go to 6 charities (including Give Directly). After selling out in less than 24 hours, 32.4ETH was donated.
I’ve got goosebumps just typing that.
Rhythm — Jeff Davis
According to Jeff, Rhythm was influenced by artists including Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, and Vera Molnar. Like most of his pieces, my laptop never seems to do justice to the blend of shapes and colors that collide for an immersive experience.
Rhythm ranges from uniform color sequences to vibrant bouncing shapes to stunning black and white outputs. Some of my personal favorite outputs include a gap between shapes, and transparent shapes that collide for an added layer of depth.
Every time I scroll through one of Jeff’s projects, it reminds me that there are levels to understanding interactions between colors, and it gives me a genuine appreciation for the technical mind that can build a home for these experiences on the blockchain.
No Kid Hungry
Jeff pledged 50% of all future projects to charity, starting with Rhythm. This time, the charity of choice is No Kid Hungry — a charity that aims to feed as many food-insecure kids as possible. No Kid Hungry provides food during summer breaks, before school, and after school. Since so many families rely on school for their kids to eat during a typical year, No Kid Hungry has stepped up to ensure communities can access food during the pandemic.
Beyond the short-term mission of feeding families daily, they also provide food skill education and advocate for more equitable government policies to fix systemic inequalities that disproportionately impact underrepresented communities.
As of writing this, Rhythm has sold ~75% of the available pieces, representing ~20 ETH. When the project sells out, it will have generated 27 ETH.
Gen 3 — DCA
DCA was one of the original artists on Art Blocks. Genesis was DCA’s first project in the curated collection, then Gen 2 and Gen 3 were released in the playground.
Looking through all three projects, you’d be hard-pressed to find another artist with such a broad style that pushes the boundaries quite as much as DCA. Genesis has a contemporary feel that would fit in a gallery next to Jeff. And Gen 2 takes me right back to the early days of dial-up internet; I can practically hear the AOL dial tone when scrolling the project’s gallery. Gen 3 strikes a balance between vibrant colors and quirky internet culture, and I think it captures this moment of crypto art quite well.
I was curious about the prominence of words in the art. It’s unusual for language to play such a major role in generative projects, so I asked. DCA said,
Words are language are abstract constructs that we take for granted. Pairing random words together can create unexpected and sometimes irrational meanings. Art is also irrational and highly abstract in the same way as language. Therefore pairing the two together seems like a good avenue to explore.
And he’s right. Looking through the collection, there are wild combinations of phrases that might have never been strung together if not for this project, but they seem to uniquely resonate with internet meta-culture. And in some cases, Gen 3 expresses ideas we can all relate to. Case and point, #108:
Every Shelter
DCA committed 40% of revenue to charity, with Every Shelter being the first benefactor. Every Shelter is a charity dedicated to building homes for people displaced by war, persecution, or disaster and addresses the gap between short- and long-term solutions.
Since the pandemic, Every Shelter has been struggling to find funding. DCA reached out and convinced their leadership to accept a crypto donation. When he shared the details of the donation, they tried to talk him down. When the project sells out, DCA and the Art Blocks community will have generated 26ETH: the largest single donation the charity has ever received.
Summary
The generosity of Rockland, Jeff, and DCA is truly humbling. Donations from these three projects will total 85ETH, and the Art Blocks team is extremely proud of the community support for these efforts. Smart contracts enable artists to build charity into their projects with everything recorded on the Ethereum blockchain for anyone to verify.
Personally, I hope other platforms take notice of the frictionless process and find ways to make a difference with their communities. Because ultimately, crypto art is in a unique position to provide economic empowerment to communities that are largely left out of the wave we all find ourselves in.
