NFTs
This Arizona artist is selling NFTs to help save endangered axolotls in Mexico
Meet an artist who’s at the forefront of technology and environmentalism—at least when it comes to a small, rare salamander that lives in Mexico City’s only lake.
You’ve probably heard of the axolotl or seen various representations of it everywhere, from Mexican folk art to Japanese anime and the video game Minecraft. But while these adorable creatures are iconic in art and culture, they are endangered. The lake the axolotls call home is being polluted and their numbers are dwindling.
That’s where Matt Martinez comes in. goes by the name “scum” and is using her artistic work to raise money and awareness about the plight of axolotls.
His art cannot be found on the walls of galleries or homes. It is bought and sold exclusively online as so-called NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. It’s a new virtual art world that he sees as the wave of the future. The Show caught up with him recently to talk more about all of this.
Full conversation
MATT MARTINEZ: An NFT is a subscription to a blockchain. I sell NFTs specifically on the Solana blockchain, but there are many out there. You have Ethereum, AVAX, Bitcoin, Tezos. They all have thriving art markets. But essentially, before NFTs, it was impossible to sell a digital artwork and prove ownership. Now that art has changed, the kind of buzzword is “digital provenance.”
So if I create a digital artwork and I have followers and collectors and they want to buy, own and eventually sell a digital artwork, they can do so because of NFTs. That’s a 10,000 foot view.
But the real exciting part of NFTs in the beginning was that royalties can be included in the smart contract. So if my collector buys a piece of art and sells it for more or less later – it doesn’t matter – a percentage of that sale will automatically go to my wallet, the wallet that created the NFT in the first place.
So a lot of people joked that they could just right-click to save a piece of art because it’s digital. And of course you can, but you can’t own it or sell it. And there is a market for both in the NFT space.
LAUREN GILGER: So interesting. So it’s like a digital version of Christie’s or something like that, like an auction house.
MARTINEZ: Well, Christie’s is auctioning NFTs.
GILGER: And for crazy amounts of money, right?
MARTINEZ: Hmm, hmm.
GILGER: Wild. OK, so there’s an interesting idea there of connecting digital and physical art. Are there physical versions of much of your digital art or none at all?
MARTINEZ: So in my case, no. In the future perhaps. But in my case, no. Everything is created digitally, whether with Photoshop or Procreate, whether on the iPad or on the computer. But there are many artists who create physical works, take high-resolution photos of them, sell the NFT as a kind of proof of authenticity, and then they can send the physical artwork to whoever owns it.
But what’s being worked on now, that no one has figured out yet, is incorporating NFC chips or chips tied specifically to the NFT and then an escrow service. So if someone is selling the physical artwork, the NFT will be transferred along with it and royalties will also apply.
GILGER: It’s fascinating because it raises a whole different layer of questions about ownership and what that means, in a kind of digital landscape. How did you get into this?
MARTINEZ: So I was kind of a closet artist for a long, long time. I worked with branding, graphic design, web design and photography for a long time. In a previous life, I also worked in the restaurant industry here in Arizona.
But a mentor of mine said, “you should look into NFTs.” I think this was late 2021. And he said, “I think we can be early for something for the first time.” I was like, “OK.” And he was also one of my biggest clients. I was a freelance graphic designer. I managed some of their brands, photography, etc.
And about two months after he told me to look into NFTs, I gave up. All. I’ve left all my clients and I’m working full time on Web3, I guess that’s kind of the placeholder name for this space.
GILGER: I saw that. I didn’t know what that meant.
MARTINEZ: I’ve been full-time as an artist for a little over two years.
GILGER: Wow. So this is a whole different realm for you. This is really cool.
MARTINEZ: It’s new.
GILGER: How do you make NFT art? What is your process?
MARTINEZ: So, like I said, I’m a digital artist. Some things may start as an outline. Some things may start as a small painting, a drawing on a napkin, whatever. Conceptually, it all starts in my head. And so I use a program called Procreate most often. And then you export your digital artwork, you do it in a large enough resolution that the quality is good, so that it can be displayed. Ideally, in the future, people will display digital art in their homes.
And then you subscribe to the chain. I use, specifically on Solana, there is a platform called Exchange.Art. They upload your artwork and then write a smart contract that represents your artwork. And then on their platform you can buy, sell and trade art. You can also do things privately – OTC, as they call it, or over-the-counter, off-network. And as an NFT artist, you are doing the marketing. So you go on Twitter, Instagram, or Discord and share your art with collectors.
GILGER: It’s essentially like putting it on a gallery wall, but it’s your personal gallery that’s everywhere.
MARTINEZ: Yes, 100%.
An art exhibition by Matt “Scum” Martinez in Mexico City to save the axolotls.
GILGER: This is fascinating. OK, so let’s talk about some of the projects you’ve been involved with. You’re involved in a very interesting project right now outside of Mexico City, which involves trying to save these adorable, somewhat folkloric creatures called axolotls, which are salamanders. But you’ve seen their images. It was kind of mythologized at this point.
And the idea here is to create sculptures that help raise money to save the environment, essentially. Tell us about it.
MARTINEZ: Dude, can you help me now. So at the beginning, when I started my latest collection – it’s called Slimes – I pledged to donate 10% of every sale throughout the entire series. There will be 50, so it’s not complete yet. But so far we’ve raised about $40,000. The original goal was just to try and donate some money.
And then I took a trip to Mexico City last year to meet with some partners who were working on this project. When we went there, we discovered that it is a very, very delicate ecosystem.
So they’re iconic, right? Axolotls. They are in Japan. They are in the United States. They are kept as pets, but most people don’t know that they are endemic to this lake in Mexico City, which is what remains of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan.
They still use ancient agricultural techniques called chinampas. Chinampas are essentially floating gardens. It’s really, really cool.
Right now the lake is very polluted because of runoff from the city. So the lake gets polluted once a year whenever it rains, unfortunately. Additionally, sometime in the 1960s, they introduced tilapia and carp into the lake. They are predatory fish. They have been eating the axolotl population.
So you take all of these factors into consideration, and I think in the last five months, basically everyone who works at the lake, trying to preserve it, the axolotl population has accepted the fact that they no longer exist in the wild. So now we’re working with a lot of people who are trying to create an environment within the lake where they can survive.
GILGER: So tell me a little about the reason for this project. There’s a history of artists using their art for the common good or for certain causes and things like that. But why this one for you and why this way?
MARTINEZ: So I grew up in the United States. Dad is Mexican, Mom is Canadian. And this is just a big part of my personal tradition. But I felt like I was always a little too Mexican for my white friends, too white for my Mexican friends. And I’ve never had a good outlet to explore these topics.
So, through art, I decided to delve into what being Mexican meant to me. So my art, for the most part, is the characters themselves who are luchadores, exploring Chicano and ancient Mexican aesthetics and mythology and trying to combine that thing that makes me feel like I’m learning, like I’m growing up a little bit.
Likewise, I used a lot of images of axolotls after I discovered they were endemic to this little place in Mexico City. So I wanted to do something to try and help the axolotls. And throughout the process, I became more and more in love with the animal and the place itself. And now it feels like I don’t know what else I would be doing with my time other than that. That’s quite nice.
GILGER: What’s next? This is just the beginning, it seems.
MARTINEZ: It’s just the beginning. So we recently had our first exhibition: 11 sculptures, 11 artists from Mexico City, Uruguay, Colombia and the United States and Canada. We are working to take a set of sculptures to COP16 (United Nations Conference on Biodiversity) in Colombia. We are working to get a large chunk of it presented to the UN General Assembly. We have contacts. We hope this all works out.
Things have been working out pretty well so far, so there’s no reason to believe they won’t. The sculptures are being placed specifically in areas or chinampas where people work at the lake, whether to reintroduce native plants, remove invasive species, or try to specifically help the axolotl. Therefore, we are working with Embarcadero Cuemanco to offer tours specific to the location of the sculptures so that people can learn about what is happening at the lake and also support the people who are actively working at the lake.
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