#empresswrites

If you are here right now more than likely you are a Twitter crypto artist denizen who has heard me, @maxcapacity and probably many other shouting about Tumblr on Twitter. Why Tumblr? It is part nostalgia, part necromancy, part homage to the the Web3 greats who spent years here (some are still here), part rebellion, and part reminding artists to come together to help each other.

Twitter heavily favors text base tweets - it's just a fact. Here is not the case. Many of us are also maybe a little jaded on what is happening overall and feel ignored as artists. Discord is full of scams, twitter group chats are cliquey, but here we are free to roam, explore each others works, and create a visual digital identity we want to present.

Come play with us and remember why we are all here! For the art, to make friends, express ourselves, have a good time and build a better future for artists. Yes we all want to sell work too ofc - we have physical bodies to take care of and bills to pay - but what if we share with each other our wins and how we got them, and our failures and what we learned from them as artists so when we go back to the rest of the internet hellscape we can find more success? At the very least, make some friends here or rekindle connects that may have been lost to not feel so alone. For some of you this is a trip down memory lane, for others you have never been here before. Old or new a like I encourage you to check out who I am following to get started finding each other.

This isn't rocket science - if you can understand blockchain web3 stuff, I have faith you can understand this old beast of a social network. Love you all ~~~ <3

P.S. I'm writing this for specific purposes of a pinned post. It feels so good to be able to write more than 150 characters. Also here are multi gifs side by side -- for the culture.

EDIT: Because I can edit and also adding this - for the culture 🫡🚫

~We are here to focus on the art and building up artists and to build an open, non hierarchal structure to provide mutual support for each other while showcasing the hard work and dope art crypto artists do to try to shape the landscape of web3 to be more artist friendly for ALL artists from diverse backgrounds. ~ Here are some guidelines to foster a healthy community growth:

~ NO SHILL POST/ART SHARE POSTS - why? we want the focus to go back on the artist and deep thoughts, not engagement farming. Shilling/art share is a viable way on twitter to get your art out there because of how the social media is structured. Here - content is the focus. You can discover new artists a multitude of ways including searching hashtags, looking through your fav artists feed of who they are sharing or following, and generally just wandering around.

~ INDEPENDENT ARTIST FOCUS - 10k pfp projects are a part of the nft ecosystem, and thrive on twitter, but here we want to again have the focus stay on independent artists. A basic issue with these projects is to access a lot of their communities they are token gated, and a lot of artists just can't afford them. Also many feel we are drowning in the noise of a lot of the politics and drama that goes on between projects, and need a place again to share ourselves with each other for feedback, support and overall good times.

Empress Trash (Drea Jay) is a multi versatile visual artist & nomad with her rottweiler Glitch. A lifelong artist, she earned her BFA in Painting, Drawing, and Animation/Design from the University of Iowa in 2014. Shortly after, she moved to the Bay Area which she assisted and worked alongside a multitude of local and international artists and shows including Ai Wei Wei's show on Alcatraz, being a member of the Firehouse Art Collective run by Tom Franco, and running her own underground shows from her house. She started in crypto art in 2021 and since has been exhibited internationally including Paris, Palm Springs, Miami Art Basel, NYC, LA, SXSW and Ted Talks Conference in Vancouver. 

The Empress portion of her name represents her ongoing search for sovereignty and elevated autonomy since she left home and emancipated herself from her extremely physically, mentally, sexually and spiritually abusive Schizophrenic, addict mother at the age of 13, while Trash stands for her aesthetic and her roots as "trailer trash". Art for her is the only constant in a tumultuous life and a safe space to confront demons from a highly isolated, oppressive and chaotic upbringing while still appreciating the beauty in herself and the world. 

As a process orientated artist, Empress embraces abstraction, surrealism, trash, glitch art, and AI. She utilizes radical expressionism and self-acceptance to further her journey of self discovery. She believes in peeling back the veneer of reality to allow for exploration of the subconscious meta connections between the emotional, physical, mental, sexual and spiritual realms. 

~~~~~

This blog is kept mostly up to date with current works for ease of scrolling along with complete thoughts about the inspiration behind the work or collection ~ however this blog is not a comprehensive (yet) catalog of my works.

To explore all works and platforms I currently am showcased on, along with different social medias, on you can jump on my LinkTree here:

Additionally, I run a crypto art community focused blog in which I share writings, insights, news, events and other artists work along with my own. @theempresstrash

ay ay ay!!! All the world! must see this publication of Empresswrite !! It's fabulous, I just could not stop drawing !!! personally I think the face of Sabo was my best achievement this time XD This is a fanart for Empresskira for his wonderful drabble! I can not stop reading it, it's very addictive !!

I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!

Humanity By: yaoifan124 

Rated: Fiction T  English  Supernatural/Hurt/Comfort  Words: 8,407 

Ace had never liked humanity anyways? What had anyone every done for him except abandon him? When the guy approached Ace after a fight, he accepted the gift with no question. After a short amount of time (especially for a vampire), a 'family' was trying to reign him in. Well, this sire crap sure didn't help. Oneshot. Enjoy!

Today @maxcapacity and I and many others spent a long time talking about Tumblr in Dos Punk Spaces for more articulation of what we are doing.

We also talked with Ina Vare being artist of the month and @robness joined us after he was done with his French homework. We should be seeing them both join us here on Tumblr I think 👀

A crucial part of being a digital artist is forming a digital identity. I’m not going to say this is how become a successful artist, everyone’s road to success is different but from my observations the most successful artists I've encountered present a finely tuned digital identity.

Marketing gurus, business minded type and influencers will tell you this a brand. However, many artists hiss violently at this as if it were sunlight on a vampire and run screaming from this word. Why? Brand = commodity. At the core, all artists know we are more than a commodity. We are a living, breathing, feeling human with a lot of soul put in our work, even digitally.

Brand has a sense of rigidity. It’s set color pallets and fonts, it’s the same logo over and over. Digital Identity on the other hand gives a sense of personal ownership and life to the individual. Identity as a human and artist is ever changing and growing as we move through this life.

As an artist, it takes trial and error and loads of experimentation to uncover and then actualize this identity. Another word for it could be persona, depending on how the artist wants to approach it. Either way it is distinctly different than a brand in that it not a template and one size fits all process.

I think this is why a lot of us crypto artists (not all) shy away from fully diving into a 10k PFP culture and identity because it’s someone elses work. Even for me taking on a DOS punk, I still had to remix it to make it my own. Until I did that, it didn’t feel like me. I could write an entire article why 10k collections are successful but that's not my focus. I’m here to write about being an independent artist.

I personally experimented a lot over the course of the last year and a half as a crypto artist with my identity. Previous to that I experimented for years - decades - in and out of school and navigating underground art communities in Oakland/Bay Area and online here in Tumblr, Insta and FB to form Empress Trash.

No one can really tell you the right or wrong way to do this process. In fact, a large portion of the process is learning to stop listening to others and start listening to yourself. What is important is to have a safe space to explore and create without the influence of people who maybe don't have an artists best interest in mind.

This doesn’t mean don’t have people who inspire you and guide you as friends, mentors, teachers, heroes and inspiration ~ more so don’t listen to people trying to control your creative energy for their own gain only (ie exploit you). For some this is easy, for others due to trauma or poor conditions to self actualize, it’s a harder road. I can say my road was a pretty tough one.

It’s important to keep going though. Not for anyone but you and your souls need to express itself. Something drove you to create in the first place; it’s always there waiting for it’s moment to come out. Don’t let the world take that precious flame away from you.

Keep experimenting, finding who you are and building space around you to foster the formation of that persona. Make multiple digital identities even, kill some of them for fun. In the end, though there has to be a main one to focus growth on depending on your goals, ambitions or dreams.

Even once you land on an identity keep experimenting. One thing I’ve noticed is some artists grow stale after they hit it. This is because even though they have gotten to a level of success they were striving for they lose the flame of play, having fun and trying new things. They fear too much they will lose what they got with a mistake or wrong turn so keep trying to do the same thing over and over that happened when success hit.

It’s like they are stuck on repeat and some eventually sink.

They don’t seem to remember the success came from them taking risks, helping others and building bridges. Always keep that no matter how success comes your way.

To some of you who barely make sales right now, the thought of even being successful is almost laughable. I get there myself, daily. It’s important to break that thought. We will manifest what we focus on ~ good or bad.

Take some time daily no matter how hard it seems to focus on what you truly want and dream. Your identity is your sculpture to make. No one else can do this for you.

One thing I tell artists a lot is it’s important to sustain and have any sort of success without completely loosing our mind is to separate out ART BUSINESS vs ART CREATION.

Our sense of self worth needs to be gained through the fact we create otherwise our moods and will to create will ebb and flow with sales which a lot of times is something out of our control. Again a common trait I see in most successful artists is to be able to separate these two.

What I think I see happening here and forming here in a social scale or at least ideally would like to see is:

Twitter = Art Business

Tumblr = Art Creation

This isn’t to say there isn’t overlaps, or not to use this robust features of here to link your work but I think this is a clear boundary to try to hold. Does it feed us as artists? If not, don’t give it attention so it can’t grow.

In traditional art market, when I’m in my studio creating or co-creating with friends, I don’t have random reply guys, shills, engagement farms, tell me your favorite xyz artist, show me your work and all that other stuff going on.

It came together pretty quickly actually. It's important as artists that we present our best selves how we define it in each moment. It's an ongoing thing of redefining who we are while we sculpt our digital identities. Some people land on it quick and go, others it takes time and it's fine. Art marketing on twitter has become an attention game. Who can get the most eyes on them and their work gets the dough. It seems simple but not obvious to many. For those who see it but don't succeed it's frustrating and they get lost in the crowd. Here though - it's a building game. What dope shit can you build? What dope art are you making? This building game can help translate to the attention game. Once you have built a solid identity of who you are as an artist, it's easier to go out and get attention. I'm not making official tutorials or anything, but I'm trying to be as transparent in what I'm doing by talking about it here and on twitter. It's not easy to follow sometimes, and I appreciate people who are trying to watch and learn. I'm also learning too in different ways. We all need to build for ourselves though. Decentralization means we are each our own leader. We need to have people to lean on yes, but at the end of the day it's what we build for ourselves that brings the good stuff to us. Not chasing collectors, or clout, or any of that stuff. Build dope shit and make them come to you. Coming back to tumblr is like showing the basics in building. So many of us who have gained traction in the space were on tumblr in different ways for a long time. These my deep thoughts. Hope they help <3

Update: from this writing I pulled out the one succinct thought I wanted to tweet. Short snappy phrases get peoples attention most. Usually this long form type of writing is in DMs with friends and I tweet out.