From María Paula

A note: I know this was previously the JPG newsletter, but since I have been writing it for so long and it holds three years of my writing (except some stuff at Forbes Crypto, Spike Magazine and the two books I contributed to), I’m slowly shifting it towards a personal newsletter, focused on crypto things that I use and make me happy, so you should try them too. Hope you don’t mind the pivot.

Anyways, if you opened this newsletter, you’re interested in the title. It’s actually a really good story.

Turns out that after Summer 2020, when I farmed my brains out, I really wanted to start collecting IRL art. But what I did not want, is to offramp my precious crypto and go to a gallery, and make a case why I would be a worthy collector. Yes, that happens, especially in blue chip galleries. Truth be told, even if I am comfortable dressing up, playing a part and I could have bought art the normal way, after a pandemic that I spent almost solely with my internet friends doing anon casino shit, I could not fathom going to a gallery and experiencing people from another context “KYC” me. 

So there was this artist - Simon Denny - I knew about him because he makes art about the blockchain, tech, and the figureheads that we all know. He is also a curator, and this one time that Eva Beylin was in Berlin, we visited his show Proof of Work, one of the first (if not the first) institutional shows about blockchain-informed art. Proof of Work featured a lot of artists I love to write about: Harm van den Dorpel, Terra0, Billy Rennekamp, Jonas Lund, Distributed Gallery. 

One of Simon’s artworks, I shit you not

For added mysticism: I found out about Proof of Work  because in late summer 2018, I was sitting at the communal area in Full Node, the coworking space I worked out of, trying to set up some “minime” tokens to spin up a DAO through the Aragon interface, and these guys showed up with a giant steampunk-y machine. It was the Chaos Machine, by Distributed Gallery. The Chaos Machine is a sculpture through which you could burn fiat and the machine would spit out a seed phrase in return, if I remember correctly. While they were installing, the machine’s glass shattered and I started talking to the people, who told me that it was 1 out of 2 machines. The second one was being installed at Schinkel Pavillon, a super cool museum in Mitte, and that I should go. Turns out Kei Kreutler (formerly Gnosis) was one of the co-curators as well.

After that, my friend Stina came up to me and told me if she could start an arts department at our non-profit, Department of Decentralization/ ETHBerlin, where we would continue exploring this brave new field. Since we were actively researching “blockchain informed art” I wanted to collect some of that art. And I thought Simon’s art was equal parts good, hilarious, and blockchain-y. But Simon, as Google told me, had gallery representation and that meant that if I wanted to buy something on inventory I would have to go to the gallery and do the things that caused me anxiety. So that was a big no. 

Then I found this piece from him: a Patagonia vest made out of Margaret Thatcher’s scarves bought at an auction. And then I decided to get over myself and confront the whole purchasing situation because I needed it. I was born and raised in Argentina, and the figure of Margaret Thatcher for me represented an awful time in the history of my home country. So I wanted to own a piece of Margaret Thatcher and I also wanted to own art that spoke about my world - the Patagonia vest needed to be mine. 

the art in question

I lived very close to the gallery but I tried several times to walk in and just walked past. So then we got connected because by then, I was also 100% determined to buy that artwork with crypto. Simon was very nice and invited me to his studio, we talked about business stuff, I confirmed I was buying the Vest, and then I left and did not think too much about it. But then he took a long time in issuing me the invoice to buy the piece. 

And this is when DeFi comes in. 

I knew the artwork’s price and this dude was taking too long, and my crypto was sitting around doing nothing except the number going up. We all get antsy when that happens. So I did what any normal DeFi native would do: I locked my ETH up and opened a position through DeFi saver, and started earning yield in USDC. It was March 2021, and after a month, I had made all the cash I needed for the artwork, closed the position and called it a day. 

the other evidence of the DeFi mentioned

I shared the story with Trent and Sam, JPG’s co-founders, and then I realized that it was a cool narrative continuation, as Margaret Thatcher slipped the UK into debt. Simon masters complex narratives, so I wrote him explaining what I did, in case it was good for research, but totally convinced that he would think I was a bit of an insane speculator, something I had claimed to not be at our only IRL meeting. He LOVED it.  And that’s how my now husband ended up noticing me because I just played a bit of casino fun with the money that was supposed to go straight to him, as a treat. 

Anyways, the rest is history and none of your business.

I hope you enjoyed this, in the next editions I’ll publish more stories, probably more contemporary and about things I’m enjoying.

Ps. special thanks to my accountant that helped me do the 2021 tax return where this had to be declared.