The next artist in our quick Q&A posts is Ernst Blaad.
We chatted to Ernst to find out more about the artwork and getting involved in NFTs on Cardano.
If you’d like to see more posts from this series you can find them here.
Why don’t you introduce yourself?
My name is Ernst Blaad. I’m living with my family in the alps.
What is your art background? What got you started?
From the beginning I was addicted to pencil and paper. Already in my very first exercise books of elementary school I drew in every available free spot. Until today I always have a sketchbook and my favourite roller pen with me. Drawing puts me in something like a trance – it’s my personal way to relax – my yoga.
First I tried to copy and create artworks which were as realistic as possible. But it becomes boring. When I was studying at University I learnt lots of history of art and design.
Some of my colleagues adapted styles from different artists but that was not my way. I always tried to create something new. I learnt about the radical constructivism scene with thinkers like Humberto Maturana, Heinz von Förster, Ernst von Glasersfeld and much more.
Wiki Explanation: Radical constructivism is an approach to epistemology that situates knowledge in terms of knowers’ experience. It looks to break with the conception of knowledge as a correspondence between a knower’s understanding of their experience and the world beyond that experience.
The approach of radical constructivism was just what I was looking for.
Far from conventions, trends and tendencies I searched for my own style.
In this time I discovered the Dadaism movement established in the early 20th century after the first world war in Zürich. They just broke with all conventions and produced art against war. It was funny and ingenuous. That’s what I try to create: art with my own style, funny and ingenuous out of a line with loads of improvisation.
Right now I’m doing my last NFT Ernst Blaad project: The “Never Ending Drop” exclusively on artifct.app – https://artifct.app/collection/BlaadPlanet. Each day a drop and I will never stop.
What attracted you to blockchain and NFTs?
Well first the NFT space gave me the liberty to do what I really want to do. I’m actually hiding my work from my friends because I just want to create what I’m creating right now – No tips and advice from my friends – just pure Ernst Blaad art. Good or bad isn’t the question – just my art without any compromise.
Tell us about your project/artwork. What is available? What price(s), and how do people mint or buy?
Well my roadmap is easy to explain: I drop every day a 1/1 NFT exclusively on Artifct.app – Artifct by the way is a incredible project with a Metaverse on the moon in development. The NFT most times is sold quickly because the price with 100 ADA is a good base to go directly to the moon 😉
The buying process is via Nami or Eternl, so easy to handle. I mint all my NFT´s on pro.nft-maker.io/ -> there I can include a HiRes file in the NFT which can be downloaded on pool.pm via right mouse click. This seems for me to be very important because I’m originally from the printing industry and just love to see my artworks on the walls – obviously printed on HQ Hahnemühle paper -> that’s just awesome and a a real feature in the NFT space.
There are still a lot of artists that are hesitant to get involved with NFTs. There is a lot of fud around, calling NFTs scams etc. What would you say to an artist who was perhaps on the fence about getting involved with NFTs?
That she/he is losing her/his time -> every day is a lost day. NFT Space is the real space for art. No curators, no art historians – simply nobody in between your art and the person who likes it. That’s the pure game, no boots licking at all – just you, your art and the person who likes it. I would recommend every artist to jump right into the NFT world 😉
Why did you choose Cardano to launch your NFTs over other blockchains?
To be honest – my experience with Crypto in general started in Christmas 2021. My son introduced me to Crypto. He was a great fan of the Cardano project – well and after some days of studying I got it too.
Cardano definitely has the most intelligent heads and projects in the backpack. They will launch such a lot of amazing projects within the next year and not at least – will solve real world problems. I guess that Bitcoin one day will be overtaken by Cardano – well at least I do not have any doubts – I’m all in ADA 😉
ADA and NFT’s, Cardano NFT´s are quite young – they’re something like 1 year established – so for me they did a very good job. Minting fees are absolutely nothing compared to Ethereum. I think we will see a massive change from artists going to mint with Cardano.
If you could work on a collaboration with any other NFT artist, who would it be?
Snoop Dogg
Do you collect NFTs too? If so, what is your favourite?
Well I started to collect after my first sales: Claymates, Vudu Brigada and obviously, Artifct Moon. I got 2 pieces on the Artifct Moon – Cass and his team are working right now on the metaverse. I know them – it for sure will be great! Check out their whitepaper on their Discord channel.