The GBs NFTs: Unpacking the story of GB #626: Her First Evolution
This is our first story about a Queen G! There are 100 in the collection. And she has BQ that goes all the way up to 11!
Overview of The GB Project: We are weaving a modern, inclusive, accessible take on art history and art therapy into the eventual metaverse. The GB World is not just a collection of NFTs; it is also a symbolic visual language that gets revealed one nugget at a time by artist/designer/psychologist, GBae. The project gives us the tools to connect at deeper levels in digital-first interactions by communicating through artistic symbols efficiently instead of words.
Okay let’s get started with #626….
Hidden Reference #1
This is the first Queen G I’ve done story time about. Queen Gs are especially rare — there are only 100 of them in the entire collection. Let’s talk about why Queen Gs are special from a storytelling standpoint, in addition to their rarity.
The Queen Gs live in an exceptionally peaceful world, one that is arduous to reach, but considered well worth the effort for those who endure the journey. You’ll find evidence that some of the regular GBs have already glimpsed this world because there are pieces of the Queen G World in some regular GBs.
Queen Gs are extra special because they have managed to create a world that many others are trying to find. All GBs — and most of us humans — are on a mission to fight their way through dark and ambivalent forces, build up their own forces of light and strength, and eventually find their way to the peaceful world of the Queen Gs (note: we have not yet discussed the forces of darkness and resistance, ambivalence, and light that are hidden throughout the collection, except for a couple of them in the Discord).
Getting to the Queen G world involves a fair amount of inner work, for example learning to travel through what psychologists call adversarial growth and philosophers describe as the art of turning your greatest obstacles into your greatest strengths. We’ll learn more as we go, but in a nutshell: The Queen Gs have achieved mastery in values of resilience, optimism, strength, connection, artistic discovery and expression, and collaboration.
Hidden Reference #2
Let’s talk about glitter. The Queen Gs, each in their own way, are all made of light. Some, like this one, are made of glitter. Like foils, and other techniques of communicating sparkle and light, I have a lot to say about glitter, and will share a bit at a time with each Queen G.
GBs accumulate Glitter Credits every day at a rate of 1 per day. They need it to evolve to their next version. Specifically, they need enough for a ‘Glitter Bomb’ (30 Glitter Credits) to evolve. They can also Glitter Bomb each other, which has the effect of speeding up the receiving GB’s rate of evolution (if she so desires).
Glitter is shiny, dazzling. “We are drawn to shiny things in the same wild way our ancestors were overcome by a compulsion to forage for honey,” New York Times writer Caity Weaver wrote last winter in a much-loved article about her visit to a New Jersey glitter factory.
Glitter is also a shortcut to childhood and a nod to the joy of making art for the fun of it. It is, for many people, somehow therapeutic. Consider the artist, Chris Martin, who loves using it in part because it helps him not take himself too seriously, and in part because of his background starting in 1992 as an art therapist in Harlem. His clients loved using the material so much that he began using it for himself.
Glitter also has an intentional optimism to it. I did consulting work for Swarovski once, and confess I didn’t really understand the brand well before that. I thought it was about crystal figurines. But no, it is about ‘sparkle’ as an emotion. And that gave me new appreciation for works like Jamaican artist Ebony Patterson’s, which use glitter sort of like a visual lure. Once people come closer, her work asks them to contemplate much darker ideas.
Dead Tree in a Forest (2013), for example, looks at first glance like a glittering green landscape with purple flowers and leopard print stalks. Peer closer, and a dark, fallen body appears amid the plants, with shadows lurking nearby.
Patterson talks about how her methods and how they build on the way gold leaf was used in medieval iconographic paintings. (note: I’ve talked about my obsession with the light and symbolism of gold leaf in the Discord but not yet here… I’m sure a GB with that will come up soon. And, in a future post, I’ll talk about byzantine mosaics). Anyway, glitter, Patterson once said of her work, “cuts and flattens the surface and pushes the most central figures forward, holding them in a band of light.”
Glitter is also an underdog artistic material, frequently dismissed by those who have made themselves too serious to enjoy it. Molly Channon, a curatorial assistant at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College said of their exhibition “Serious Sparkle” that featured contemporary artists using glitter: “Glitter is often considered a ‘low’ art material, so bringing it into the space of a museum or gallery calls attention to the associations that come with it.”
But when big name artists use Glitter, it elevates it, like this piece by Damien Hirst.
“The thing about Mickey is that even though he’s gone through so many shifts in form and association, he’s timeless. In a way he means the same in the 21st century as he did decades ago. I watched the cartoons as a kid, and my kids watch them too. He’s relevant because he’s remained so culturally ingrained and he still just looks so great. The way children are entertained today has obviously changed dramatically, but kids are still kids, and love the same things…. It’s using simple means to capture the very essence of his form solely through the power of colour. I love that the imagery is so powerful that it only takes twelve different coloured dots to create something so instantly recognizable.” — Damien Hirst interviewed in Dec 2013
I just love all the associations of glitter — childlike joy, underdog material, intentional use of light to lift emotions, and more. It is also hard to make digitally, but very satisfying, and less messy to work with than IRL glitter.
Hidden Reference #3
The Balloon Dog is a symbol throughout the project, and it always takes the form of a necklace. It is a symbol of light, and nods to the famous Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons. Koons described the meaning of the piece to be about breath, human life, optimism, and reflection. The surface reflects its surroundings.
In The GB Project, they symbolize all that, and also something a little bit different. Note that in the GB necklace, the Balloon Dog is in an artisan pattern. The artisan pattern is a nod to all the extraordinarily talented artists and artisans whose work has not received the recognition it deserves.
The career of Jeff Koons is astounding and VERY lucrative. An orange one in 2013 sold at Christie’s for $58.4 million. We just spoke of Damien Hirst above, and it’s worth also noting the price of what his Mickey (Blue Glitter) last fetched: 9.7 million GBP. That is to say, Koons and Hirst deserve the reputation they built. It is also true that this type of recognition has not been equally available to all people with extraordinary talent. The traditional art world is still not as inclusive as it could and should be.
Balloon Dog necklaces in The GB Project therefore represent an ambitious dream, this time open to everyone (a la comedian, Mindy Kaling’s book ‘Why Not Me’), that if you build the talent, a career like Koons’ or Hirst’s can and will unfold. NFTs and the Metaverse are an opportunity to build this world. The necklace indicates a GB who a fearless dream of ‘making it’ big, possesses the will to do the work to develop excellence, and is coming of age in a world ready and willing to recognize her for it.
Hidden Reference #4,5,6,7+
I’ll come back to butterflies, top, colors, background, BQ of 11, and more… this is plenty for today.
Love, GBae
