The Franklins: NFT Marriage of Code and Art for Social Good
Elizabeth Franklin (aka “Geekella”) is a celebrated two-dimensional artist known for her generous application of vibrant, vivid colors, as well as her use of varied and unique artistic media. Elizabeth's whimsical portrayals of the world that inspires her have earned her victories and recognition through displays and contests from her early childhood into adulthood. Unsatisfied with restricting herself to traditional canvases, Elizabeth has demonstrated her transcendence of everyday media through such venues as the shoe company TOMS, and later she collaborated with the founder of Artonit Makeup. Most recently, Elizabeth found herself captivated by the NFT space. She created the artwork for the generative Dreamy Geeks NFT collection and is in the early stages of creating artwork for other NFT projects.
Jason Franklin is a forward thinker, servant leader, and humanitarian. He is determined to use his talents and skills to make a positive impact on humanity, driven by his yearning desire to make the world a better place. Profoundly interested in a variety of topics such as blockchain, web3, the metaverse, NFTs, artificial intelligence, machine learning, hackathons to make a few things! He understandings the technical side of NFTs, appreciating the endless amount of potential use cases, and staying true to his desire change the world for the better, he proposed to his wife – he proposed that she help him create an NFT collection that would marry their talents in order to bring his visions to fruition. She created the art, and he wrote the code.
If we separate art from the tech to start this interview, Elizabeth, please share your journey as an artist and Jason, your tech journey.
You embarked on NFTs, how did this start and can you share the process of the Dreamy Geeks
Jason, your early exposure to hack-athons for social good implanted the idea behind your NFT model having a purpose, how did you use code to do this? And how did you build it into your project?
What is and how is a generative collection built?
What is the social good piece built into your collection?
Will you continue to iterate on the Dreamy Geeks or are you creating other collections?
Some NFT artists use Discord channels to build communities. Are you using this site or some other way or a combination? And what has been most effective?
Is it a barrier of entry to have to create a community there?
Is it necessary for a 1:1 artist to have a coder/developer? Is this a barrier to entry?
Give a listen to this episode, Brian Fanzo bought a Dreamy Geek NFTs on his show too.