27 Jul 2023/42 min/Coldie
MLow X Coldie Part 1
Coldie walks MLow through his collector thesis, the buyback of his own Genesis piece, and a lifetime of stereoscopic craft from View-Masters to lenticulars.
This is a full 42 minute Google Meet conversation, and the surviving transcript actually captures MLow and Coldie's second sit down: MLow opens by welcoming him back, noting that video now lets viewers see the wall of trinkets behind him (a Van Arman, a Die With The Most Likes, a David Henry Nobody Jr among them). The first stretch is Coldie the collector. From 2018 on, selling pieces for one ETH at about 180 dollars, he committed roughly 30 percent of every sale to buying peers' work from the early SuperRare Telegram crowd, on the thesis that the collectors, not the artists, were going to be the winners when introductory prices caught up to reality.
The centerpiece story is the buyback. VK Crypto, the original whale, decided he was done and listed everything at deliberately low prices, telling Coldie he wanted the next collector to benefit just as much as he did. A week after selling Hackatao's Only One Owns It for 50 ETH, Coldie turned that sale into what he calls the most legendary flip of all time: his own SuperRare Genesis piece back, a Matt Kane piece, and Pindar Van Arman's first robot painting. He frames holding his own work as a hedge on artist royalties, and praises Transient Labs story inscriptions for letting context travel with the token, since context is what an auction house will need once we're all vaporized.
The back half is craft. Coldie traces his stereoscopic obsession from a childhood View-Master (and an eBay synchronicity that returned his exact Adam West Batman disc), through an early 1900s stereopticon, to the Los Angeles stereo club where 70 year old masters adopted him at 23, including Ray Zone, the King of 3D Comics, who won a Grammy with Tool for the 10,000 Days packaging and, before he died, told Coldie he now considered him a competitor. He explains the evolution from anaglyph mints nobody had glasses for, to wiggle gifs, to the Photoshop 3D camera portraits that made ROBNESS call him out of the blue, and closes with blunt advice: make it a hundred times before you know what you're doing, and if you don't love what you're buying, you're in the wrong game.
What this episode teaches
- Tithe your sales into your peers
Coldie spent roughly 30 percent of every sale on other artists' work, starting when pieces cost a couple hundred dollars. It spread money through the community and built what he calls an insane collection, all self funded by art income.
- Buy your own work back as a royalty hedge
He repurchased his SuperRare Genesis piece and holds early pieces like his Vitalik Buterin number three because royalties are a daily battle. If royalties fail, retaining and growing your own supply is how an artist still bets on himself.
- The story is worth more than the token
Coldie calls the scrapbook of his collection more valuable than the pieces themselves, and pushes Transient Labs story inscriptions so context rides on the token into whatever auction house holds it after we're gone.
- Meet the audience where the tech is
His anaglyph mints failed because nobody owns 3D glasses, so he moved to wiggle gifs, then Photoshop's 3D camera, then After Effects. Each step kept the stereo effect while removing the barrier to seeing it.
- Learn from living masters before they are gone
At 23 he joined an LA stereo club of lifelong practitioners and absorbed everything; Ray Zone taught him his secret tricks and framed it as passing a torch. Coldie treats every stereo piece as honoring the people who showed him the way.
- Keep everything; archives compound
A self described digital hoarder, he kept every concert frame he ever shot. Twelve years later his 2011 Flaming Lips photos are becoming a new series, because sometimes you hold a JPEG for 12 years before it gets good.
- Make it a hundred times, then release and move on
His advice to new artists: no rush, no pedestal, expect nothing perfect. Make, stamp it when happy, pull a new canvas, and ignore what the outside world says; artworks are children who eventually move out.
- Collectors should study before they spend
His advice to new collectors: open an art history book, watch documentaries, and buy what you love rather than chasing volume, so that when the next Basquiat is in front of you, you recognize it.
The conversation, topic by topic
The wall of trinkets
On video for the first time, Coldie shows the physical wall behind him. MLow spots a Van Arman, a Die With The Most Likes, a Baby Maker, a Gemstar and a David Henry Nobody Jr, whose studio MLow had recently visited.
Collecting from 2018, before floors existed
Coldie describes selling for one ETH at about 180 dollars when nobody knew what anything was worth, and consciously spending about 30 percent of each sale on friends' work from the SuperRare Telegram days, naming the crowd that included Hackatao. His investment thesis: the collectors are gonna be the winners.
Not a hype buyer
He says he ignores OpenSea volume and digs where nobody looks, citing a Max Osiris piece from 2020 he had just picked up for almost nothing because no one's looking.
VK Crypto and the legendary flip
VK Crypto, the original whale who had bought everybody's grails, liquidated everything at low prices on purpose, saying he wanted the next collector to benefit as he had. Coldie had just sold Hackatao's Only One Owns It for 50 ETH, and a week later turned that ETH into his own Genesis piece (about 17 ETH), a Matt Kane piece, and Pindar Van Arman's robot painting number one.
The Vitalik that never sold
His Vitalik Buterin number three, minted on Artists Unleashed, Johnny Dollar's experimental artist forward platform, simply never sold, so he kept it. He calls it a hedge on a hedge: self investment through attrition, insurance against royalties failing. He also buys his own work back cheap when his collector hat says it's a good deal.
MLow bets on himself too
MLow shares that after the FTX collapse tanked a collection he curated, he bought some of its ultra grails at the lows, reasoning that the curator is exactly the right person to own them. Coldie approves: the Genesis piece holds meaning nobody else can access, like a family photo.
Selling a Klingemann, and story inscriptions
Coldie had just sold Mario Klingemann's Split Personality, a GAN portrait that was also stereoscopic, discovered through Matt Kane. That leads to Transient Labs story inscriptions: Coldie wants context bound to the token for the long run, and MLow says all his new collections have them enabled, having already used one to fix a description typo.
The burn and remint follies
Before editable descriptions, Coldie, who is dyslexic, sometimes burned and reminted the same piece five times to fix bonehead errors. He is glad those days are over.
Art school on two tracks
He trained physically, painting and gouache and color theory, while taking Photoshop classes the same days. Mark making on paper versus a charcoal brush in Photoshop taught him to see differently. He dropped physical work in the NFT era, felt the creative detriment, and has recently returned to it.
View-Master, stereopticon, stereo club
The stereoscopic thread runs his whole life: a childhood View-Master with an Adam West Batman disc he later refound as the only listing on eBay, a family stereopticon from the early 1900s with a Wild West lasso card, and the LA stereo club where elderly masters taught 23 year old Coldie photography, lenticulars and every stereo technique they knew.
Ray Zone passes the torch
Ray Zone, the King of 3D Comics, who won a Grammy with Tool for the 10,000 Days packaging, taught Coldie his secret tricks. Before his death he told Coldie, in the most caring way, that he now considered him a competitor. Coldie treats every stereo piece since as honoring that lineage: the art has to be good first, then you add the depth.
From anaglyph to After Effects
His first mint was an anaglyph requiring 3D glasses nobody owned, so he evolved: wiggle gifs from left and right frames, then Photoshop's 3D camera. ROBNESS saw the Andreas Antonopoulos portrait made that way, called him to say you're onto something, and bought the first two. He later built a CryptoVoxels gallery arranging the portrait series in sequence, ending with the Snoop piece.
Concert photography and the mantra
Shooting bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers in stereo before any digital way to view it existed, he repeated a mantra on long drives: someday I will be able to look at my art in full color digital 3D. That day arrived; he is now mining his 2011 Flaming Lips frames for a new series.
Advice for artists and collectors
Artists: take your time, make it a hundred times, stay in the creator box, release and make new things. Collectors: research first, buy what you love, help artists get secondaries, and skip the volume chasing; if you don't love what you're buying you'll burn out. He closes on the friendships, a Twitter thread with collectors including OMZ and Bharat, and calls the whole thing a big journey.
In their words
“I want the next collector to benefit just as much as I did.”
Coldie, quoting VK Crypto“The scrapbook of my collection, I often think, is more valuable than the pieces themselves.”
Coldie“Someday I will be able to look at my art in full color digital 3D. That was a mantra that would go through my brain.”
Coldie“You got to make it a hundred times before you even know what the fuck you're doing.”
Coldie“If you don't love what you're buying, you're in the wrong game, you're gonna burn out.”
Coldie“Every day I can make art and share it and connect with someone like yourself. That's winning, dude.”
ColdieCite this conversation
Coldie in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Coldie Part 1," The MLow Show, 27 Jul 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-07-27-mlow-x-coldie-part-1.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.