19 Sep 2023/length unknown/sarah script
MLow X sarah script
A never published conversation with calligrapher sarah script about reclaiming ownership from Instagram, preserving a dying art on chain, and hiding Mr. Rogers in the work.
Recorded the same day the Jake Fried episode went out and never published, this conversation opens on the one subject the rest of the archive avoids: anonymity. Sarah script remarks how rare it is in Web3 to hear a voice and see a face at the same time, and MLow states his own position plainly: he has been doxxed the whole time he has been in Web3, does not care, and has nothing to hide, though he has met plenty of people who turned out to be nothing like the monkey JPEG they hid behind.
Sarah script came into NFTs in February 2021 as a working calligrapher: seven years of practice, a book, commissions for Goop and Tiffany and Co., daily Instagram videos that drew pushback for lines like f the patriarchy. Minting flipped the power dynamic; her first calligraphy video minted said Power to the Artists, a claim of ownership against platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Buzzfeed that monetized her work while paying in exposure. She argues NFTs are not just for computer art: they are a chance to preserve dying arts, and her daily videos turned out to be a record of one. The conversation tours her worlds: Shakespeare pieces in the Scripted Quotes series, the Tempest and Thieves bear illustrations encoding her childhood epilepsy, the Pretty Please flower vases carrying a 17 year battle with anorexia, the satirical Moonbirds parody PFPs, Opepen calligraphy derivatives that Thread Guy and Jack Butcher noticed, and Nifty City, the cartoon town where all of it converges.
The honest, unpolished quality is the point. She regrets minting too fast and quotes a master calligrapher (study as much as you practice, know what you want to execute), refuses to gamify because she is one artist with no team, and says the space must uplift artists of color if crypto is really about banking the unbanked, prompting MLow to admit on tape that his interview list skews male and that he is actively correcting it. She apologizes twice for being a bad interviewee, works a day job at a children's hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas (there were lizards in the office that day), and ends by offering to connect MLow to the Smart Contracts for Artists show.
What this episode teaches
- Mint the work that got pushback
The videos Instagram's calligraphy community disliked were exactly the ones worth minting. Her first NFT, Power to the Artists, reframed provocative work as ownable work and took ownership back from platforms that monetized it while paying her in exposure.
- NFTs can preserve dying arts
She argues the technology is not just for 3D and computer art: museums could use it for existing collections, and her years of daily calligraphy videos were unknowingly a historical record of a dying craft. Preservation is a use case in its own right.
- Let work marinate before minting
Her stated regret is not holding back more and giving pieces time to decide when they were ready. She quotes a master calligrapher: study as much as you practice, know what you want to execute, and is deliberately not minting while she plays and improves.
- Do not gamify what you cannot run
She is one artist running her own Discord with no team, so she refuses game mechanics she cannot support. Her collector policy is blunt transparency: this is just an NFT, here is what I am thinking, sometimes a print comes with it.
- Derivatives are a door, not a threat
She made calligraphy Opepen derivatives, including one of Thread Guy's, and notes that six derivatives can be submitted to the Opepen team for possible inclusion. She credits derivative culture with driving Bored Apes early, and calls open derivative norms good for the whole creative world.
- Commercial expansion must be earned
She submitted a manuscript, considered coloring books and pins, and shipped none of it: she wants recognizability that builds up naturally rather than merch pushed out just because the tools make it possible.
- Curation can correct the record
Her dream show centers artists of color whose voices history suppressed, because history is written by those in power. If crypto is about banking the unbanked, she says, the space has to lift up the artists in that category. MLow admits his own interview list skews male and says he is correcting it.
- Personal pain can live quietly in gentle work
Tempest and Thieves encodes childhood epilepsy in children's book bears; Pretty Please hides a 17 year battle with anorexia in floating vases of flowers that vanish if you want them too much. The levity on the surface is a choice, not an absence.
The conversation, topic by topic
Doxxed in a pseudonymous world
Sarah script notes how rare it is in Web3 to hear someone's voice and see their face at once. MLow answers that he has been doxxed since he entered Web3 and does not care, and describes repeatedly meeting people who look nothing like the monkey JPEG he knew them as.
From calligrapher to NFT artist
Seven years of calligraphy, a book, work for Goop and Tiffany and Co., weddings, and daily Instagram videos, but she never called herself an artist. Learning about NFTs in February 2021 changed that; her first minted video said Power to the Artists, about taking ownership back from Instagram, Facebook, and Buzzfeed.
Style and the calligraphy corner of Web3
Her work splits between pointed pen calligraphy and children's book style iPad illustration; she got a design certificate at UCLA in 2018 and holds an art history degree. She names fellow Web3 calligraphers, praises one lost portrait of Elon Musk drawn entirely in words, and argues calligraphy deserves a seat beside 3D art and XCopy.
Recent mints
The Scripted Quotes series renders Shakespeare in shaped calligraphy; Double Double Toil and Trouble sold two of ten editions. Caught by Current, still open at the time, shows a bear in bed as flowers rush through the window, illustrating her childhood epilepsy; Falling There, the bear falling into a night forest, hangs behind her on the call.
Opepen derivatives and Thread Guy
During the Opepen derivative meta she drew calligraphy Opepens, including one for Thread Guy during his moment, and loved that Thread Guy and Jack Butcher saw the work. She hoped her set of derivatives might be accepted into the collection, and traces derivative culture back to early Bored Apes, which she skipped when mint price was around 250 dollars.
How sarah script got her name
She started calligraphy in February 2014 in a small, mid-20s stretch of life when she felt voiceless and wore the same black clothes daily. Calligraphy became the thing she could be good at and a literal tool for speaking; when NFTs arrived she renamed herself in bed one night, picking sarah script because it was not taken. MLow compares it to Grant Yun's old Instagram name, No Time to Burn.
Hidden gems
Story Emporium (spring 2022) is an edition collection of illustrated book covers whose titles are Web3 puns, including On the Roadmap and Yeti Player One. Her 300 piece Moonbirds parody PFP collection, minted at 0.01, satirized the frothy prices and the CC0 announcement fallout in the spirit of Arrested Development. Holy Script is a generative layered calligraphy collection.
Collaborations
With Web3 tutorial maker Jen she wrote a crude two word phrase in calligraphy that Jen animated in After Effects as weeds cracking concrete and blooming. She also drew a custom Grumpel (the Goblintown secondary collection): a swamp lake Grumpel doing ballet beside a collapsing burger, complete with the Gary P Sauce in-joke, and later met its collector. MLow supplies the name she blanks on: Moonbirds designer Justin Mezzell.
CC0 and the dream gallery
Her work is not CC0; she sees the advantages but thinks it does not fit an artist her size yet, though derivatives are always welcome. Asked to curate a gallery she names black and white photographers and ALIENQUEEN, then lands on the real theme: uplifting artists of color whose stories history erased.
Themes and Easter eggs
Humor carries most of the work (Nifty City is wall to wall in-jokes), while Tempest and Thieves and Pretty Please carry epilepsy and anorexia. Her recurring Easter egg is the number 143, Mr. Rogers's code for I love you, and Nifty City Library shelves a book called Watch a Turtle Walk Across a Room, honoring the episode where Mr. Rogers did exactly that as an answer to a louder, more enraging culture.
AI and process
She uses DALL-E for reference and ideation (what would a hippie mouse on a mountain look like) and ChatGPT for small tasks, but has minted none of it: AI is the research phase, not the beginning and end. Asked for five words for her work she offers elegant, piercing, beautiful, joy, lightness.
Strategy, pressure, and the storytelling question
She wishes she had a minting strategy and had let work sit longer. She handles collector expectations with a Discord and total transparency rather than gamification. Asked where all her pieces lead as a single tale, she answers Nifty City, the cartoon town with a library, coffee shop, and newsstand, populated by the parody birds and emotional support mice.
MLow's projects and the close
MLow describes curating on Foundation and a Transient Labs exquisite corpse project: twelve artists so far, each adding to a piece before passing it on, all destined for one token via Patrick Amadon's Doppelganger contract once Transient's lab supports it. She recommends the weekly Smart Contracts for Artists show and offers introductions; they trade lives, her Little Rock children's hospital day job and office lizards against his New York, age 24, no driver's license.
In their words
“I've been doxxed since I've been in Web3, so I don't care. I've nothing to hide.”
MLow“It was kind of like, this is you saying that you have ownership over this work, and if somebody appreciates it, then they can collect it.”
sarah script“I didn't realize what I was doing at the time was creating a record, or a history, of a dying art.”
sarah script“If crypto is about banking the unbanked, then we also have to support the artists here who are typically in that category.”
sarah script“Study as much as you practice. Know what you want to execute.”
sarah scriptCite this conversation
sarah script in conversation with MLow, "MLow X sarah script," The MLow Show, unaired recording, 19 Sep 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-09-19-mlow-x-sarah-script.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.