15 Oct 2023/56 min/Sara Baumann
MLow X Sara Baumann
The Women and Weapons founder on provocation as design, Iranian heritage, the Nova digital influencer, and keeping a PFP brand alive after royalties collapsed.
Sara Baumann, a former occupational therapist from Dallas, built Women and Weapons from a ten piece hand painted collection into one of the biggest female led NFT brands. She explains the project's engine plainly: powerful women, modeled on her mother who hustled her way to the top of a university while raising her largely alone, painted against the 1940s to 1960s advertisements that showed men spanking wives over bad coffee. The weapons are metaphors for strength, intelligence and empathy, and the jarring title is deliberate: she wants people to ask why James Bond with a gun does not distress them but women with brass knuckles does.
The middle of the conversation is the business of it. She pledged five percent of primary and secondary sales to the Malala Fund, ran the Trailblazers event at VeeCon 2021 with Women Rise, Boss Beauties, World of Women, Coinbase and The Female Quotient (Eva Longoria showed up), and collaborated with Amber Vittoria, Instagram and Tinder. With OpenSea, LooksRare and Blur gutting royalties, her answer to MLow's hardest business question is Nova: a 3D animated character she performs herself in a Rokoko haptic suit driving Unreal Engine, positioned as a digital influencer and content machine to earn brand income for the project. She also gives one of the most level headed takes on the Hug licensing controversy, defending the roughly 20/80 print split as a non exclusive extra revenue stream in what she calls a Web 2.5 moment.
The personal thread runs throughout: her Iranian family, the anger of post 9/11 name calling, the 2022 protests that sharpened her Heritage work, and a clinical argument, drawn from hospital work, that community is medicine against loneliness. The episode ends with her telling MLow to collect his own flowers for connecting artists and founders.
What this episode teaches
- Provocation is a designed mechanism
Baumann chose a jarring name on purpose so viewers interrogate their own reaction: why is James Bond with a gun fine but Women and Weapons upsetting? Many people hated the project at launch and converted once they heard the why; she argues those conversations are what create cultural change.
- Diversify a PFP brand away from royalties
With OpenSea, LooksRare and Blur removing royalties, her sustainability plan is IP activation: Nova, a performable 3D character who works with brands and pumps out vertical video content, earning income so Women and Weapons does not depend on secondary fees.
- The clinical case for community
Drawing on her hospital career, she argues loneliness breeds mental and physical illness and that patients measurably do better when someone checks in on them. Discord communities served that exact function during Covid isolation, including for people who cannot access physical community.
- Read the whole deal before choosing violence
On the Hug controversy (roughly 20 percent to artists, 80 to the platform on prints), she notes fulfillment, printing, shipping and sales management sit inside the 80, the split reportedly beats traditional licensing, and the license is not exclusive, so it stacks with Society6, Etsy and NFT sales. People form strong opinions with minimal research.
- Collabs run in both directions
She cold pitches brands with mockup artwork attached, and brands also come to her; the Instagram and Tinder campaigns arrived inbound. Waiting to be discovered is only half the playbook.
- Starve the trolls for your own health
Self described queen of the panic attack, she refuses to give negative engagement a big response unless something is genuinely harmful: not her time, energy or mental health spent on people choosing to be cruel.
- Do things that scare you, repeatedly
Public speaking is one of her biggest fears, yet a three year running New Year's resolution to do scary things has put her on stages at SXSW, VeeCon twice and Brilliant Minds in Sweden. Her scorecard: not passing out or vomiting yet counts as a win.
- Impact belongs in the mint structure
Five percent of all Women and Weapons primary and secondary sales went to the Malala Fund, chosen specifically because it works at the grassroots level, where she believes real change in girls' education actually happens.
The conversation, topic by topic
Powerful women as the through line
Prompted by the Apple TV docuseries The Super Models (Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista), Baumann traces her attraction to strong driven women back to her mother, who hustled her way to the top at a university while raising her mostly alone. Women and Weapons recasts mid century women as powerful; her Heritage work portrays Iranian women fighting for their rights since 1979.
Iranian American identity
Her whole family except her mother remains in Iran; she used to visit for a month and a half at a time. Post 9/11 she and Middle Eastern friends were called terrorists; as an adult she wants her art to show Iran's food, music, mosaics and people against the media's negative picture.
Women's representation in Web3
She argues women's art is bought, shown and celebrated less in both the traditional and crypto worlds, and that 2021 female facing PFPs (World of Women, Women and Weapons, Boss Beauties, Women Rise) let women see themselves reflected, growing their numbers in the ecosystem, though equal representation is still work in progress.
The Malala Fund pledge
Five percent of initial and secondary sales went to the Malala Fund, which builds educational opportunity for girls at the grassroots level. She cites statistics that even a middle school education improves jobs, independence and protection from underage marriage: education can be a girl's weapon.
Why the name Women and Weapons
Born while painting the original ten piece hand painted collection: the name has a ring and a jar to it. The weapons are symbols of what women carry daily, strength, intelligence, empathy, and the discomfort the title causes is the conversation she wants to force.
From occupational therapist to artist
She worked hospital and outpatient therapy, burned out through Covid, while her husband, in crypto since 2017, kept elbowing her toward NFTs in early 2021. Royalties in perpetuity, blockchain provenance (traditionally a sold work is poof, gone into the ether), and the caliber of people entering the space converted her. We hated email and credit cards once too; she wants to be early.
Collabs: Amber Vittoria, Instagram, Tinder
She met Amber Vittoria through an introduction (a mutual named roughly Joshua Broski) at Art Basel Miami; they became best friends and collaborated. Tinder commissioned a POAP around 2022 with a college soccer star named roughly Kyla. She was part of World of Women's Art Fest drop, and an apparel collab remains an open goal.
Speaking circuit
SXSW, VeeCon twice, Lisa Bilyeu's Women of Impact, and Brilliant Minds in Sweden, an invite only event of around 200 people put on by Spotify's head, where Gary Vee moderated her panel. She speaks about Web3, her healthcare to art career pivot, and helping others escape careers they feel pigeonholed in.
Trailblazers at VeeCon 2021
Women and Weapons joined Women Rise, Boss Beauties and World of Women, with Coinbase and The Female Quotient, for a rooftop event in a colder than expected Minneapolis. Eva Longoria surprised the crowd, and the founders' mutual support countered the belief that women tear each other down.
Nova and the arterium lore
The Women and Weapons lore: 1940s women infused with an element called arterium that only female genetics can sustain, leading to an alternate World War Two and a space race to Mars as the element dwindles. Nova, the 3D animated character, is the first character brought to life, aimed at brand work and popcorn content on TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
How Nova is made
Baumann performs Nova herself: a Rokoko haptic suit with joint sensors feeds her movement into Unreal Engine, a chest rig holds a phone for facial capture, and a careful mic position keeps her face tracked. She notes Rokoko can now capture bodies by camera without the suit and predicts operating such characters gets far easier within two to three years.
Tools and mediums
Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, occasionally Lightroom and Photoshop, plus acrylics on canvas and gouache on canvas paper; oils are shelved for lack of ventilation. She cycles mediums deliberately because repetition bores her, which is why her range swings from florals to portraits.
The Hug controversy and Web 2.5
MLow raises the live debate over the Hug's print split, roughly 20 percent to artists versus the 2.5 to 10 percent fees NFT natives expect. Baumann, who works with the Hug team, defends it: fulfillment costs live in the 80, friends say it beats traditional licensing, and it is non exclusive, one stream among Society6, Etsy and NFTs in a Web 2.5 world. Choice and informed consent are what matter.
Community against loneliness, and what is next
She reads Women and Weapons collectors as a family, not numbers, citing DMs about daughters seeing themselves in Rosie the Riveter imagery. Her collection's single tale is a weave of her brain, ending at Wilted, her Magic Eden Solana release made while working through a rough mental health stretch. She closes wanting more positivity, better use cases built in the downtime, and wills into existence an experiential gallery of Iranian artists with footage from 1979, 2009 and 2022; MLow offers to help build it.
In their words
“Education can be a girl or a woman's weapon.”
Sara Baumann“Why does this bother you? How come seeing James Bond on a movie poster with a gun is not distressing for you, but the imagery of women with brass knuckles is?”
Sara Baumann“Loneliness is one of our greatest plagues that we're facing nowadays.”
Sara Baumann“All of my artwork really just tells this tale of where Sara's brain is throughout time.”
Sara Baumann“You've done a phenomenal job of bringing together artists and founders. You also deserve to collect your own flowers and stick them in a vase.”
Sara Baumann“I'm actually thankful for this quiet time to be able to reach out to new people and partner with them.”
MLowCite this conversation
Sara Baumann in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Sara Baumann," The MLow Show, 15 Oct 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-10-15-mlow-x-sara-baumann.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.