Your weekly newsletter for Web3(-curious) creators! Looking to further your creative practice as a creator in Web3? You’re in the right place! Here’s a weekly rundown of information curated for creators, by creators.

Creative Sovereignty: Why Every Artist Should Own Their Own Smart Contract

When a creator enters Web3 and mints their first NFT for sale, chances are they do so on OpenSea. With a minting process that’s free and straightforward, minting through OpenSea or a similar marketplace can feel like the easiest way to get started. After all, all artists are business owners— not only do they create art, they also have to sell and market it. The last thing many artists want to do is to pick up developer skills, and learn how to write their own smart contracts.

Thankfully, over the past year, creator-friendly tools have continued to emerge, allowing creators to mint work on their own smart contract without any prior knowledge of coding. Still on the fence about owning your own smart contract? Let us convince you otherwise..

First Up... What is a Smart Contract?

To understand why it's important to own your own smart contract, we have to take a step back to truly understand what it is.

At a basic level, smart contracts act as a tool to implement a sales agreement for your NFT. Similar to a sales agreement, it contains terms such as the price, the number of tokens (e.g. 1/1 or limited edition), who is allowed to buy it; and then uses the blockchain to assign ownership when the NFT is transferred or resold.

Lazy Minting and Shared Smart Contracts

When minting through a marketplace such as OpenSea or Foundation, you are most likely doing so via a shared smart contract, i.e. a contract that you are sharing with other creators who have done the same.

A key reason why marketplaces use shared smart contracts as opposed to allowing you to create your own, is so that creators can make use of a minting process known as "lazy minting".

Lazy minting allows creators to create NFTs without any upfront gas cost. This is because the NFT is not actually minted onto the blockchain until the first purchase or transfer is made. Instead, the NFT is only put on-chain when a buyer purchases the NFT and pays a price that covers the minting cost and that of the NFT itself. For this to happen however, you as a creator needs to authorize a seller (in this case, the marketplace) to act on your behalf, which results in you using their shared smart contract.

To better understand what a shared smart contract looks like, check out OpenSea’s! Their smart contract houses all of the work created through OpenSea, which makes it impossible for an individual creator to surface the NFTs they have created and who owns them.

Why Owning Your Own Smart Contract is Important

While there are several advantages to using lazy minting and shared smart contracts (it’s easy, and free!), there are some real limitations. Owning your smart contract on the other hand gives you freedom, both in a creative and business sense.

In other words, owning your own smart contract gives you creative sovereignty.

Here are the various advantages of creative sovereignty:

• Freedom to decide where you would like to list and sell your work: When lazy minting through a shared smart contract, you can only sell your work on that platform you chose to mint on. This means that you are unable to import that smart contract to sell your work on another marketplace. On the other hand, minting through your own smart contract allows you to list and sell on a variety of open NFT marketplaces (e.g. OpenSea, LooksRare, Foundation), and even on your very own! This is known as interoperability.

• Knowledge of who owns your work: Having a shared smart contract makes it cumbersome to pull up existing collectors and holders of your work. There is no straightforward way of seeing who owns your work, since the smart contract your work is on is shared with several others. As you look to build a closer and deeper relationship with your collectors over time, you can even go one step further to start a private Discord where you can verify token ownership, or reward existing collectors through airdrops or free claims — all of which can only be easily facilitated if you own your own smart contract.

• Proof of authenticity: Owning your own smart contract allows you to prove that your original work is authentically attributed to you, the creator. In fact, many creators are creating ASCII art of their own to include into their smart contract as part of their brand signature. We love this one by Jacklyn, an artist who paints portraiture of women in an art nouveau style.

ASCII art by artist Jacklyn, to truly make her smart contract her own

• Not be affected by marketplace policy changes: By owning your own smart contract, you will not have to worry about any changes to policies or guidelines by these marketplaces that could affect you. For example, OpenSea has a ban on Cuban artists due to US sanctions. If you happened to be a Cuban artist that had minted your work through their shared contract, you would have lost access to and control of your work. Similarly, owning your own smart contract means that you do not have to worry about the off chance of any marketplace going down in the future.

• Creative freedom beyond your initial mint: Owning your own smart contract also allows you to manipulate your NFTs however and whenever you like. With dynamic NFTs for example, you can change the visuals or metadata within the token at any given time. Digital illustrator Eislyn has a collection of bespoke PFPs, which she continues to update for her holders depending on their requests, including this fun Halloween activation below.

Eislyn makes use of dynamic NFTs to engage her holders in delightful ways

How to Mint on Your Own Smart Contract

Minting work on your own smart contract is easier than ever, thanks to creator-friendly tools like Manifold. To get started, you can follow their step by step directions, complete with YouTube video walkthroughs, here.

What happens if you already have an existing collection, and would like to migrate it to a new contract— one that you own? While it will take some effort and may not be particularly elegant, it can be done and for all the reasons above, is worthwhile in the long run. We highly recommend this Twitter thread guide by AnaNFT here to get started.

Closing Thoughts

Web3 has always been about ownership. Now that NFTs have allowed you to have true ownership of your artwork and collectors, don't stop there— extend it to your smart contract to truly unlock creative sovereignty.

Want to learn more? Join us and Richerd, the co-founder of Manifold, on Twitter Spaces on Jan 26 at 2PM ET to talk about all things creative sovereignty. Set your reminders.

In the News

• Join hundreds of creators in getting your very own customizable Artist Profile! A HUG Artist Profile allows you to showcase your collections, collect reviews from current and prospective collectors, and soon - accept commissions! Apply for your HUG Artist Profile here.

• Inspired by last week’s issue on AI art, and want to keep the conversation going? Artists Stephan Vasement, MemoryMod, Data Velvet, and Jenni Pasanen open up about using AI as part of their craft. Read more here.

• Want to learn more about how to generate and use AI art ethically? Check out some tips from Makeuseof's article.

• Curious on how to navigate IP law as a creator in Web3? You might be interested in a series of events hosted by the US Copyright Office on the intersection between IP law and NFTs. Sign up to attend here: first session starts January 24.

• The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has acquired its first NFT, a work titled Final Transformation #2 (2022) by artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, once again proving that NFTs have a role to play in the traditional art world. Learn more about Lynn’s piece and SFMoMA’s outlook on art here.

• Times are a-changing! The New York Times takes a close look at how serious art buyers now want works by living artists with a strong Instagram presence, and classical paintings from before 1850 now accounting for just a tiny percentage of auction sales.

• Are you a creator with a large collection? Rarible has just launched a no-code community marketplace builder, that will allow you to stand up your own marketplace for free. Learn more here.

Artist Grants and Opportunities

• Are you an artist with disabilities? Thanks to the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute, you can now submit artwork to participate in the 2023 Art of Possibilities Art Show & Sale, and stand to win more than $4,600 in awards. Open to international participation. Learn more and apply here by January 31.

• Kickstarter, Creative Capital, and Skoll Foundation have partnered to launch a $500,000 fund that backs projects by Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latino creators. Effective immediately, funds will be awarded on an ongoing basis to creators with active projects across all of Kickstarter’s categories: Arts, Comics & Illustration, Design & Tech, Film, Food & Craft, Games, Music, and Publishing. Learn more here.

• Are you an AI artist? Submit your work before January 25 for a chance to be featured alongside 10 renowned AI artists as part of a curated drop for Foundation.

• MacDowell encourages artists from all backgrounds and all countries in the following disciplines to apply: architecture, film/video arts, interdisciplinary arts, literature, music composition, theater, and visual arts. The sole criterion for acceptance is artistic excellence. Apply here by February 10.

• Post your best work to Creatively every week, let the community vote, and stand a chance to win a $5,000 cash grant each month.

This Week's Art Drops

• Jacintha by Ellie Pritts (1/1, 0.2 ETH) - follow Ellie Pritts on Twitter: A portrait of Ellie's great great grandmother Jacinta Martínez who was born in September 1886, in the town of San Diego de Alejandría, Jalisco to Francisca and Hesiquio Martínez.

• La Vie En Rose by Toni Payne (1/1, 0.24 ETH) - follow Toni Payne on Twitter: A collection that represents our transformative ability to stop and see life through rose-colored glasses, while exploring the intersection between science and art.

• Dimensions by Paulrus (Open Edition, 0.007 ETH) - follow Paulrus on Twitter: A kaleidoscope of pinks, greens, and blues, generated through creative coding by generative artist Paulrus.

• The Gathering of the Black Renaissance by Cryptomiyagi (Editions 50/50, 0.007 ETH) - follow Cryptomiyagi on Twitter: Part of a collection that challenges the traditional narrative of the Renaissance period by placing African Americans at the center of the story, inviting viewers to consider the ways in which representation shapes our understanding of the past and present.

• Collection Piece by Katie J (1/1, 0.07 ETH) - follow Katie J on Twitter: A digitally hand drawn 1/1 collection that explores the relationship between shapes, colors and spaces, and how they come together like the composition of a music piece.

• Kindred Hearts (Generative collection, 7777 pieces, 0.05 ETH) - follow Kindred Hearts on Twitter: A collection of 7,777 programmatically and randomly generated digital art collectible cards created in collaboration with over 50 artists, with 50% of the purchase price to the American Heart Association's Life Is Why™ Campaign.

• Moonlit Metamorphosis by Alyse (1/1, 0.05 ETH) - follow Alyse on Twitter: Moonlit Metamorphosis was a B3D collection created during the pandemic, and represents our evolution from a safe and protected chrysalis to one of growth and adventure.

• Sea of Dreams by illy (Editions 30/30, 0.01 ETH) - follow illy on Twitter: illy captures a moody seascape, which represents her journey of acceptance and self love.

Creator Spotlight: Naomi Toma

Naomi Toma is a hand drawn illustrator based in the jungle of Peru. She studied Clinical Psychology and holds a degree in Expressive Arts Therapy. Naomi uses bright colors in her work to express life lived through love, compassion, and inner transformation.

With a strong belief in the power of nature, art, and spirituality to heal, a portion of Naomi's artwork sales goes towards raising funds for psychedelic-assisted art therapy.

Learn more about Naomi here, and follow her on Twitter.

We asked Naomi... Do you think it's important to own your own smart contract?

"Yes! I think that anything that gives freedom to the artist is important. I'm still learning but I can see how having our own smart contract can be safer and gives us independence from marketplace policies. Today, we are fortunate to have tools to implement one easily, so why not go ahead and do so?"