Bubba was an ornery orange cat that I lived with for 4 years, belonging to my roommate as I was finishing up school in Portland, OR. At the time I was falling in love with traditional Asian watercolor painting and just beginning to paint fish, and conceived of a series where there would be one orange fish in a sea of Blue / Black fish in various configurations, portraying various personal experiences as well as some sociopolitical commentary.
Shown below: Bubba the Fish Remembers To Breathe During a Stressful Moment at Work (left) and Bubba the Fish Reflects Upon his Ancestry (right). Watercolor on Rice Paper, 2015
After I transitioned into digital artwork, Bubba the Fish became animated and my very first NFT sale was also the first of the animated Bubba the Fish series, sold to great collector and now friend, JO7. Since then there were a few more incarnations, some major and some minor, and this last one is by far the most elaborate of the series both visually as well as in terms of the audio collaborators: While frequenting NFTipi’s wonderful clubhouse rooms, I came across the drop of an actor couple, Laurence Fuller and Cynthia San Luis, who collaborated with artist Senju Shunga and made a stunning series on Foundation, The Heiress. It was the first time I had seen a spoken word / visual art collaboration in the NFT space and I was very impressed with the pieces themselves as well as the careful consideration with which they talked about the collaboration itself in the Clubhouse rooms.
I was thrilled that they agreed to collaborate on this piece, and laid out the concept: the school of blue fish representing the “monkey mind” which gradually gets more and more dense, causing Bubba to finally relent and swirl out of the scene, representing basic mindfulness meditation practices clearing out the plethora of thoughts and sensations that can accumulate on a moment to moment basis. Alongside their voices, I asked my close musical collaborator and friend Chris Varga to add a few layers of his vibraphone playing to help flesh out the emotional feeling of being “scatterbrained” as well as a musical depiction of the moment of clearing thoughts.
New Drop: Bubba the Fish #3
Bubba was an ornery orange cat that I lived with for 4 years, belonging to my roommate as I was finishing up school in Portland, OR. At the time I was falling in love with traditional Asian watercolor painting and just beginning to paint fish, and conceived of a series where there would be one orange fish in a sea of Blue / Black fish in various configurations, portraying various personal experiences as well as some sociopolitical commentary.
Shown below: Bubba the Fish Remembers To Breathe During a Stressful Moment at Work (left) and Bubba the Fish Reflects Upon his Ancestry (right). Watercolor on Rice Paper, 2015
After I transitioned into digital artwork, Bubba the Fish became animated and my very first NFT sale was also the first of the animated Bubba the Fish series, sold to great collector and now friend, JO7. Since then there were a few more incarnations, some major and some minor, and this last one is by far the most elaborate of the series both visually as well as in terms of the audio collaborators: While frequenting NFTipi’s wonderful clubhouse rooms, I came across the drop of an actor couple, Laurence Fuller and Cynthia San Luis, who collaborated with artist Senju Shunga and made a stunning series on Foundation, The Heiress. It was the first time I had seen a spoken word / visual art collaboration in the NFT space and I was very impressed with the pieces themselves as well as the careful consideration with which they talked about the collaboration itself in the Clubhouse rooms.
I was thrilled that they agreed to collaborate on this piece, and laid out the concept: the school of blue fish representing the “monkey mind” which gradually gets more and more dense, causing Bubba to finally relent and swirl out of the scene, representing basic mindfulness meditation practices clearing out the plethora of thoughts and sensations that can accumulate on a moment to moment basis. Alongside their voices, I asked my close musical collaborator and friend Chris Varga to add a few layers of his vibraphone playing to help flesh out the emotional feeling of being “scatterbrained” as well as a musical depiction of the moment of clearing thoughts.
Presenting: Bubba The Fish is Reminded That He Really Should Be Meditating for 20 Minutes Every Day