Over the past year I’ve helped build out the Making It art collective alongside some of my best friends. Originally, Making It began as a group chat of artists on Twitter but quickly evolved into something much bigger. We’ve now thrown multiple shows both in the physical and digital space and even managed to sell over 116 ETH ($208K USD) worth of art as a collective in the span of six months.
I thought it’d be useful to share my journey with Making It and the playbook of how we’ve managed to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time.
Find your tribe
Before you can make your own collective you need to find your people. The way I was added into the original Making It group chat was simply by participating in Twitter Spaces. Not long after making a few friends by exchanging stories as an artist I was added to the Making It chat by my newly found friend Nathan.Â
Making friends online is a whole other topic in itself but here are a few tips that might make things easier:
- Don’t be afraid to open up
- Ask genuine questions
- Always follow up with a DM if you enjoyed your conversation with someone
Create your base
Once you’ve made a few friends online with similar interests create that group chat, or even better create either a private or public Discord server. Now the great thing about Discord is you can create different channels for a wide range of topics. Check out some of the channels we have in the Making It server below.
Now, your base is very important to fostering these relationships inside of your newly formed art collective. It’s going to be the glue that’s either going to make or break your group. There’s no right way to setup your base, it’s entirely up to you. You can hop on discord calls to create art together, play games, or even talk to a friend about something you might be going through. Just know your base is an integral part of your collective and you want to foster a safe space where people feel comfortable hanging out in.
Pick up the tools
Making It would be nowhere without platforms like Manifold and Foundation. I will explain the platforms and tools we’ve used to the best of my ability but your going to have to have some prior knowledge of how NFTs work. But you’re smart, just YouTube How To Create A MetaMask Wallet.
Manifold: Manifold is a platform that lets you create NFTs using your own smart contract. I’d recommend using this in conjunction with Foundation to release your art together as a group. Check out below how easy it is to drag, drop and upload your work as an NFT using Manifold.
Foundation: Foundation is an art platform that lets you sell your work online. You can create a world as a collective and auction off your work together. Think of it like a more curated eBay but for digital art. Check out Making It’s Children of The Internet world here.
Safe: Safe is our shared bank account used to store royalties from our drops. The way it works is you select five members accounts who will become a signee for the group wallet. If you want to send money you need the majority of signees to approve the transaction. I’d recommend having a shared group wallet through Safe instead of a singular MetaMask wallet that could be compromised if a member were to go rogue.
OnCyber: OnCyber is a virtual gallery space you can use to host online live exhibitions. Check out a screenshot from one of our galleries for our Self Portrait series drop below, or even better have a play around in the room yourself here.
You’re probably going to be confused at the beginning of this journey but you will figure it out. Just play around with the tools and mint some artwork.
How we’ve been doing our drops
Typically the way we structure our drops is we give our members a theme such as Children of The Internet or Making It Home for example. Members then have a few weeks to create and submit a piece to a google drive folder we setup for each drop. Along with each release we also like to create a virtual gallery space using OnCyber as mentioned above. We usually hold the virtual exhibition alongside a Twitter Spaces to create an immersive digital experience where collectors can come browse the gallery alongside our artists.
Don’t worry about sales
The main thing here is that you’re building genuine connections inside your group. The sales will come, just focus on creating good work with each other. Use this space you’re fostering to inspire and teach one another. If you can try catch up with your new internet friends it will make it all the more worthwhile. Below is a picture of some members from the very first Making It IRL show in NYC last year.
Being apart of a collective like Making It has forever changed my life and I’m grateful for all the friendships I’ve been able to make along the way.
Go get out there and have some fun!
Love TEJI