Let’s just take a moment with SadBUNNI3S. First, lets take a look at the title — they are not happy — maybe they aren’t fully sad, but what they are is a representation of our innermost emotions that we try to hide from the world. Imagine ‘Sadness’ or ‘Hurt’…let’s take ‘anger. Take anyone of these deepest feelings and give it a BUNNI3. Do you have it? Do you have a situation that you can barely speak to yourself about? That you want to keep so far from the surface burrowed and hidden from the light. These emotions, feelings, characters, situations or anything that may have happened in one’s life that can be represented by said BUNNI3S. When we face them, talk about them, bring the BUNNI3S up to the sun and release them, then and only then can we release the energy that keeps them trapped.

These are mine. You have now met my most innermost BUNNI3S. When I’m upset I create, draw, paint or do anything that is hopefully constructive and not destructive. This year, rather the past two years, beginning with Covid and culminating in my father’s death, has brought about a flurry of BUNNI3S…BUNNI3S I never knew resided within me. What I have found is a beautiful creative outlet that meticulously puts my deepest secrets on to the paper, on to the canvas, and into the digital realm and turns pain into magic.

Let us Take ‘After’ a piece that was selected for the OM 6529 Museum District near the Unofficial Mfers Building. On August 26, 2022 a dear friend & I readied ourselves to release Galleryhaus, an interactive gallery experience to the world. That night as we prepared and wrote the main gallery thread…I clicked on a suspicious link that drained my art account of the Oncyber Art Galleries needed to proceed with Galleryhaus V1. My OnCyber 3D Art Gallery called ‘Altitude’ that was set up & ready to go was just taken from my wallet along w two JCodes, my main ENS name, 3 others ENS names, and ‘TallWalls’ another beautifully curated Oncyber Art Gallery. While it could have been so much worse it was heartbreaking.

The endeavor was put to a full-fledge halt. We were artists with no gallery…we had tons of art with no home. I think what surprised me the most was the physical response I had. My heart would race, my hands would shake and tears would well up for the first few days after the hack. I know I’m safe in my home, but I didn’t feel safe anywhere online and I truly contemplated leaving the space. There was a good week where I dropped out, just pulled away from all things crypto / NFT and withdrew into myself. A break was necessary. We went from 0 to 100 to a crashing halt that killed all artistic momentum. ‘After.’ was created in this exterior silence when all wallets were unplugged. With all computers erased. The silence became deafening and in order to release the pulsating noise that droned from my fingers into my neck all I could do was create and hope what I put to the page was dark enough to bring in a tiny hope of light. Remember, my BUNNI3S were getting dark to begin with. I was already struggling.

I know a few people reached out and to them, I will forever be grateful. To those people that sent replacement Art and eth to put towards new galleries — you know who you are…you will always have a loyal friend in me. I just want you to know that it was much harder to keep going. And that was this. I can still easily cry over the feeling of helplessness, pure embarrassment and fear that it brings me back to. But if quit I let them win and they’ve already taken so much from so many people. So we keep going. Take your pick on the emotion that BUNNI3 represents. Maybe it covers them all — maybe it’s more about letting people cheer you on, but ultimately being responsible for oneself. I don’t know exactly. But I know the shitty feeling I felt and I know I’d prefer to not feel that helpless or alone or just plain stupid again.

It really didn’t matter if I had the name of the ‘BUNNI3’ because I had the colors. I had the twists and turns of lines and the texture. The way my mind interprets good mood vs bad mood or positive vs negative is a funny thing because it’s not by beauty. I think the piece ‘After.’ is incredibly dark, but also incredibly beautiful. Some of the darkest feelings to me have always been some of the most intimate paintings. I use darker themed art to transfer the energy from within me…its an entire process or cleansing of my mind’s palette. For as long as I can remember, this is how my mind has worked through some of my innermost BUNNI3S no matter the name of the project.

I have read and been told not to mint too much, but I cannot tell you when the BUNNI3S come. My emotional journey is not something that I can control and the BUNNI3S speak for themselves. They tell their own story, their own journey and they pertain to many people as well. So many will find their own BUNNI3 within my BUNNI3S and they may just find their home. For now, they reside where they are and you can peek into the darkest parts of me. Maybe recognize when I sat with tears in my eyes as there are not many happy BUNNI3S. My art changes when I’m lighthearted and happy — I’m sure when you follow closely enough to my art you’ll notice.

//SadBUNNI3S: After. in the OM Metaverse copy & paste these coordinates or follow the link Coords=254.72x122.80x763.14x2.03

As seen in Mirror.xyz: ThompsonART.eth https://mirror.xyz/thompsonart.eth/Vt8XWgnKlQ95NgDjAglFcnHCk8eQJtUGG180SYJDWZY

by thompsonNFT.eth

I’ve been an artist my entire life. When I was old enough to pick up my first crayon I began to draw. I’d draw any and everything ranging from horses to fish to people and of course, abstracts.

With this particular process, Artistic Redaction, a canvas’s empty corner is usually the starting point. It begins with a word or a phrase, something that means something to me or maybe an unwanted emotion. Maybe a feeling or a problem, an emotion I’d very much either like to hold on to or let go of, to release. Those are the phrases that become memorialized in collections like ‘ThisWaysUP’. As letters fill the canvas from corner to corner, overlap and criss-cross, shapes and swirls begin to emerge from the landscape of the canvas. Depth and corners of the geometric abstractions begin to move your eye from the start to the finish and maybe once over again. The colors, textures and shapes have to make me feel ‘something’. What once ‘read words’ now invokes feeling. My eye begins to push and pull from the page changing what once ‘read’ …now expresses itself in an exhausted emotion that can now pushed aside for something fresh and new.

This is the only way I know how to explain the process of ‘Artistic Redaction.’ What’s funny, is that I see other artists create using the process all the time, I have just given it a ‘serious’ name. When I was younger and I’d get upset, I’d grab for any scratch of paper and artistically redact away. By the time I was finished I’d always feel something completely different.

The phone rang late one night in November of 21. It was an old friend of mine. He had been fighting with addiction for at least 15 years. In a moment of clarity he was extremely excited to be going into some new style of rehab the next day. But in order to go he just needed one last favor. Just one more thing. This has been going on for years and I had nothing left to give. I was very nice and said I was proud of him for seeking treatment and to call when he got out and wished him well. He was so angry that he hung up after an onslaught of choice phrases. I did not know what to do with how I felt. All my art supplies had been in storage due to a recent move. I had a little mac book air. I had Illustrator. I began with a corner of the canvas and morning I knew that I had started something meaningful. I had beautiful layers and a few pieces and I could not remember why I was upset.

TWU: “ThisWaysUP’ is a collection of 50 unique NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain. I created the collection on a Manifold contract so I would have creative control of the collection not Opensea or Foundation or any other centralized platform (some disrespect;). If the platforms go under or is hacked, your art is safe and sound in your wallet. It took me a bit longer to make sure that I taught myself the right way to create the tokens. It then took a bit longer to wait for extra permissions to be enabled, but it was worth the wait. TWU is not my genesis piece, but it is my first NFT collection that was created in November of 2021. It’s been the collection that gave me a pretty extensive NFT education and along the way I’ve made some lifelong web3 friends. So for that I’m forever grateful.

As a 1/1 artist of 25 years, a mom of twins, a wife and an entrepreneur I’d rather underpromise and overdeliver especially on the word we’ve all come to know and love — ‘utility’. This collection TWU will be that. The utility collection — the First50.

• View TWU: Volume I: 1–50: https://opensea.io/collection/thiswaysup
• View TWU: Volume I: 1–50: OnCyber Gallery: https://oncyber.io/thiswaysup
• There is more to come from this collection, but for now please reach out at thompsonNFT@protonmail.com or just message me on any socials.

It turns out that my so-called ‘Genesis’ began way before I had ever intended, but like many of my other works…they come full circle and bite me in the ass. My physical work was destroyed on not one, but multiple, occasions. I know, sounds ridiculous. You would think I would learn to protect my work from oncoming hurricanes and floods, but alas this has led to you, dear reader, and to the world of NFTs. A staunch believer in the physicality of art, I was of the school that maybe, just maybe, I should have lit the rest of my physical pieces on fire. Well, that was the plan indeed and then, of course I read that Banksy already lit that course (no pun) and the last thing I’ve ever wanted is to be labeled a ‘copy cat’ and so on. I am here writing on the creation of my work-in-progress, a Genesis piece in-the-making, yet will now be referred to as a circle-about, a Denoument-of sorts, “Fettered Spiders.” — If the name sounds familiar, you are correct. I’ve shared a select few ‘Fettered Spiders: The Iterations’, as this collection is a circular process.

One seemingly normal day about six years ago, my treasured portfolio that varied from photography to submission slides, my accolades, and project pieces that maybe only my eyes would ever see…found their final resting place amongst the train tracks a few miles from my childhood home. Weeks had gone by before a good samaritan rang me up asking if someone in this world ‘hated me’. I was a bit stunned and asked why. She then proceeded to tell me that everything I may have ever cherished was scattered all over this old set of train tracks that never ran. She then described objects such as my beloved children’s baby mementos and the likes of my entire art career and portfolio. Twenty years down the drain. The only items that were not in this heap of trash were the paintings that hung in the estates of my collectors.

What do you do? What could I do? Be angry? Sure, I was. Be hurt? Sure, I was. Cry? Sure, I did. Now what? All of my photo albums, art slides and photography were among the scattered heaps of single shoes, paintings and notebooks. Diligently each photo was picked up and brought home, dabbed dry and placed on a 36" x 60" hand-built & stretched canvas. I did not know how the photos would take to: one, any sort of adhesive on the back and: two, if they’d survive at all after being in the wet elements for the past few weeks. But I had to try to turn something horrible into something meaningful. It didn’t have to be beautiful. The piece had to mean something even if I was the only person to ever lay eyes upon it.

This was back in 2017 when I began. I was heartbroken. The work was set aside and put into my studio. I would pass by and take a look at every memory that had been destroyed, but not forgotten. It would still bring up a little resentment for the act and my feelings would still waver back and forth as I choked back the tears. Maybe they still do.

Let’s fast forward.…it’s now three years after “train tracks” and three years of my ruined photography staring back at me in my studio. Three years of no notable changes to this large canvas with my ruined memories that just screamed at me. Sure, I’d look at it. Think about how to proceed and it would be moved around to different areas of the house. On March 20, 2020, my father took his own life. His health had been slipping down hill after a “supposedly successful” hip surgery. I hated this piece even more because he was the reason my art, photographs, and cherished ‘things’ were ruined. On purpose? Hmmm, a little bit. I guess I can blame dementia, but none-the-less, it was related to my beloved father that didn’t say good bye. Yes, I hated it.

Add Covid. Add two years. After working through my father’s passing this piece has come full circle…with me. It has gone through many stages and phases changing its composition and makeup almost as if it had known that I had done the same. The photographs themselves are not what they once were. Neither am I. The smaller sections, ‘Fettered (bound) Spiders,’ The Iterations, have gone through an evolution…a transformation, from something old and cherished to being completely ‘the destroyed,’ to being mounted on a canvas and then completely transformed into an unrecognizable piece of abstract art. The something beautiful.

It’s not complete just yet as the collection is working in a circle. “FS : The Iterations’ is quite time consuming and I don’t plant to create one for each photograph, just a select few. The main physical piece, my genesis, is near completion. To me, it’s symbolic of taking something that was almost too painful to breathe and accepting the changes that allowed beauty. What choice did I have? The only other option was literally and figuratively — garbage.