Buck Finds
Who am I?
I guess we start when I was young, though quite honestly I should have died 100 times over. How I got past 50 years of age had to be pure luck. That, or I truly have an angel? I drank Drain’O when I was 3. Ran across a busy highway, between two semi-trailers at 5…these are some of the things my Mum told me when letting me know the times she nearly died just raising me. I thought I was going to die in a motorcycle accident at 23. Thought I was going to die out on the open sea on my first journey on a professional fishing vessel at 22. At 21 I actually had a voice tell me I would be dead before I was 30. The kicker with this was that I was alone, underwater, on the bottom or the ocean floor, with all my scuba gear on. It told me with no panic or malice of any kind, kind of as matter of fact type voice…as if being told what’s for dinner.
As a kid I was hyperactive. Walking sucked and I ran everywhere. Before I was 14, I had 1 National and 7 State titles for sport. I lived for sport; the biggest sporting passion was Australian Rules Football. Just being part of a team that could click like that was something to look forward to every weekend. I only wanted to go to school because I had someone to kick the footy with, which wasn’t always the case growing up on a farm.
An academic I never was. Work-wise, well I am the Jack of All and Master of None. Worked on cattle farms, dairy farms, vegetable, and crop farms. Have operated most machines from a bobcat to a bulldozer. Worked on pro-fishing boats and tugboats. Have been involved in major construction jobs from building railway lines to gas plants and power stations. Have grown trees from seeds, planted trees, dropped trees for firewood. Worked hospitality as a barman, a waiter, even as a Security Guard. Worked in hospitals, laid flooring, mowed lawns, moved furniture, and drove heavy haulage railway trains that were 2.4km’s long (1.6 miles) and carried around 30,000 tonnes of iron ore. These are just a few of the things I have done…
Currently, I am Project Supervisor for Australia’s first government-approved and accredited carbon farm tree plantation. I have loved life, gone for long walks with short ropes with every intention of ending it. I have challenged death many times by doing super risky things on motorbikes and in cars. If a dangerous challenge was laid down, I took it with no second thoughts. Now, for whatever reason, I think I’m going to grow old? Perhaps? I no longer go out of my way to risk the privilege of breathing, but relish what the next moment may bring!
Through all of that, I have become THE proudest father. My daughter has been my inspiration for many years, her brother is someone to be super proud of also. I know how lucky I am there for sure! I am not a rich man in the financial sense, but when it comes to love I am fortunate enough to say I am one of the richest men on the planet. And I can’t ever see me wanting it any other way… I have a saying…
“The secret to life is easy. To live life, you must love it. To love life, you must live it.”
I have pushed the limits of living life, and I guess I always loved it!
How I became The Accidental Artist
I had been in Crypto for a couple of years and took a bit of a break for nearly 18 months. I basically traded everything into BTC and just let it sit there till I was ready. When I came back to Crypto, this NFT thing kept popping up, which as I had 18 months of catching up I basically ignored these three letters. In the back of my mind, I knew I would always go and research this so I made it a priority.
By the end of the second article, I read to the end, I could see the enormous potential of tokens. While I understood that art was leading the charge in NFT, I didn’t know that physical items being sold was almost non existent, percentage wise. Stories of a couple property sales achieved under the NFT banner had my mind in top gear. As someone who dabbles in gemstones and jewellery, I could see the absolute future of tokens outside of just art. So, I minted a couple of Emeralds and a men’s diamond ring, starting small was as much to keep me in check as anything. Knowing that the timing was well off for physical items, minting everything was the wrong approach. I’m no artist but there was no way that fact would stop me being a part of this future. Think, Buck, think!
I had to be in the Twitter NFT space, just had to be there, and already another angle in mind, which was to help others enter the NFTverse. This would do a couple of things from my angle, but I knew of a couple of people who took some great photo’s. I could learn as I go, kind of like an agent for their work. Then when they had earnt a little, I would teach them to be their own person without me as a rep on their behalf. I searched for other artists and photographers and offered another sales channel etc etc and blah blah. This turned out to be harder than I thought, but Paul Gammy was interested in his own collection. Done deal, next challenge was to sell his work… still working on that.
My first research subject was what social media was best for the NFTverse, and I was so glad it wasn’t Facebook… I despise that platform with my whole being. Twitter here I come. One day I had come to the complete stop. There was nothing else I could think of that would keep me in the Twitter NFTverse. “Right…what is digital art? I thought out loud. Without even knowing it at the time this was an absolute life-changing moment. Every spare moment I am doing something with, for, or to Art. Or at the least in some area of my involvement, and to the point I basically deny myself any rest.
Art has become all-consuming. There is always something else to learn, to try, to research…to discover. If I can give a little advice to anyone considering joining this amazing future…
DO IT NOW! It’s not easy, and they say it takes a few years to be become known and trusted, and then some more to become successful? Be ready for the long road. Be ready to learn, improvise, adapt, overcome… but most of all get ready for the addiction of a lifetime!
The Paul Gammy Collection
You probably read already about how I came to make a collection for a man called Paul Gammy.
He is what they call a Mud Larker on the northeast coast of England. Hundreds of years ago there where lots of glass factories on the other side of the channel, and even today items wash up. Check out his photos, personally, I think he should give up the day job and grab the camera!
Bucks Own Art
Ah yes, the day I became The Accidental Artist. A life changing moment indeed.
Had someone said to me 10 years ago that I would be doing digital art by the time I was 50, and the desire to make a living from it would be all consuming because it would become an all consuming passion…I would have undoubtably laughed at them. And then there are all the loving compliments that I should be writing books since I started with NFTs! Please be sure to read a few…
When I was 30 though, I swore to my mother (R.I.P. Mum XO) that I would one day be making a living from a computer at home. Quite simply I just never knew it would be with digital art! Im sure you will see my beginnings through to my last piece in that collection. Ethereum gas costs got out of hand and was just one thing stopping lots of people from buying art. That’s when I jumped over to the collection called Bucks Polygon Collection, but there are a couple in between these two.
The Serendipitous SteamPunk
Have you ever taken on a challenge just to see if you could actually pull it off? Well, this was a double-edged sword for me on a personal level.
Firstly…if I could teach myself to do this then I would learn a lot. Oh boy! Did I learn a lot indeed? I did the hundreds of hours for all the multiple layers of art, making sure all the layers worked as I figured they should. Then of course the whole process of going from A to Z with the whole coding to minting the last of the 10,000 pieces.
Secondly…could this be “the one” where I could say I made it in the NFTverse? I have given away hundreds of pieces and, at the time of writing, sold 5. To be honest though, the love that comes back from most folks when they get some freebie’s is worth more than the Ethereum I would have got from selling them. The old saying…you can’t pay the bills with love…
Bucks Polygon Collection
If you have read through all that I have written for my page, you will understand already about why I started this collection. To me, it was the best thing I have done on the NFTverse. The reason for that is I can give these away and it literally cost nothing for gas. Again, I have given so much art away that people say “why”? All good things come to those why wait. I can’t be trying to sell the same pieces for the rest of my years. People talk! Word of mouth can be your best or your worst advertising, and with every piece, there is a lesson to be learned. And then there are royalties as well… The truth is I am hooked on making art now! It really is honestly that simple, and it’s no more complicated than that. To me, it cost me next to nothing to make it outside of a little power, and of course the hours I pour in. “No Pain No Gain” I used to yell out in my sporting sessions as a young bloke. These days it is more like “No Pain No Rain” lol.
Let me ask you this one thing…how many blokes do you know over 50 years of age are making A.I. art? Well, now you know at least one…
