My name is Myke Pope and I am a creator. Just to preface my bio, this will give a brief overview of my life and will mainly focus on my NFT and Crypto life in regards to being an artist.
Since a young age, 5-6 we are talking now, I’ve always been creating thing, be it legos or trying to figure out photoshop and flash animator. Remember Flash? Oh man that was fun. Any ways, I realized at a young age that the only thing I really enjoyed doing was creating, so my hobbies always result in some sort of digital or physical creation. Please don’t ask how many external hard drives I have!
I grew up around antiques and collectibles, so I think that is what ultimately sparked my interest in art and design. I love them both, you can try to have all the conversations you want about what makes art and design different. Heres the thing, I wouldn’t be able to function without either, so theres that!
When I finished high school, I was a self proclaimed photoshop and flash animation pro! Even though, for some reason, all my teachers think I wanted to be a musician. I mean, I enjoyed playing music at that age, but I grew out of instruments for the most part. I became too busy creating. After high school I went to a two year school for Multimedia which then landed me easily at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah GA. I spent 2.75 years there and enjoyed every minute of it, by far the best school and the best professors anywhere. Except I didn’t enjoy the professor who yelled at me in his office for not putting my name at the top of the page, until he realized the printer cut it off. That was fun. I received my BFA in Motion Media Design at SCAD and there I was able to work on some really fun projects and meet some really cool creative people. One project in particular was projecting my Fractal Art on to The Samitaur Tower http://ericowenmoss.com/project-detail/samitaur-tower/ in Culver City California.
SCAD also gave me the opportunity to work on and learn about some really interesting synesthesia and visual music projects. I loved learning about people like Oskar Fischinger who did early animations synchronized to music. I absolutely fell in love with that concept of animation, so I started making my own. I only have one synesthesia piece up and it’s now been collected. So I do plan to add more to that collection sometime hopefully soon.
After graduating from SCAD, I felt it was time to work towards an MBA. I concentrated in entrepreneurship and finished that in 2017. Trust me, business is not as fun as art school! I wanted to go back to SCAD after that. So fast forward to now, I work full time in the fashion industry doing a little bit of everything. When the evening rolls around, that is when I come alive in the shop or working to make something on my computer.
I believe I got into NFTs either in late 2020 or early 2021. I was fascinated by the whole concept. I had already been buying crypto at this point, but this was a whole separate facet to the crypto-verse. Around the same time, I joined the Cathor, Hathor Community Coin, group and made a bunch of friends there. https://cathor.io/ I was even given the official title of craftsman after 3D sculpting and 3D printing some small and not so small Cathor Statues. Oh! and I can’t forget about my 3D printed Cathor coins!
At the same time that I was bouncing around with the Cathor community and making stuff related to that, I started minting NFTs on OpenSea. My love for these fractals has always been strong and I have been making them since high school. So I minted both old and new pieces. It just amazes me sometimes how these will turn out and how beautiful they can be. As long as my computer doesn’t crash, that is!
Since starting in the NFT community, I’ve honestly had a fucking blast. The NFT space is amazing and life changing. It’s honestly the first time I’ve felt at home. So, to any of my collectors reading this, my most humble and sincere thank you for making my dreams come true! I’m looking forward to what comes next!