Introduction to Normality Is Toxic

Speaker 2 0:12

Welcome to the show and thank you for joining us. Today we're joined by Erica, known online as Normality is Toxic. They're a photographer, mixed media artist and collector active in the Tezos art community. Erica's work blends analog and digital approaches, often digging into themes of feminism, personal expression and the human experience. They've shown art at Art Basel, collaborated on projects like Reconquest 2, and have been a strong advocate for valuing art fairly in the Tezzo space. We'll talk about their journey, their work and their perspective on the community. Welcome to Tez Talks, erica, and thank you for being here. In your self-portrait Show, no Mercy, you staged this intense scene three versions of you and black outfits on the ground and another version in a red ski mask and skirt, standing over them with a bat. When you create something like that, are you staging it more as a performance, a story or an exploration of identity?

Speaker 1 1:25

thank you for having me. That intro was super cool, by the way. Um, yeah, that piece, um, I knew that it was for the what the fuck? Game show and I knew it was going to be a survival token. So in my mind I was like, how do I showcase survival and how that means for me? And I struggle a lot with mental health and anxiety. That's not a secret. I have a really hard time with internal struggle and beating myself up. So I thought let's literally show me beating myself up and conquering all of that in one photo myself up and conquering all of that in one photo. And, um, when I was there on that at that location, I like saw my camera. It was at a skate park. These dudes were just skating around. I just like did the thing and it changed clubs and everything and just did it all there. Um, and it was really fun.

Speaker 2 2:28

Do you think of those figures as different sides of you or just characters in this story?

Speaker 1 2:37

I kind of think about that piece as like the Matrix, with all of the Mr Andersons or not Mr Anderson's or not Mr Anderson. Oh my God, you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 2:48

Agent.

Speaker 1 2:51

It's like agent Smith, you know, like copies of the self that I don't like. They're not really individual, but yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at with that, but yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at with that.

Speaker 2 3:06

So what was probably the hardest part of pulling that off solo?

Speaker 1 3:13

Was it the timing, the posing, the logistics. I was actually sick when I did that. Yeah, I was not feeling well and that was pretty hard and I had the patience of a saint with myself just trying to get it all together, laying around in the dirt and it was a gross space Like doing the shoot itself was the hardest part just being sick and trying to manage everything by myself. And then the editing part was actually the fun part, which sometimes or well, for the most part, the reverse, the editing part, is harder because I'm just overthinking it, but I already knew what I wanted to do with it, so thank god that part was easy now, your first mint on tezos was not your meal back in august 2021.

Speaker 2 4:08

Looking back, what did that piece mean to you at the time and how do you feel it set the tone for everything that followed?

Speaker 1 4:18

yeah, not your meal, wasn't? It was an older piece that I meant to like, long after its creation, essentially, and that was kind of how I wanted to jump into the space with my best collage work and just to kind of introduce who I am in my little collage quirky way.

Speaker 2 4:39

Um, that one I love it by the way.

Speaker 1 4:46

I was thinking about how, you know, women are objectified and how, like, they're just feasted on, like with the eyes, with the way that they're treated and with the way that I've been treated personally. And that collage was not pre-planned. I just found this like painting of a woman in a German art magazine and I cut it out and then I was like, huh, there's this spoon magazine. All right, let's see where this goes. And then I found a knife and yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2 5:27

She or she was born so you've been around since the hickett nook days. I mean we're talking those janky and fun early tezos moments. Yes, what do you miss most from that time and what do you think we've gained since then?

Speaker 1 6:07

And when I finally like got the hang of it, I felt kind of like, oh, I can, I know how to use this and I went to help other people use it and I felt like it was a really cool way for me to connect with other people and help show them the way of the Tezos. And we did a lot of Tezos spaces and like interviewed a lot of different artists, I hosted spaces, I joined spaces and it was just we were really close like a tight knit community and I really do miss that. I feel like we have less spaces now. I feel like people are a little more tense these days, but I feel that love kind of coming back and I like how we're more organized with our artwork and more thoughtful with our artwork though there is ai slop, but that will always happen it's beautiful to some.

Speaker 2 6:56

We can't dampen their dreams, I guess that's true.

Speaker 1 7:00

Some people like the slop they do.

Speaker 2 7:03

I mean, when we call those slop eaters pigs in the real world, right, those are the ones that anyway, sorry, I'm not drawing any correlation. This is, you know, no personal opinions here.

Speaker 1 7:13

No, none whatsoever.

Speaker 2 7:16

Oh, I appreciate you. So you spent time shooting in Iceland Abandoned buildings, craters, great glacial lagoons. A lot of those photos carry this quiet isolation. How did being in that kind of an environment alone influence the way you think about the human experience in your art?

Speaker 1 7:41

That's a really good question. That's a really good question. Um, I traveled solo to iceland for photography purposes, to really challenge myself and kind of just discover who I am alone like. Can I take care of myself? Am I someone that can solo travel? Am I someone that can solo travel? Am I someone that can really like?

Speaker 2 8:04

That's impressive. That's not for everybody.

Speaker 1 8:06

And it is not. And I realized being out there alone and setting up the shots and like, and I'm not a nature photographer, I don't identify as a nature photographer.

Speaker 2 8:20

You don't have a huge collage of like hummingbirds and flowers.

Collecting Art & Hidden Gem Artists

Self-Portrait Show & Beating Oneself Up

Speaker 1 8:25

I don't, I do not, so I know some people that do and they're amazing at it. Shout out to Beth and to Laura. I love them. Anyway, I digress. Yeah, I really challenged myself to open my mind more to nature and just be more immersed into what that world is like, and I really feel more connected to myself. But in the artwork after that I've really been passionate about being more and more expressive and challenging myself more. I don't know what the rest of the question was, but hopefully I answered that oh you know just the way you think about human experience in your art.

Speaker 2 9:19

That's all.

Speaker 1 9:23

Oh right, the human experience. Yeah, also, doing that alone, I realized just how much of a consumerist society we live in, because I'm living out of one suitcase and have my camera and I realized like, hey, these are the only things I really need. It's just like a few things and my camera and the world. And it's just so easy to get wrapped up in what we're told what to buy, how to feel, how we should look, what we should wear. And I'm not going to lie like that escape was necessary to really see that, see the impact of that. As a human being, it's like we're not built for all of this consumerism, we're not built for all of this stuff. And when you pull back all those layers and you're faced with just being alone with your own self, that is trivial to being human.

Speaker 2 10:27

The human experience, I think I I I would have to agree with you. I did not internationally travel. I can't say I'm any expert, but I did spend my time alone on the road and you can cry on the phone but they can't help you. Yeah, that's, true, oh oh, good for you, that's powerful. Good for you. So you've created on multiple blockchains, but you've described Tezos as feeling safer and more supportive. How did that difference show up for you in practice as an artist?

Speaker 1 11:08

Well, I will say that I started with Ethereum venting on foundation, and I had a lot of support. I had great friends, we were rolling, I was selling and I was really marketing myself, pushing myself really hard. I made friends and I don't know, for whatever reason, it just all kind of felt like sand going through my fingers. I was just losing it, losing my balance, losing, like, my solidity in that community, and I don't I don't think it's anyone's real like fault, it's just probably a cultural thing around ethereum, like I felt inferior a lot and I felt like I had to claw on top of other people and that didn't feel fair and I can't. Like I couldn't really collect either, so I couldn't really give back in the way that I wanted to. And when I joined Tezos, I felt like okay, people support me and I can and want to support them and I want to talk to them and be around them, like I mean, we're in a digital world, but you know what I mean, like be around them.

Speaker 2 12:29

We're spending time. We may not be in each other's presence physically, but I figure this counts as spending time together too right yes, a lot of spending time together.

Speaker 1 12:38

The group chats like and I just felt like I could just really be me and mint whatever like a collage, a photo like it, a photo like it didn't matter and it didn't matter where it was in the organizational sense of things, like I didn't have to feel this need to separate everything and put my art in so many different places. Like I could just be me, put my art up, hang out, buy art boom, easy easy.

Speaker 2 13:11

That sounds like the life I love that life yeah, it's great so your reconquest 2 project pulled together 14 women and femme artists to take on toxic patriarchy directly. What did collaboration on something that heavy actually look like in practice?

Speaker 1 13:33

so there is a one and a two that I organized with morale um she's amazing, by the way, she's from germany and um organizing that it. It started off as like oh okay, we want to do a parody of like work, that is, um pushing out the, the male gaze and the like patriarchal agenda on women's bodies in the form of photography. So we did self-portraits that were parodying already existing art. I chose an artist that was in the NFT space and he was not happy, which is great for me. That's the response that I want. I want people to learn, I want the conversation to start, I want people to think. And it was successful. And the women that joined me a lot of them were hesitant, I think, to pick people that were already existing. So some of them picked like photos and imagery from the 50s and 60s and things like that, which is awesome. I'm so glad that they could find something to participate with.

Speaker 1 14:52

And then the second project we tackled, like how the patriarchy like impacts us, and that one generated more participation because it was more, more broad, I would think.

Speaker 1 15:08

I would say because it was more broad, I would think I would say Easier to come up with ideas for that Still very, very delicate, a very hard thing to express, and I'm so proud of all of the people that participated in this project and just came out and did some very vulnerable work, regardless of selling it's powerful, vulnerable work, and it just blew my mind that these people wanted to be part of something that I'm passionate about and something that women and femme globally are passionate about and can resonate with.

Speaker 1 15:45

But this product also taught me that I really should have more diversity and have more open mediums and be open to more mediums, not just photography. So I want to do a third collection and open all the doors and I want to work on the theme of resilience and not have such a cloud, because, yes, we live in a very hard world and there is a cloud and we are not happy, we're angry, we're furious, but there's this like seed of, and bud of resilience within all of us and we we face every single day, despite all the things that we're angry about, and that's what I want to express in this next collection now, when you layer analog collage with digital elements, like drawing flames over a portrait, what do you feel these combinations allow you to express that might not come through in a single medium alone?

Speaker 1 16:59

I like to do the analog or the physical, and then I'll think something's missing. I need to add more to it. But I don't want to add it on there physically. I need to see what it looks like digitally, so if I don't like it I can erase it.

Speaker 2 17:18

I like that.

Speaker 1 17:19

With the flame portrait that was at Art Basel. That was photography that I was just experimenting with and didn't know what to do, for example. That I was just experimenting with and didn't know what to do, for example. So I was on a plane flying to or from Maine to Washington and I was just like you know what these flames and this energy of well, this piece was? Oh my gosh, what was that called? I'm all like all over the place mentally, but I am my own. God is what it's called. Called. I'm all like all over the place mentally, but I am my own. God is what it's called. Right, I remember things.

Speaker 2 17:55

Doing great, doing great.

Speaker 1 17:57

So I was thinking of, like, how I hold myself up and how I dictate my own path in life, when I was drawing that photo. So something that was experimental can completely change meaning as I go. It's very organic. I almost never pre-plan things unless I need a reference and I'm thinking about something I need to put down on paper, which rarely happens. I just kind of let it come out and be what it wants to be essentially that's fantastic.

Speaker 2 18:36

Well, your early work like not your meal set a tone for themes that you've definitely carried forward. How would you compare what you were expressing then with the direction of your more recent pieces?

Speaker 1 18:52

I think that that work was was just a little piece of how I feel and I think over time I have come to find out how to grow that piece into a bigger message, into more meaning, into more emotion and just keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. Um, I think I really challenged myself over the years in this space and a lot of the tezos events and just interacting with other artists and like looking at what other artists are doing. It really like drives, ideas and motivation that I didn't really have before, didn't really have access to before and, yeah, like works like not your meal, like it's very obvious, but pieces. Now there's way more layers. I mean there could be an obvious message on the surface, but there's always more, there's more and more under the surface of my later work that's awesome.

Not Your Meal: First Tezos Mint

Speaker 2 20:01

So if the tezos community commissioned you to make a giant public artwork in Seattle, what would you put on the wall to represent us?

Speaker 1 20:15

Oh my God, oh my God, I don't know. It would have to be super crazy, colorful and vibrant and encompassing all of the uniqueness that this community represents. Like we're all I feel, like we're all a big band of people that were outcasts and we found each other in a sense like I definitely was an outcast growing up I didn't really have a lot of friends and being so like, welcomed, like this needs to be, like this is us, we we're fucking weird and we're. We're colorful, we're bright, we're fluid, we're moving and evolving. Something that's evolving. I wouldn't know exactly what, but yeah, it would have to be something that's growing and super organic I keep thinking about that.

Speaker 2 21:21

I I'd love to see it, love to see what would we look like in in your work. That would be amazing. So you're also a collector yourself. Now do you ever regret a purchase, or is every piece a keeper? Um, I have, I. I do own some brew bears, just so you know. I saw you did too. I just want to say I do own a couple. Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 1 21:47

Yeah, it was all in support of the community, all right.

Speaker 2 21:54

Always.

Speaker 1 21:56

But yeah, there are some pieces. I'll look back and just be like I don't really like bag with this anymore. Not that it's bad art, but I just don't resonate with it anymore. It was a short-term purchase. We definitely get dumped free stuff. I don't know if you remember we all got free covid variants in our wallets I remember those I think I still have mine wow, those are great.

Speaker 2 22:26

yes, all the different variants of SARS Awesome.

Speaker 1 22:29

So fun. I loved seeing that in my wallet and not knowing what was going on there are some people collecting them all. I'm like I know there's a point to this, but I'm just going to leave it alone, like I did with my actual COVID, just let it be. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I mean, there are some that I've hidden, for sure, and there are some that I have bought that were copy-minted and I had to burn, which happens. That happens sometimes.

Speaker 2 23:09

Yeah, that happens that happens, sometimes People are not always honest. No, no.

Speaker 1 23:17

But yeah, it is what it is. No, they're not.

Speaker 2 23:22

Is there anything like your most surprising pickup that you picked up? Anything like that? Are there any hidden gem artists that you wish more people would notice?

Speaker 1 23:32

Oh man, I have 800 something and I have to use. I have a lot.

Speaker 2 23:40

Wow.

Speaker 1 23:41

Um, yeah, by name. I feel like there's Cassie. I want to say her last name is Morgan. I'm going to look this up really quick so I'm not wrong. So you put me on the spot.

Speaker 2 24:02

I do that. I apologize. It should be, you know, ted's talk spotlight, shouldn't it Right, john spot.

Speaker 1 24:10

Putting me on the spot. Yeah, I was right. Actually it's Cassie Morgan Morgan M-O-G-H-A-N.

Speaker 2 24:17

Okay.

Speaker 1 24:18

She's phenomenal. I have some one-of-ones by her Super amazing street photography. I wish more people saw her work. I wish that people collected her work. I wish that people collected from her more. And she's just, she's a gem. She's a great person, amazing person and I love her.

Speaker 1 24:38

And there's also Matt Nova, and I've collaborated with him before. He's from India, hosts a lot of different art, does mixed media, is experimental, great person as well, super caring and kind person. Just a great friend too, like all these people are my friends. And then there's 328, lad Jesse from New Zealand. I think a lot of people know about him already because he's been behind so many great projects like ACTZ, which people can submit their work and be selected to do a commission and they automatically get Tezos for their commission once they complete it. It's an automatic bid on their piece and he started this like it's an automatic bid on their piece and he started this and it's. I've both participated and I've been a judge and it's such a great, great thing to be a part of and I feel like everyone should apply to do this so you can get the tezos.

Speaker 1 25:48

Um, yeah, I could talk forever about my friends. There's Meral, who has done this feminist project with me. There's oh my God, yeah, there's Beth of Ears Fox Socks, who does floral work. She's fantastic. I've done collaborations with her. There's Scott X I feel like you guys know about him already. He has. He started God. What was that marketplace? He was part of that object marketplace. I keep forgetting what it's called on the spot Versam.

Speaker 2 26:42

Ah, versam yes.

Speaker 1 26:43

Yes, he was behind Versam Works with Taya. Yeah, he's a great person, does paintings, has done some photography definitely worth supporting.

Speaker 2 26:57

I'm probably missing people you have named amazing name. Now this supposed to be about you and I appreciate you dropping all those names, but yeah, that I can see where your inspiration can really come from and if these are all your friends, I mean, which is awesome, like this is. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 27:15

So they're my, my homies.

Speaker 2 27:18

You got a great crowd. I just want you to know that your homies are amazing. Now, if you could snap your fingers and change one thing about how Tezos art culture works right now, what would it be?

Future of Tezos Community

Speaker 1 27:33

Hmm, how the culture works. We're already super inviting and weird. I don't know what more I could want. I wish that I could hide some old art that I'm not proud of oh, that's every artist that ever lived, I think like why do you have to be on display? Like can I just erase it and keep my best? Like can I just like not no, this is not your instagram.

Speaker 2 28:06

I'm sorry. Oh, you're doing great. So what do you think future collectors will say about Tezos, this Tezos chapter, when they look back in 10 years?

Iceland Solo Travel's Impact

Speaker 1 28:20

Wow, this has been an interesting time A lot of global turmoil, pain, a lot of expressions of that pain. There's been fundraisers, there's been active like things actively in motion to help each other. I think that when they look back, they'll see, like how much we care about each other and how much we stand up for each other, because we just like call out the bullshit in this community and we don't stand for it and we stand up for each other and for our friends. And this is like the strongest era of being like you know what fuck the pretenders in this space and all the people having put it on a face and saying one thing but doing another. Like we're. We're done with that. Like at first we wanted to just make sales, but now we're like no, we want to make sales to good people, and I think that shift is is is pretty prominent now.

Speaker 2 29:34

Yeah what's one question you wish people would ask you about your art, but never do hmm, sometimes I wish people would ask me about my process.

Speaker 1 29:57

I feel I feel like sometimes they just they don't really see how much goes into my work and they don't see that there are layers to it, like a scanned analog collage and I try to describe, but I would love to be asked more about it. Like you know what, what's in this collage and I could tell you, like I used an old film strip from this and this thing and I used this piece from this magazine. Like I can tell you where parts of my collages came from and I can tell you if they meant anything to me or not, or if it's just a hodgepodge of whatever. But you know, it'd be really cool to to be asked about, like what materials were used, how did this come about? Like that would be awesome.

Speaker 2 31:00

Where is the best place for people to find and support your work, Erica?

Speaker 1 31:09

The best place would be objects. I have art up on other chains, of course, but objects is where all my best pieces are, at my favorite pieces. So why not have some of my photography on there that I really love? But I want to take it down, sorry, not sorry, but yeah, the best place to support me is Object. I do have my own website of older work and stuff that would be cool for people to look at if they wanted to. I did a lot of portraits of other people that I can't mint because permission and I don't want to do that, um, but yeah, there's. There's more to me than just self-portraits and collages. Like. I've done a wide range of work, and most of that can be found on my website.

Speaker 2 32:09

And that website is.

Speaker 1 32:12

EricaLamotheArtcom.

Speaker 2 32:15

There we go, because if we don't have it, we can't go to it. Well, erica, thank you again for joining us on Test Talks and sharing your perspective. Your work challenges, provokes and inspires perspective. Your work challenges, provokes and inspires and it's clear how much you care about both your art and the wider Tezos community For everyone. Watching check out Erica's portfolio on Object and follow them over on X at at normal is toxic and always. Thank you for tuning in. We'll be back with more conversations with builders, artists and creators across the tezos and etherlink space thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 32:59

Thank you you.