Super Rare?

The New Millennium's Most Distinctive Ciphers

Crowdcreate:

“Most of the true collectors look for artists with a unique and identifiable style/narrative, that’s why to attract this kind of people you have to focus on developing quality artworks in all aspects.”

Never Before Seen versus Never Before Done

The Never Before Seen slogan is being used by some online marketplaces, galleries, and shops in their advertising campaigns in an effort to attract potential customers to new creations. With the explosive proliferation of AI prompters, the market place is overloaded with Never Before Seen art.

If you are a serious investor/collector who finds work by artists like Beeple, PAK, Tyerxholbbs, Trevor Jones and other famous NFT artists out of reach, I would consider searching for new artists who fall into the designation Never Before Done.

I coined that phrase to describe the rarest of the rare. These are works that have never been done before. There are examples throughout history, but I will highlight a couple in this century.

Kevin McCoy: Minted the world’s first NFT called Quantum. He’s the one and only man to do that. It can never happen again. Sold for $1.47 million in 2021. Never Before Done

Beeple: ‘Everydays’ A collage of 5,000 jpg images. It is not the collage that sets him apart, it’s the way he did it. He produced and published an image a day for 5,000 straight days. No other person has performed such an undertaking. Sold for $69 million. Never Before Done

Jason Savage: Cryptographer – Designer of Trithemian Web™ Cryptograms – applied art that relies less on aesthetics and more on their interactive design and problem solving goals. My work uses elongated, vertically displayed lettering that conceals a cryptogram along with other hidden attributes. Interaction with the single layer raster file enables one to decipher the code, revealing the name of the piece, a personal message, and if present, other hidden features. It’s the combination of elements, interaction directives, and exclusive, contemporary abstract design that sets my work apart. I took a 1972 bar challenge and morphed it into a cipher. Never Before Done

My Work

My work is scarce, rare and exclusive. The fifty years I spent in development was missing a critical element until I had an epiphany in 2020. That revelation enables me to produce large pieces – as I initially envisioned. Following that came the proof-of-work, the blockchain and NFT’s which opened up another new dimension. I invite you to read My Story – a fifty year history of my linear graphics development.

I design contemporary, artistic cryptograms featuring a traditional, text based substitution cipher presented to the viewer through a vertically displayed but horizontally read character set. The challenge for a Trithemian Web™ Cryptogram owner is to decipher the piece, revealing the body text (message), the designated title, and, if included, other revelations.  The message, title, and other inclusions are exclusive to that particular piece. You, as an owner, can share those revelations if you so desire.

Super Rare?

That term is frequently used these days in conjunction with the explosion of NFT’s in the marketplace. Artists and their marketplace affiliations are trying to present pieces as rare or super rare in hopes of increasing their value. Some of the NFT marketplaces are vetting their artists to help insure quality work. SuperRare is one such marketplace. If you click on Explore/Artworks you’ll see almost 60,000 listings. Many styles are similar. What you’re looking for is a totally unique style that sets it apart from every other artist.

What do I envision as super rare? Beeple for instance. His ‘Everyday’s: the First 5000 Days’ sold for $69 million. I don’t believe it was the 5,000 digital images that inspired the sale. It was his dedication to produce an image a day for 5,000 days; a stroke of genius. He is the first and only person to achieve such an endeavor. That makes ‘Everyday’s, I believe, super rare and extremely valuable. On a side note, Mike Winkelmann (Beeple) and I are from the Charleston area, home to the Spoleto USA.

Beeple and I have one thing in common. He produced thousands of pieces which enabled him to design Everyday’s. I produced thousands of test prints over fifty years as a way to refine my trademark element. Unlike Beeple, I did not save very many of those tests. My concentration was on the linear graphics component and how best to make it readable. Saving the tests never occurred to me.  

Another example would be ‘Black Circle’, a 1924 oil on canvas painting by the Kiev-born Russian artist Kazimir Malevich sold on the secondary market for $85 million. Others have painted black circles on canvas, but they are secondary to the originator. There are many other examples of super rare in the art world – innovators who have long passed but whose work survived. Consider Salvador Dalí, Claude Monet, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci and Picasso. Each was an innovator, a master of his craft.

I don’t believe an artist has to be dead for their work to be considered super rare. Beeple for example. He’s only 41 (as of 2022). He has developed quite a social media following since starting his design career. What if he had not developed that large following but still produced ‘Everyday’s? Would it have sold for $69 million? That we will never know. Would the piece have still been considered super rare? I believe so. He still would have been the first and only person to undertake such a task.

As a cryptographer, I have developed a linear graphic character set along with a methodology to present a text based cryptogram that is solely unique. In addition, I incorporate another procedure that sets my work apart. See this example. These distinctive elements define my style, which is one of a kind.

My work checks all the boxes discussed on Binance.com – Rarity, Utility and Tangibility.

Each Trithemian Web™ Cryptogram conceals a rumination. My goal is to design uniquely identifiable pieces that will help them survive through generations. My thoughts will be perpetuated in a most unusual format.

In Conclusion

My goal, when I was a younger man, was to design pieces that could be purchased by the masses. My graphic design work was more focused on the art side of the gift market. Please read My Story for a detailed sequence of events. In my remaining years I’ve decided to focus on designing and producing a limited number of Trithemian Web™ Cryptograms for the serious, sophisticated, eclectic collectors.

“I regard collectors of my work as patrons; entrusted to preserve my thoughts through my compositions for generations to come.”

Heads Up

As of this date, March 6, 2024, I am now 74 years old. In the past two years I have been able to produce eleven pieces. They are all 1/1 single editions. Based on the time it takes to design each piece, I can’t predict how many pieces will ultimately be available. Visit my shop today!