Beautiful, gentle, brave, graceful, larger than life…
…the Venn Diagram of amazing ladies and admirable dinosaurs is a circle.
At least that’s the premise behind the wildly successful digital art of Nyla Hayes.
“I fell in love with the Brontosaurus, which I lovingly referred to as ‘long neckie’,” she says. “Their beautiful long neck mixed with their size, gentle nature and bravery was so cool to me. And that’s basically what I want to show for my artwork, how beautiful and strong and powerful women can be.”
Pretty cute, right? You have no idea.
In the 4 years that she’s been creating and selling her work, Nyla’s “Long Neckie Ladies” and subsequent spin-off collections have earned her around $6 million in digital currency and the distinction of being TIME Magazine’s first ever artist-in-residence.
Nyla Hayes is 13 years old.
A tremendous part of her success is, of course, her medium. Nyla’s “Long Neckies” are NFTs (non-fungible tokens). I know this topic can be confusing, so let me attempt to break it down, because even the name is indecipherable, let alone understanding what it actually is. “Non-fungible” is essentially “one-of-a-kind.” Cash is fungible. You can trade it for lots of different things of equal value. When you buy an NFT, you’re buying a guarantee that you are the only owner of that thing. So what sorts of things are sold as NFTs? Anything you can save in digital form. Even tweets.
(I never said these were all worthwhile ways to spend money.)
So when you buy one of Nyla’s pieces, you’re buying her original digital art file, like buying an original painting in real life. Where NFT art differs from physical art though is that depending on the ownership agreement, an NFT may be yours to reprint, recreate, manipulate or display in whatever way you wish. (I say this depends, because when Budweiser entered the NFT market, their agreement demonstrated that “ownership” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s yours.)
What also makes NFTs so very different from physical art is that anyone can create, sell and get paid for them on the open market. NFT’s have all but eliminated the “struggle” from being an artist. Gone are the days of constantly buying new materials, of seeking shops and galleries to sell your art (minus their cut, of course), and all the overwhelming business aspects of making money from your creativity.
Without the accessibility that NFTs bring to the art market, Nyla would never have broken through.
“We really didn’t have enough money to do something with my art,” she recounts.
But when NFTs emerged, her path suddenly cleared.
In March of last year, Nyla released her first NFT collection, simply titled “Long Neckies.” It was only the beginning.
Her “Long Neckie Ladies,” a collection of 3,300 diverse women with long necks, launched July 27, 2021. It sold out in 11 hours to the tune of nearly $2 million, many of which came from celebrity pockets.
But even bigger things (and final sale prices) were on the horizon.
Nyla’s work caught the eye of Keith Grossman, president of TIME Magazine. TIME was contracting artists to recreate their Women of the Year covers and thought Nyla perfectly embodied a digital, female, diverse, and future-forward dynamic they wanted to include in the project.
She created 1,000 unique portraits of 100 women who graced the cover of TIME Magazine, and her work was so impressive, so successful, and so iconic that they offered her a residency. “Since launching Long Neckie Ladies, Nyla has inspired many individuals within the NFT community and established herself as a leader amongst the next generation of emerging artists,” Grossman said. “We are thrilled to announce her as our first Artist-in-Residence for TIMEPieces and are excited to see how she applies her talent to our brand.”
There, she’ll have access to the resources, training, tools, and more “essentials needed to advance her career through NFTs.” Considering what she’s managed to accomplish on her own, the support of a media organization with the power of TIME Magazine means the sky’s the limit for Nyla.
Good thing she specializes in long necks.
KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:
Browse all 100 of Nyla’s Long Neckie Women of the Year at TIMEPieces.
Keep up with all things Long Neckie and Nyla’s big dreams on her Instagram.
The Long Neckies have grown to several different collections. Find links to see and maybe purchase them all on Nyla’s website.
THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 