JMU art students, faculty grapple with NFTs | News

Students and faculty in the School of Art, Design and Art History (SADAH) face the complex world of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the discourse surrounding them — that some people are making money off of their art without getting a degree for it.

According to the New York Times, NFTs are a $40 billion market of digital collectibles. These media pieces can be created by anyone and sold for millions of dollars. A debate has emerged on whether they devalue, or should be considered art. 

Danielle Gish (’22), a recent graphic design graduate, said she and her roommates initially went on a “little YouTube rabbit hole” trying to figure out what NFTs were. 

Gish said an NFT is a digital licensing or ownership of an art piece that gives you full ownership to its rights and, if said in the contract, any recreations.

Gish said while she understands the intention of NFTs to provide more overt copyright and ownership of art, she said she doesn’t think that reflects their real-world impact. 

“I don’t think it’s actually helping or actually defending people’s art,” Gish said. “It’s just making it so rich people can buy art but other people can’t have access to it.” 

She said there’s a presumption that graphic design is digital work anyone can do, like creating NFTs, so it isn’t as valuable as other skills. Gish disagrees with that.

“Once you look at somebody’s work you can see that they’ve honed those skills more,” Gish said.

The access to online content in everyday life has opened the door for careers in graphic art and design, but also presents new challenges. Dawn McCusker, the associate director of SADAH and a professor of graphic design, said the process of creating art on-and off-campus is important, but it can be difficult to strike a balance. 

“Our students are bombarded through Pinterest and Instagram,” McCusker said. “Anybody can put their design out there and then they get influenced and they’re like, ‘Oh, I want  to make it look like this.’” 

McCusker said SADAH is about more than learning digital art programs. 

“For [SADAH], it’s a bigger deal than that,” McCusker said. “We’re teaching a deep dive into it as a creative profession — not this surface of programs.” 

McCusker said SADAH tries to stay current with trends like NFTs, but “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” 

“We know what works,” McCusker said. “You have to have that balance between the design basics and how graphic design has been taught over the years with the current trends.” 

McCusker said the influence that trends have on students is worrying but unavoidable. 

“For me, it’s a scary time because there is so much influence out there,” McCusker said. “You really want the students to be able to build their own skills, but it’s so hard not to look.”

Students and graduates pursuing graphic design careers are having to wrestle with whether NFTs are something they could support, or would want to create. Lindsey Guzzardo (’22), a recent graduate and graphic design major, said it bothers her that people without training can make so much money on NFTs. Guzzardo said it’s frustrating that people without training are making money on what she’s getting a degree for. 

“Even though it bothers me that artists are getting paid for it without going through the time I have, I can’t say I blame them for taking that route,” Guzzardo said. “If I had opportunities of being paid for my piece, or my art or digital art, I don’t think I would be too upset about it.” 

Alyssa Wood (’22), a recent graduate and graphic design major, said she feels good about people creating NFTs and making money from them. 

“I don’t mind them either way,” Wood said. “If people want to use or make NFTs, go for it, and if you don’t, that’s OK too.”

At the root of the conversation lies a question of what makes art, art. Christian Arnder, an adjunct instructor of graphic design, said he thinks there’s artistic inspiration to be found in NFTs. 

“I think a lot of people got revitalized in their creativity by having this new opportunity,” Arnder said. 

Arnder said he has friends doing interesting work through NFTs, but he finds personal hesitance in the topic. 

“I think at the end of the day, to me personally, it still ends up feeling a lot like false scarcity,” Arnder said. “It ends up feeling a lot like this approach to art that is still far too capitalistic.” 

Arnder said he doesn’t think trends are a bad thing, but to understand how to be successful, artists must look beyond them. 

“I think what trends lack a lot of the time, at least as they grow and evolve, is that human connection — they lack that emotional connection,” Arnder said. “I think if artists and designers and illustrators can find a way to truly connect emotionally with people, it far surpasses trends.” 

Contact McKinley Mihailoff at mihailmx@dukes.jmu.edu. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.