Meet Snowfro: The Creator of Chromie Squiggles

VeeFriends is thrilled to announce that the Burn Island Eruption 2 auction will feature three NFTs from one of the most well-respected projects–Chromie Squiggles. Courtesy of the iconic generative NFT artist, Snowfro, these squiggles are extremely special as they have not yet been minted, resulting in endless exciting possibilities. Before we burn, let's meet the vanguard behind the Chromie Squiggles and Art Blocks–Snowfro.

Who is Snowfro?

Erick Calderon, also known as Snowfro, founded the iconic Art Blocks platform. Art Blocks is a platform that introduced a new concept in the NFT art world: generative art. Compared to traditional art, generative art can be more unpredictable than traditional art, as the artist often needs more control over the final output. This type of art is created by an algorithm, allowing for infinite unique variations. The concept quickly gained popularity because it opened the door to owning a new art form and offered collectors ownership of unique, one-of-a-kind pieces.

Snowfro created the Art Blocks platform and released the highly popular collection named "Chromie Squiggle," an animated and interactive collection that aimed to show the potential of generative art.

The Road to Generative Art

Before NFTs, Snowfro worked a 9–5 at a tile business. Snowfro's journey to becoming one of the most critical artists specializing in generative art NFTs began at an art+music experience by artist Amon Tobin at Coachella over a decade ago. From there, he was enthralled by projection mapping and decided to teach himself the skills needed to create his installations.

During these early installations at music events, Snowfro decided he wanted to create randomized projections, leading him to create his software that generated and projected colorful shapes onto 3D objects. This deepened his interest in coding just as he discovered the blockchain and Ethereum, which he says "blew his mind."

Snowfro Enters NFTs

The launch of Larva Labs' CryptoPunks was a game changer for Snowfro. He credits the project with being the first to link generative art and mass public distribution/ownership of a digital collection. The CryptoPunk collection spurred Snowfro to build what eventually would become Art Blocks and the celebrated Chromie Squiggle NFT! In fact, Snowfro drew inspiration from the CryptoPunks collection and used funds from being an early adopter to launch Art Blocks.

It is important to note a key difference between CryptoPunks and Chromie Squiggles: CryptoPunks generated assets simultaneously, and people could select the image they wanted to purchase. Chromie Squiggles generate from the underlying code on the spot with each mint. They are two very different mechanisms of generative art.

The Founding of Art Blocks and Chromie Squiggle

These experiences and inspirations culminated in Snowfro's founding of Art Blocks, a critical moment in accelerating the NFT art scene. Each generative art piece on Art Blocks is created through a set of rules and parameters, but the actual outcome of the artwork is left to chance. No two pieces of generative art are the same, making them highly collectible in the NFT world. The platform's innovative use of smart contracts and algorithmic generation of unique art pieces helped popularize generative NFT art and created a new market for collectors and artists alike. The platform's debut collection, Chromie Squiggle, featured 10,000 simplistic yet distinct pieces, each composed of a squiggle with varying colors, opacities, and textures. The platform gained immense popularity during the NFT bull run of 2021, reaching a milestone of over $100 million in total sales volume that year!