A new home for Luci, an archive of what has been, the groundwork for the path ahead. Sam has been in a state of mad science lately. Just an explosion of constant learning and how to bend the latest tools with his “noodled” manual processes and sketches. It’s been wild watching him devour research to gain the ability to make something like this and pour so much care into every little detail. Grateful to @lifeofc for unlocking this and @musicalnetta for the support and scrutiny to make it deep dive ready. The work continues to make it even better. Please reach out if you have any questions.

Yesterday my collector's dream came true. I acquired "one of us", a beautiful Order mask, and completed a full set of mask categories. This was a beautiful journey, one that started about a year ago when I received my first mask from the Masquerade, "Ecclesiastic Manifesto". I was already a big fan of Sam's work and "Players" has always been my favorite artwork in this space. I started collecting masks when the hype around them had decreased a bit. To be honest, I had no real objective in mind at the beginning. In the Autumn, I had the chance to meet Sam and Rachel at their studio with my daughter and while we didn't really go into the lore of masks, something clicked and the objective of collecting a full set materialised. I had the chance to connect with many holders on this quest, as well as with @musicalnetta who has been a tremendous source of help. The website Sam launched recently to capture and visualise the Luci story & ecosystem really triggered further my curiosity, with the additional focus on material, adornment and source. And a couple of months ago, when I managed to collect "CopeEncantado", a rare Luminate mask, I knew my dream could become reality. Here I am today. Thank you to everyone who supported me on this journey, it has been an incredible feeling, Sam's community is unmatched. Looking forward to the continuation of Luci's story. 🫂 🫂 🫂 🫂 🫂 🫂 🫂 🫂 🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭

444 days spent with art, so fitting that it is with Luci - which means Light. I won't celebrate ALL the milestones loudly, but this one seemed special somehow...I know my friend @WAPSHOP_ETH will see something in it. Anyways - 169 left till we reach the end of our journey.

Transferred Violence 1 of 50 Skulls of Luci and its Council Mask now held by @ape6743 With gratitude to michael chester for being a rare, genuine, kind, generous, and soulful part of this world of luci. BBA: welcome and 💌

👀 Just framed a signed gift from one of my favorite digital artists from his “prior life”! 🔥🫡🏆@SamSpratt @MrsRachelSpratt 👇

I’m incredibly happy to say that Sam Spratt’s work is now 100% on decentralized storage. This past Friday, I jumped on a zoom call with @SamSpratt and @mpeyfuss to update the baseURI for Masks and Players. I had done all the prep work to get all the metadata and files on IPFS, we just needed to do two transactions. Marco helped double check all of my work and we both watched Sam to double/triple check his setBaseURI smart contract function calls. It all worked, all set on chain, and now we just wait for it to propagate through all of the platforms, which can take time. This was a long journey that started last year when Sam asked me to help build a new home for Luci. It was the spark that got me thinking about the idea that became provena.art. I’m working with about a dozen artists right now and Sam is the first one to achieve the status of having 100% of his work on decentralized storage. Most other artist that I’m working with have a situation where it can’t quite get to 100%. It will take coordination with current platforms to get there. I’ve been lucky enough to get responses from the ones I’ve contacted so far and now it’s just being diligent about following up with them to get it to completion. It feels good to be able to help an artist like Sam, who I care so much about, with the preservation of his work. I hope to be able to help many others, but it’s slow going at the moment because I’m being incredibly meticulous about tracking each issue to its source versus just blindly fixing it. I’m also finding that some storage is in a situation where it’s not independently solvable but requires coordination with other parties. I hope this work helps to address more systemic issues, which should help the whole ecosystem at large. Onward, and congrats Sam for now being in complete control of your work.

thank you @SamSpratt for collecting a piece from my new collection ‘artificial pain’ 💀🎭 ‘old days’

Finally got my hands on Collecting Art Onchain by @KateVassGalerie - lovely highlight of the collection & some of my favorite works.🍷

Hundreds of horses, swords, handmade costumes, and riders screaming their lungs out. The making of our largest scale production ever

Zewed Many bodies. One mind. Together we win.

Absolutely love the collector profile pages on @SamSpratt 's website Getting to see every collector in his ecosystem and where they "rank" pulls on the strings of mimetic desire and friendly competition too 🥲

ape to ape, human to human.

Much of the design of my new site was made around rabbit holes. To start with the surface of something simple, say a skull, then slip between (and into) each artwork, collection, person, psalm, their contributions, and how each piece fits together. samspratt.com/skulls/skulls

Historically artists have been some of the best collectors in the space. I had some fun digging into who collected Birds… and it turns out there are quite a few ❤️

The best way to explore masks is the map. samspratt.com/6/masks/?view=…

The long hunt is finally over, welcoming Corporeal Translucence by @SamSpratt to the Pella Collection 💀🤍 Of course, a big thank you to @eli_schein and @redbeardnft for their assistance with this acquisition 🤝

A very good morning. Welcome to The Council @8888Benji This marks the third Skull in a little run. The first went to a fund I've never met. The second: through @eli_schein to a new collector/foundation who has been quietly entering the space in a very significant way across a number of collections whom I’ve never spoken to. Their new entrance enabled a wedding and start of a new married life for @ArtofConviction. In my very first conversation with him, we spoke about curses and commitments to the people we love. Since meeting got to talk through each step on that path, from letting go, what is imbued in the ring and ceremony of it all, a proposal, and on the way to the most important of the steps in pursuit of a blessed life. It is easy to get a little cynical on the over-leveraged exit stories that spring up from time to time, so it is a treat to watch one go towards a celebration that’s been building up in his life since the Skull was first acquired. And now: this. The third Skull and the first I can really write about as a shared story across both source and destination. An exit and an entrance. The exit: The Skulls of Luci were awarded as gifts 4 years ago. But before I'd minted Birth of Luci or painted the other 49, the first person in this space I showed the sketch of The Blueprint Skull to was actually @CorporealCasey, when he was working at @SuperRare . Casey was the very first person who onboarded me to NFTs, helping me navigate the early days of whatever it meant to even mint something. I explained the idea of gifting one to each person who bid in my first auctions. Though most of the Skulls went to the bidders, Casey's didn't. He didn't ask for one. I didn't tell him I'd give him one. But he helped me take my first steps here, and it's hard to imagine any of this making sense, or unfolding the way it has, without him. Since then, we've broken bread across continents, seen quite a lot of chortling margarita consumption, watched the rise and fall of a lot around us, weathered inter-Council dramas. He brought @iamlaurael into The Monument Game, played as a Player, wore a Mask. Most of the vibe that started all of this, the wild west of it, feels faded in the broader space at times. But every Skull has a story and a person who helped us get here. Casey will always be the one who was there before any metric muddled the reason to care. The entrance: Last fall, Benji came over for a studio visit. We walked through Luci, the works, structure, and dream, as anyone who visits does. But we mostly talked about being a father and having a father. We discussed the very idea of "collection" stripped of accumulation, value, or signal, located more in the act or ceremony of it. What it was to grow up with a curious father who studied the edges of each thing he saw to know the next layer beneath why anyone might look or ignore it. That to pass this on is to pass on questioning, more than it is to pass on any kind of answer. The process of collecting can be perceived as an individual act of hoarding. For some it is maybe. But at its best, it's a way to bind through shared questioning, to bond in cooperation and competition with friends and family, it is the swapped story and meme of it all, and each object gathered along the way carries some shared memory that can, often does, and with intent: should; drift out of the object entirely. All in the psalm, always has been. The studio visit came and went. Soon after, a package arrived in the mail with two of the softest stuffed animals added to my daughter's own collection, now among her favorites. The Skull is a bonus to that, in the scheme of shared memory. For Rachel and I, while we are heads down making a body of work that unsettles us and excites us but demands unknown time to accomplish, it means a great deal to have this kind of support from long term people in the quiet process of making work we want to leave behind ourselves. Enormously grateful to Casey for the many years of support and friendship, to Benny for being a true patron, and to Benji for entering the arena for what I'm working on next. Welcome. samspratt.com/skulls/skulls/…

Gm ☀️ Not yet holding a Skull or a Mask, but grateful already to be holding a Player and be a part of @SamSpratt and @MrsRachelSpratt's world. History in the making.

This thread is stunning, @musicalnetta. Thank you for the mycelial journey through Chaos Mycelia, supreme chance, the Wood Wide Web, and that powerful forehead kiss observation. You are killing it with these deep dives. It’s interesting to see how each of us interprets the Masquerade. I see @RogerDickerman’s Mask of Creation as destined for the child, while you saw the mask in Luci’s hand. @SamSpratt's Masquerade is such a legendary piece, so rich with layers and meaning. Grateful for these connections in the Luci universe. 🌿🍄

For the few stragglers left, if you or someone you know has a Mask or Player still on Nifty, tonight is the night to withdraw and get it safe for the future.

It’s heartbreakingly beautiful and we’re honored to have it. Thank you for leaning all the way in. ♥️