Photo Courtesy of TIME
Twelve-year-old Nyla Hayes has sold almost $4 million in NFTs and made history as TIME’s first Artist-in-Residence.
According to Face2Face Africa, Hayes created the Long Neckie Collection, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection worth approximately $3.4 million in digital currency. Hayes said she started drawing when she was only four, and when she was nine years old, her nurturing parents bought her a smartphone to make digital art.
Hayes made drawings of people with long necks and titled them Long Neckies. All her art features illustrations of diverse women with elongated necks, influenced by her favorite dinosaur, the Brontosaurus.
“I started drawing at 4. When I was 9, my parents got me a smartphone to make digital art. I made drawings of people with long necks, which I call Long Neckies,” she told Time Kids.
“This past March, my uncle told my mom about NFTs. We watched YouTube to learn how to create and sell them. Soon, people were buying NFTs of my Long Neckies. I have made more than 960 ETH which is digital currency worth about $3.4 million.”
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“These Artist-in-Residence collections will continue to allow TIME to bring art onto the blockchain that marries the artist’s signature style with a renowned TIME franchise. This extends TIME’s nearly 100-year tradition of highlighting great artists and photographers of a given era while leading the brand into new innovative spaces. In this case, NFT’s and Web3,” the magazine explained.
Keith A. Grossman, President of TIME, said, “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.”
“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,” he added.
NFTs, are assets traded using blockchain technology which is impossible to replace and are verified and stored with a certificate of authenticity. These assets can be pieces of digital artwork, website domains, music, and other things.