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Melvin Thambi is an incredible artist with a passion to empower and educate other fellow creators in the NFT space. With his fifteen-plus years of experience in design in the IT field, he shared the inspiring story of his NFT journey and told us what fuels his inspiration to create. You can listen to this interview on the All Things Metaverse Podcast or watch it on our YouTube channel.
“My name is Melvin. I live in Texas right now. I work for an IT company as a creative director. Basically, I’m a 2D artist. I especially work on digital art. I finished my Bachelor of Fine Arts in India, Kerala, and then I moved to the US.”
Melvin said that he got into NFTs in 2021 after his friend Anantha Krishnan Nadamel introduced him to the crypto space. “I became interested in NFTs. But, things sounded very technical to me. However, once I started exploring more, things became pretty easy. Not pretty easy, but it felt doable – like I could do it. So, I accepted the challenge.”
Entering the NFT community was an exciting experience for him. It was also the start of his journey as a co-founder of NFT Malayali, which is a global collective supporting Malayali NFT artists.
“I realised that If I, as a designer and artist, could understand this thing, it might be easier for other people to understand it as well. Anantha and I brainstormed and figured out how to make it bigger so that we could share the information with a large number of people in India because I felt there was a lot of amazing talent in the country. So we started a community called NFT Malayali. The main agenda behind the community was to share knowledge as much as possible to maximum people so that they can also explore the space in a better way.”
It’s no secret that Melvin comes from a family of artists. His wife, Nimmy, and 13-year-old daughter, Teresa, also share a passion for art and sell their NFT artwork as well. “We claim ourselves to be #NFTArtFam. My wife is a traditional professional artist. She got the state award from Kerala when she was in India. She got the opportunity to exhibit her artwork in the US, and she got awards here as well.”
Not long after their daughter Teresa was born, seeing her parents spend a lot of time drawing, she began scribbling and following her parents’ path. “We didn’t teach anything to her, but we guided her as much as possible. She had her own identity that we discovered when she was three or four years old. She had a different style of drawing.
"Artists should have their own identities. Finding their identity is the toughest thing. Skills can be improved with daily practice.”
Melvin feels that his art has a calming effect on him. “I’m a messy and crazy person when I’m not doing art. I need peace of mind, and for me art is like meditation. I find inner peace and happiness while doing art. Whenever I do art, I need to hyperfocus on all the details, and that calms me down. That inspires me a lot, the need for calmness. Otherwise, I’m all over the place. Art inspires calmness in me, and I really need it!”
Melvin also shared that there are many artists who motivate him. Nadamel, Amrit Pal Singh, and Prasad Bhat are a few among those that he mentioned.
He feels that artists who are interested in selling their work as NFTs should do a bit of research before putting their work up for sale. “I would recommend that they read a simple blog written by Adeeb and Mahesh from the NFT Malayali team. The blog can be understood by people of all ages. I would suggest that they read it first and then come up with questions based on the blog, which I will be glad to answer. I tell people to understand that the NFT space is not a fantasy world where they can put their work up and earn money. People have to first fall in love with the space before selling their work.”
Melvin feels one should be authentic in order to become a successful NFT artist. “More than building celebrity value, I will recommend building credibility. The trends keep changing.
Today, anyone can be a celebrity. So, you have to think out of the box and work on the quality of your work and find ways to engage people. The more you interact with people in a more credible way the more you will get visibility. Artists need to speak up.”
Collectors can find Melvin and his family’s artwork on several platforms. If you’d like to be part of NFT Malayali, you can contact them using Instagram or Discord.”