I'll have to come back to this entry to explain more about why I associated this art grant so much with 30 Seconds to Mars, but I did. This event was not the first that made me feel I was getting more successful in my usual manifestation arts by aligning conceptually with them, but it was a marker point on the journey when things started becoming absolutely awe inspiring. Below are a couple quotes from entries from The 7 of 9 Process Artifact Journal about this story.
In response to my recent (at the time) entry in The 7 of 9 Process Artifact Journal — TRANSFORMING AND ARCHITECTING THE PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT PLAN & ASSESSING 7 OF 9 CARD PRODUCTION COSTS — a person I had never spoken to before reached out to me with an absolutely gorgeous gesture. They offered to fund the remaining $240 CAD which I cited in that entry that I would need in order to complete the full prototype !! )))) And there was no request for (or dream of) donations in that entry. Now that the donation is received and I've ordered all the materials, all I have to do now is design it, and it will be manifested.
I was absolutely blown away — I couldn't believe this was really happening. This is the first donation that I've received towards UNITY LIFE Mystery School and it was not only unsolicited completely but came with the most pure of intentions. The person was very forward about their motivations. They decided to explain by offering a reading in audio format from Rick Rubin's book about creativity and the artist. It was a mindblowing passage that happened to coincide with a dream and some profound insights I'd been having about The 7 of 9 — as well as the whole UNITY LIFE ethos.
Here is a quote from the journal entry which attracted the grant :
Today I began working on a "production prototype" for how The 7 of 9 Prototype will be created. I've formally decided to stop making these prototype cards with painting and crayon in this fashion (as seen in the photo) and instead, develop the entire 144 card prototype as my best effort to produce the exact final production format that it will be when eventually for sale.
I've already purchased a new dye cutter to facilitate these visions. A dye cutter is a machine which cuts paper and other materials with intricate designs such as my digital mock ups for The 7 of 9 prototype cards. By using this, I can quickly cut out stencils from irridescent black and colored cardstock and lay these over rainbowy holographic gold paper to create a luminescent layering effect.
This "production prototype" I'm designing is actually something practical for my early beginnings of an online store as well as my personal life : UNITY LIFE greeting cards which model after the desired final art format of how The 7 of 9 will be made. It serves as a relatively small, more affordable product I can sell.
The first 2 greeting cards will model after gifts that I gave to Krist Novoselić (bassist of NIRVANA) and his wife Darbury as explained in the UNITY LIFE Timeline Archive found here. They will have one which is just a print of the artwork from FACET 5(77) ◊ SEED (the Dove of Liberation) like the choppy handmade card I gave them with that print (cut from bristol board with scissors casually). But more notably, it will also have one with the same artistic format as The 7 of 9 to illustrate the first plate of FACET 1(73) ◊ ORIGINAL which I gifted to them, not as a card, but as a handmade booklet with just a print.
The greeting cards will both have wide and raised art matting around the central artwork, and tiny transparent flaps that actually allow you to pin the card to the wall. I found out this genre of greeting cards already exists — super deluxe, framing ready, high quality fine art cards. Of course, it will be complete with gold envelopes which I can cut and fold-guide with the dye cutter. This inspired me : Someday I'd like to also create greeting cards, perhaps very similar to this, which just have dye cut flaps in the central area so that you can take a card from the card set and give it as a gift on the backing of an optionally disposable greeting card. The card can be removed from the greeting card or use it to show it off as an art print on the wall beautifully. This is for gifting a "single" from the set.
I spent about $160 on the materials to make those, leaving me with enough materials to produce these in great numbers other than some low priced additions to keep replenishing as they sell. The expensive part is the double sided, letter sized adhesive — that's $25 CAD for 20. The rest is mainly supplies which come in 100 packs. But having this 100 pack of irridescent black cardstock and huge roll of holographic gold wrapping paper made me realize that since the greeting cards are probably not going to sell much, or very fast, I may as well dig into the remaining supplies and just get started on the prototype for The 7 of 9.
This led me to spec out the cost of making an entire 144 card set of The 7 of 9, which brought out much clarity about the format. The intricate artwork in the main part of each card will be 2" wide with some margin around it, meaning that 12 cards will fit on a letter sized sheet. This is just as I had initially invisioned in 2022 when the idea for the set was first realized. This sizing is practical for use of the set on a table space between players. A larger, less practical and yet highly ornamental version of the set for beauty and appreciation of the designs in fuller format has been invisioned, although I see now the cost is extremely high.
Roughly estimating my cost per set, it came to about $144 for 144 cards. It would involve the following layers :
- A dye cut cardstock stencil with double sided adhesive sheet for the card front
- Two thin layers of holographic / rainbow hued gold wrapping paper connected by a double sided adhesive sheet
- A final dye cut cardstock stencil with double sided adhesive sheet for the card back
All these adhesive sheets and cardstock layers combine together adhesively to form a single card about the thickness of a credit card. This estimate is pretty rough and may or may not include packaging but I think they will pile nicely — the whole 144 tower of cards is too high with that card thickness, but these are grouped into 4 sets. That makes me curious about the packaging.
It will take another $206 plus tax — which I don't have immediately — before I can get the supplies to fully finish the whole 144 card set. I will need :
- A pack of 16 KEYS colored cardstock sheets for $40 (which come with an assortment of mature, dark rainbow colors similar enough to The 16 KEYS set)
- 2 packs of 100 irridescent black cardstock for $60 (to ensure that the whole 88-card, double-set SOLVE COAGULA series is done, and not just a sample from each 7 design variations of card fronts)
- $60 for all the adhesive sheets for the whole project
- $46 for the silver rainbow hued holographic wrapping paper (this will be required in order to even produce one sample card face from each of the 6 unique card designs in the SOLVE set since those 36 cards have silver rather than gold).
- And I'm not sure if another pack of cardstock or wrapping paper would be needed for the so far unnamed 24 card additional set (likely not because I might just reverse the black and gold to make it even more gold rich on those 24 cards).
The price is high to do all that, but that will mean the next 5 productions of the 144 card set will only cost me approximately $120 (or less depending on black cardstock remaining) assuming my wrapping paper doesn't run out (but it's a lot). But even now I can start designing and physically building parts of the SOLVE COAGULA sets.
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