We were lucky to catch up with Paul Thompson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

I mean, definitely. I think that now this is more common than ever with the state of the internet and social media, but I think now is the time to look past it more than ever. You have to understand that there are more and more people on the internet who, day by day and week by week, are constantly looking for somebody to criticize, constantly looking for something to point out, constantly trying to get you in trouble because you offended some belief they pretend to have that they don’t even really know anything about.

They just saw their friends posting memes about it, and now that’s the cool thing to be outraged about, even though they’ve done no research and have basically learned all of their politics from memes and social media. So when you have people like that going around saying they want to make the world a better place, but all they’re doing is writing negative comments and pointing out flaws, it creates a really frustrating dynamic.

These people claim that they want to be activists and make the world a better place, but in reality, they’re actively making the world, and the people in ,much more miserable. They are truly modern day bullies, and we learn young that bullies are losers, so if you feel misunderstood just do your best to ignore the opinions of losers. 

Paul, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am an artist. I feel that I’ve been an artist in one form or another throughout my entire life. I’ve always been painting, always trying to make people laugh, always acting, always creating—and I always will be creating.

I’ve done stand-up comedy for almost 20 years. I’ve acted in several TV shows and movies. I’m constantly writing everything from screenplays to poetry. And in the last year, I started another project called Microdose Of Art, where I post videos on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube doing deep dives into art.

As someone who loves learning about art just as much as creating it, it’s been an amazing project, and it’s helped me connect with other artists and people who love art. So at the moment, that’s really my focus. I do stand-up weekly, I act wherever they’ll cast me, and I paint every night.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

My view of NFTs is that it’s something that definitely could have been really cool, but it’s too late and it’s over now. I think that, for the most part, people didn’t really understand NFTs, and maybe some of the vibe and aura of Bitcoin influencers turned people off from the idea of the non-fungible token.

I think NFTs could have been very cool because they can help make sure that artists are getting paid what they deserve. Unfortunately, the digital art space was the most prominent one in the NFT community, and right now it’s very quickly going to trash, because it seems like anybody can make digital art with the advancements of AI.

But I do think that if NFTs had gotten more into the traditional art market—like real physical oil and acrylic paintings, sculptures, and actual artwork—it could have been something really cool to help protect artists. I also think it could have been very cool for tickets going forward.

NFTs are a great way to sell tickets to an event. If you sell a ticket as an NFT for $50 and a scalper resells it, no matter how much they raise the price, the artist could still receive royalties from that sale. I think that’s really powerful. It works the same way for art—someone could sell a piece for $50, and then someone else could recognize its value and resell it for $1,000. The original artist would still receive royalties. And if that same piece sells for $50,000 years later, the artist would continue to benefit from that growth.

It could have been something really great, but I think the whole NFT thing is over now.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Of course, there are a lot of rewarding aspects to the things that you create, but that’s almost not what it’s about for me. It’s nice to be recognized. It’s also nice to be financially compensated for what you create, so you can stay alive, feed yourself, and keep creating without having to work a soul-sucking job that drains your time and creative energy.

But more importantly, the most important aspect of creating for me is that it’s always felt like there are a million ideas sitting in my head, and I’m constantly anxious that they haven’t gotten out. There are so many beautiful things I haven’t painted or written yet—things I can see clearly in my head but haven’t been able to show other people.

So it’s almost like there’s just so much going on in my mind, and creating is what allows me to release it. I wouldn’t even necessarily call that “rewarding”—it feels more like something necessary. It’s as essential as eating or sleeping for me. It’s something that has to be done.

So whether it goes well or badly, whether there’s any reward or not, it’s something I’ll never stop doing, because I physically can’t.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @microdoseofart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1K9z3qW5KR/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@microdoseofart?si=nz8DgQ4HXG8ESKBO