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 From the physical and metaphysical to the Metaverse, artist Suki Mehr is making big moves and big art.&nbsp;
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 Artist Suki Mehr explains her work in the Metaverse in a conversation with L&rsquo;Officiel St Barth magazine. 
 PHILIPPE COMBRES: Tell us a little bit about yourself, Suki. SUKI MEHR: I&rsquo;m from all over, and I moved to Puerto Rico from San Francisco during COVID. I studied 3D Modeling at the Rhode Island School of Design, and I had a startup to teach kids, girls specifically, about how to use mechanical engineering software. I did that for about five years in San Francisco. At the same time, I became very passionate about creating my own artwork and about doing projects on a larger scale. 
 I did my first large-scale piece in 2019, after my art studio burned down during the fires in Malibu. It was crazy and somewhat awe-inspiring that things were just... gone. It was a fresh, brand-new start for me. I used scrap-metal from houses that had burned down and created an 80-foot phoenix LED installation. 
 PC: What is your relationship with St Barth? SM: The first time I came here was in 2020, I was pregnant with my daughter, and I just fell in love. It&rsquo;s beautiful. The people are so beautiful, kind, polite. The food, the energy - it&rsquo;s a magical place. Then my husband and I had our wedding here. I invited all of my artist friends, and we did a communal painting at our wedding. One of my best friends, who&rsquo;s a painter, found purple crystals in the St Barth hillside. I was like, &ldquo;What? There are purple crystals here?&rdquo; There&rsquo;s always something more to discover. This is my fifth trip here in the past two years, and I don&rsquo;t want to leave. I&rsquo;m hopefully coming back next week (laughs). 
 PC: Your family moved to Puerto Rico, which is now a popular destination for entrepreneurs. Are the new residents enhancing the island? SM: There are a lot of DeFi and Crypto founders and companies in Puerto Rico. There are no federal income or capital gains taxes in Puerto Rico, so for founders of companies, it&rsquo;s a smart move. My husband (Zoosk founder, Alex Mehr) is teaching an Introduction to Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology at the University of Puerto Rico. I am very inspired by people who have moved to Puerto Rico and are really integrating themselves into the community and not just living in a bubble. I am in the process of hosting a TEDx with the University of Puerto Rico. The whole idea of the tax incentives was to bring wealth to Puerto Rico. And I think what ultimately helps creates wealth is education. So, it&rsquo;s not just that Puerto Ricans are getting jobs in the service industry because of mainland Americans moving to Puerto Rico, it&rsquo;s because <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">they&rsquo;re getting jobs at tech companies and being taught by entrepreneurs. That&rsquo;s the crossover that that creates lasting change. I wish people were required to prove that they are giving back in a meaningful way, actively being part of the community, whether it&rsquo;s art, teaching, or hiring. But that&rsquo;s sort of a tension I see that hasn&rsquo;t been fully resolved yet.
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 PC: Talk to us about your work in the Metaverse. SM: Because of my 3D background, I was very interested in NFTs before NFTs really had a name. I&rsquo;ll make my NFTs or my 3D renders in a way that is not feasible in this dimension. That&rsquo;s where I find my inspiration, and that&rsquo;s the initial stepping off point. I then push it into something I can create in the physical, material world. I&rsquo;m interested in pushing the boundaries of what&rsquo;s technically or technologically feasible. When I was at RISD using the 3D modeling and 3D printing programs, I would always try to print the most intricate designs&mdash;just to the point before they would break and see how intricate or big I could create a piece. Now, after I make my NFT designs that are not feasible to bring into reality, I end up pushing myself farther than I would have before. It&rsquo;s pretty liberating when you don&rsquo;t have to be tied to the physical world. I&rsquo;m so inspired by NFT architects and what they&rsquo;re making. For me, it&rsquo;s been really exciting to dream and build things, and everything can be part of the metaverse. Physical sculptures can be digitally authenticated, which is a crossover that merges digital art with physical art. It&rsquo;s really interesting to see.
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PC: Do you use recycled plastics and sustainable materials for your 3D printing? SM: I&rsquo;m starting to work with recycled materials. There are manufacturers in the US and in Italy, and they use recycled marble, recycled stone. And I&rsquo;ve been playing with lots of different recycled materials, seeing what&rsquo;s sustainable. Unfortunately, 3D printing is not yet mainstream, but I do think eventually we&rsquo;ll all have 3D printers in our homes. We&rsquo;re not at that tipping point yet, but the dream is that every home will have a 3D printer. When you need a dishwasher wheel or you need something for your home, you can look in a library of files and print and use it. Then when you no longer need it, you melt it, recycle it into new filament, and create a new object. 
PC: Are you inspired by the art on St Barth? SM: Absolutely! I&rsquo;m captivated by The Constellation of Pegasus by Jean-Michel Othoniel at Cheval Blanc&mdash;the way it moves. I can&rsquo;t wait to have my daughter move it. It&rsquo;s very inspiring. After seeing it, I started thinking about making a kinetic sculpture. It kind of reminds me of Dali&rsquo;s Galatea of the Spheres. It&rsquo;s really beautiful.

Making The Metaverse

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