Making Art is Embarrassing

Blah blah think piece on AI art blah blah

This piece was hard for me to write because if you know me, you know how I feel about AI art. I think a lot of people straight up aren’t going to like this article because 1. I am trying not to demonize people who currently use AI (but don’t get me wrong, I am not some kind of AI apologist) and 2. I am expressing that AI is bad (because it is so, so fucking bad). I wrote this because I am an Elementary Art Teacher, and a big part of my job is teaching kids that making their own art is the best thing in the world. When I see so many people turn to AI, I think about it from that perspective, and what AI is fulfilling in people. Because as I’ve seen more AI on my screen, the big question that goes through my head is “why, why why?!”

I hope you read this one, but also I fully understand if you’re sick of AI think pieces, because I sure fucking am.

xoxo, Brooke

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Every few months, I log on here and my feed is inundated with either 1. AI artwork or 2. posts and notes demonizing AI artwork. Ugh, and let’s be so for real. I do not want to be a person who writes a think piece on (barf) AI artwork, but I just drank a Celsius and I love arguing on the internet (toxic :( ) so let’s go ahead and do this.

Okay and before you think I have no idea what I’m talking about, I actually have degrees in art and art education so let’s all collectively calm down (not that you need those things to have an opinion, this is Substack after all).

I’m gonna tell you right now, this essay is not going to discuss the environmental impact or the fact that AI steals artwork to feed its algorithm. That information is wildly available, and honestly, I think anyone using AI often has cognitive dissonance regarding those things so me writing a think piece on that is pointless.

Here’s the thing, I have Art Teacher Brain, which means that I actually give a shit why people are choosing to create AI artwork rather than trying to learn how to make art themselves AND (INHALE), because I’m an artist, I care deeply about what the artistic process means outside of the external visual image.

To create artwork is to be vulnerable, and that’s the whole point (sorry). To be vulnerable means that there is a potential to be embarrassed, or even worse, to be shamed. Many people — from the most macho tough toughies to the softest little peaches have a deep, deep fear of embarrassment and shame. Many people want to be artists, but not everyone can handle the vulnerability that is inseparable from it.

(“Don’t show your artwork to others and then you won’t be embarrassed or ashamed” — and if I tell you that like 95% of the time when I feel embarrassed or ashamed of my artwork it’s thoughts from my own brain THEN WHAT.)

Let me tell you the history of my artistic journey. It’s very embarrassing and vulnerable and guess what? If I can do it so can you.

I was an anime kid y’all, and not in a cool way. In a “welcome to 2004 time to be bullied” kind of way. Religiously, I would study drawings from my lil’ How to Draw Anime book and copy the figures in my notebook while my classmates would point and laugh at the fact that the models in the books had boobs. I would go home (furious that no one could see that I was making REAL ART and not just drawing BOOBS) and play with Barbie dolls and make up stories. The stories would then fuel my inspiration to look at the anime figures and, again, draw them in my notebook. Wash, rinse, repeat this on a daily for, like, two years.

(By the way, no one has told you yet that art and storytelling are one in the same, um, here you go. Sorry you had to learn this way.)

So, I would write these fourth grade stories with my barbies about princesses, mysteries, having babies, and (gasp) kissing. I eventually evolved from doodling in a notebook to drawing in a cheap ass Wal-Mart sketchpad (aka the greatest drawing medium of all time). But, they were not ‘good’ drawings guys. Basically big-headed blobs with giant eyes and, yes, enormous boobs. I often pressed down too hard on the paper with my pencil, and as a result the pages were covered in thick, dark eraser marks. All to often, I went between loving my drawings and hating them, but I always went back for more anyway.

I drew characters from videogames in deep ooey gooey love with my Original Characters. I wrote fanfiction that was blatantly self inserting and drew an “online persona” (because back then 11 year olds could just talk to strangers in chatrooms on the internet and everyone was cool with that???) who was just a rip off of Hatsune Miku.

Oh my god guys, the way that I typed all that and I feel my internal organs shriveling in embarrassment as we speak. It’s crazy the speed at which you emotionally revert back to becoming a vulnerable adolescent when you think about your big-boob anime drawings and your Twilight meets Teen Titans fanfiction.

“Aww, don’t be embarrassed Brooke, you were a kid!”

Ha.

Ha ha.

Uh oh.

OKAY RELAX I DON’T WRITE SELF INSERT FANFICTION ANYMORE. NOT YET ANYWAY. OH MY GOD.

I recently started my journey on The Artist’s Way, because I was feeling creatively backed up and I’m trying to write a fucking novel over here (it’s a lot harder when it’s staring at a Word document instead of playing with Barbies, fyi). Color me surprised when Julia Cameron said (and I summarize) ‘Hey, remember all that ridiculously embarrassing stuff you did as a kid that was really shame inducing but was really stupid creative? Do it again.’

The truth is, I stopped writing and I stopped creating anime/cartoon-like characters because it was embarrassing. I went to art school and felt a drive to become “serious”, to learn realism, color theory…really everything that was the opposite of what I liked to create. I spent years enjoying how my artwork looked, but didn’t feel emotionally attached to the result I was making. 90% of the artwork I have made I have: 1. given away, 2. Thrown away or 3. Hung somewhere in my house because what the hell else am I supposed to do with it?

I recreated motifs I knew I was good at and that I knew impressed other people. This isn’t to say that I didn’t love a lot of the work I was making, but art became more of a mechanical process, an exercise so that I don’t get rusty. The process was a means to get to the end product, that I knew I would like most of the time because most of my art was drawn similarly.

But, I committed to Artist’s Way, so I figured I would bring Anime Brooke back from the dead, at least for the afternoon. I felt stupid as fuck the first time I saw down with a sketchbook to draw cartoons after nearly 10 years of not drawing them. Specifically, I thought that I should find printer paper or scrap paper so that I didn’t ‘ruin’ a page in my nice sketchbook (the one I, ya know, wasn’t fucking drawing in). For the first hour of drawing, all I felt was shame. I was drawing my Baldur’s Gate 3 character (because helllloooooo I am obsessed with that game), and “it didn’t look right”. But, crazy crazy, after the first hour I started to feel a bud of connection with my work that had been missing for over a year.

When I draw characters, whether they’re ones from my writing or ones from video games, I feel a deep connection with that work that is rooted in the years of pushing past shame and embarrassment. Each work, from a fully finished drawing to a little doodle, contains my struggle, my success, and my history.

I recognize how this can be intimidating to an adult starting a creative journey. You might say “I’m a writer, I don’t have time to learn how to draw!”, but, let’s be real for a moment — what’s the worst thing that would happen if you tried?

Because, AI art doesn’t have that history. It is a visual image (created by stolen work, in case anyone forgot) and that’s it. I think that’s why so many artists (me included lol) refer to it as “slop”. It’s just…nothing. Ugh, it’s actually very difficult to find the words to explain it. There’s disrespect in it. Like, when someone decides to use AI to create an image, despite knowing the ethical ramifications, it makes a statement regarding their feelings about art as a whole. The belief that we, as people, are entitled to have our own curated artwork — but refusing to respect the craft that goes into the act of creation.

To someone outside the art sphere, that might seem confusing because images are so easily accessible. You can go to the store and buy painted prints by unnamed artists for less than $20. Every notebook, journal, coffee mug, and duvet cover out there has some kind of image, print, or pattern. When you go on Pinterest, there’s a plethora of images that were posted there that feel free for the taking. It’s very easy to walk around the world, see art all around us, and never question: “who made that?” When we live in an image saturated world, we can believe that we are entitled to these images, and in that case AI might not seem like a big deal.

But AI is like if your desk mate stole your idea at work and claimed it as their own. It’s like your aunt saying, “this is my famous pecan pie recipe” when you know, in fact, you gave her that recipe last year at Easter. Except it’s worse, because there’s a lot of artists who are trying to make a livelihood from their artwork, and a work of AI that is made is work that they don’t have. When I see an AI image, especially here on Substack and especially from people who are writers, I feel betrayed.

I was talking to my husband one day a few months back about about a small group of people he was aware of who were making a boardgame. My husband told me that the group was going to commission artists to design the final game, but their plan was to us AI art as a placeholder in the meantime. This is something that might seem like it makes sense in the modern day and age, but oh my god guys why does no one want to be creative anymore?

I told my husband, “I bet somewhere in the families of all of those developers, there are kids. Cousins, nephews — someone. I bet they could give those kids $5 and they would draw the cutest, sickest placeholder art that you’ve ever seen.”

OR OR OR, throw the concept out there for an arts college, there may be some students looking to get extra cash who would be cheaper than professionals. ORRRRR throw it out on the internet, because someone might just think it’s cool and want to be involved. ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR have everyone on the team get together, have some wine, and draw some pictures. Who doesn’t love the teacher that goes to the front of the class, whiteboard marker in hand, and says “Ok…..so I’m not an artist but I’ll draw it for you”?

Like, am I crazy, or would these all be a hundred times more hilarious and endearing than AI?

If you’re someone who has used AI art, I’m not trying to demonize you, even though AI truly makes me sad (and mad, and afraid for the future). I do want to ask you: what would be the worst thing that would happen if you tried? If you drew a picture just to see how it felt? If you thought about shame, and your feelings towards art, and really took in what your emotions were telling you? Or if you reached out to your community about a creative idea and took in what they told you, no matter the emotional risk?

Creating art is vulnerable, at times shameful, and a little scary. It’s also very brave. I really hope that, if you’re a person who uses AI, you decide to put down ChatGPT and pick up a pencil so that you can experience those things for yourself. Like, for real, we all need to get off our computers and go touch grass. So, on the way to do that, why not bring a sketchbook? Or some Barbies? Could be fun!

An imperfect picture that I drew myself. I had a great time.