Art by Hand

meditations on art

Early last year I got very excited about surface pattern design. It's a very specific type of art that combines many things I love: drawing animals, graphic design, and creating art that can be used in a variety of ways (on textiles, wallpaper, etc.).

But almost immediately, a wave of AI-generated designs started flooding the contests. People had to prove they'd created their own designs, and there was a lot of distrust and frustration. My fresh bubble of excitement popped and, like many artists, I was left with a "why bother" attitude. Why bother with pattern design, and why bother with creation of any kind.

It was a Dark Time.

Eventually I found my way back to art, mostly because a few folks offered me money. I illustrated one of my own short stories, "Flowers With Teeth." Both the story and the art will appear in Julia Rios's wonderful anthology Worlds of Possibility (coming soon). And, as I mentioned previously, my editor at Henry Holt paid me to make fifteen spot illustrations for my forthcoming middle grade book, Puzzleheart.

I'm glad I got that push, because I really needed it. But both those projects were digital, drawn entirely on my iPad, and I was still craving something more analog.

Enter Ceramics: Introduction to Hand-Building at the local community arts center. For ten weeks, I went to class, dug my fingers into blobs of cool, wet clay, and asked it to become something else.

It was amazing.

Not everything I made was a success, and I proved fairly terrible at glazing. But oh, how I loved it!

This form of art is not easily absorbed and spit back out by "AI." The items are one-of-a-kind, for better or for worse. I can't share them with folks online, like I share art and t-shirt designs and surface patterns, but I guess this is what I need.

I've signed up for another class. It starts in October, and I can't wait.

ceramics and writing?

All art forms intersect. I noticed when I was working with clay that when I went into a new project with a strict idea of what I wanted to make, the finished object came out stiff. When I went in with a rough idea and listened to the clay, the final object was more organic, more satisfying.

Drawing and writing are like that for me, too, though it seems I have to relearn the lesson constantly. I like to know all the rules, and I can get mired in them. I have to work even harder to learn how to ignore them. To trust myself. To trust that what I need to know is already in my hands as they're shaping, or sketching, or typing.

I don't believe in "muses," because I don't want to give up that much control over my creativity. But I do think that working at one's art--whatever form it takes--builds up creative force inside you, and at some point you need slash all the ropes keeping it tethered, hop on its back, and see where it takes you.

Thanks for listening.

Jenn