There's a particular satisfaction in holding something you've made. I've been thinking about why that is.
Humans are builders — and very visceral ones at that. We feel, we sense, we smell, we see. The journey of creation is a learning experience that attaches you to the thing you're making in ways that go beyond the physical. You pour your own sensibilities into it, your own notions, your own preferences of taste. In a way, you get attached to it. It becomes an extension of you.
When the generative AI revolution burst onto the scene in the summer of 2022 with Stable Diffusion, we were all suddenly exploring a new medium, a new way of expression. My initial reaction was one of dismay — certainly wonder at the technology, but dismay at what it does to the creative process. I could speak a few words, type a few characters, and out came, in seconds, a masterpiece in the style of a Monet or a Degas. As someone who dabbles in the visual arts, I found myself in a state of disappointment: what is the value of creation anymore? That feeling lasted for months — probably more than a year. I stopped building and making. I was just experimenting with what generative tools could produce.
And then it hit me. When photography arrived in the late 19th century, art up until that point had been largely about realism — capturing something true to what the human eye saw. Photography did something unexpected to art: it spawned Impressionism. A completely different way of seeing. Almost like motion projected into a fixed point in time, giving a surreal sense of movement without movement.
There's an analogy there that perhaps extends to now. AI has gotten so good that you can conjure almost anything from a few thoughts. Will new forms of creative expression emerge from that? I think so. And even if they don't, I've come to realize that what I value most isn't the output — it's the process. Watching something take shape iteratively, from a rough first mark to something with a finesse I can recognize as my own. That I've poured myself into. That feels satisfying in the moment, without worrying about what it means to the world. I'm making art for myself. For the chance to express and experience a part of me that my day job doesn't often reach.