Skipping stitches, a court of witches has taken my needle by storm.
Stretch knit slips. Stretch knit slips!?
Another scarred and tattered hem.
Gremlins in the machine? I think I’m going to steam!
From my face, the anger boiling in my heart…
Was this project doomed from the start?
A portrait of a squirrel, with bushy tail curled, to create a wind barrier against the chilling breeze.
This is my last project using watercolor paints, for the immediate future. I’m interested in going back to acrylic and want to pursue pastel, pencil, and charcoal drawings in 2024.
The race track of chipmunks, and the gymnasium of squirrels. Drawn in chalk pastel.
People are ticked off regarding Selkie’s use of AI in their Valentine’s Day release, and I have to say, I can see their point! (Also, cupid, again? What is up with these dramatic “love-inspired” releases for 2024?)
Selkie made a creative, design choice. A big choice that may not have been the wisest decision for their brand reputation. As of three days after the announcement, the comment section is not pleased by the decision to use AI-developed patterns for their fabric instead of human artists to develop patterns for their newest crop of iconic dresses.
Now, right off the bat for me, I can see a contradiction in this decision just from an aesthetic standpoint. Selkie is a dress brand that took off in popularity in 2020, selling fantasy puff romantic dresses that evoke another time. They are fanciful, sometimes with corsetted bodices, other times they have high regency waistlines, but mostly they look like a dress to galavant around Versailles in with Marie Antoinette. They are not modern in the dream they sell, they have an intrinsic historical imagination.
They are princess dresses. Ladies of prestige in the modern time when none of them feel like princesses. Since the 1990s, we have seen a steep decline in formal fashion in our day-to-day life. Case in point, billionaire tech boys wear hoodies and t-shirts, not suits and hats like Carnegie and Vanderbilt. In 2020, this came to a head as remote work and social distancing created a new space of absolute nothingness when it came to fashion.
What was the point? You could wear pajamas and as long as you weren’t on a Zoom call, who would know? It was negligible. With face coverings, makeup became superfluous. Selkie, cottage-core, dark academia, etc. These movements in fashion revealed something deeper in our collective psyche. Although wearing pajamas and hanging out on our couches seemed like a dream, in reality, we were missing the fantasy of spectacle and splendor. Selkie is the typification of this.
AI pops the dream bubble. Suddenly the clouds of tulle and puff sleeves that carried us into a dream world of palaces, picnics, and girlhood, evaporate underneath us and the lifestyle falls back to reality. As much as AI sells a dream of fantasy, it is a tool of reality. The reality of cutting corners, fast fashion, and jobs being cut from creatives is to cut costs because AI is cheaper. But cheaper is not always cheerful. In the case of a lot of AI art and AI work, you are getting what you pay for. It’s not the real deal, something is just a bit off.
I’ve watched several videos in 2023 of creators I watch putting AI to the test, and in each case when it came to AI having to work in our space, in the humanities, it couldn’t hang. The results were surreal, not real. In these videos, AI was used to interpret history, recreate art in a historical style, create portraits in photography, show examples of historical dress, and give advice on how to give yourself a makeover. In each experiment, the AI was not able to replicate the human experience and seemed to get confused by things involving the story of humans.
With Selkie’s historical aesthetic being a key to its branding, it is not surprising to me that AI seems out of the aesthetic wheelhouse. This is an interesting reaction to me because it has appeared since the turn of the 20th century that we as humans have been lusting over technology as the ultimate fantasy until we have it and then the intoxication fades away like blood alcohol and late-night attraction.
It is an interesting time for fashion brands for sure because I think this may be the era that humanness and authenticity to the world the brand is selling may prove to be more valuable than gold. I appreciate the commitment to humanness and personal ethics that consumers are voicing. Especially when it comes to human artists. We can’t change the fact that AI is a thing and it is easy to replace humans with technology, all we can do is voice our opinion and make choices based on what we believe.
I’ve looked through the comments on Selkie’s newest release and there were echoes of disappointment and displeasure from consumers, a lot of them being artists themselves. There was a different tone in these comments than the commonplace cancel culture of our current age, there was genuine sadness. Like when a parent isn’t mad, just disappointed.
The criticism was delivered respectfully but firmly. This gave me hope that we can begin discussing things online with more frankness and kindness than in recent years. If you are a big proponent of AI, I ask dear reader that you don’t take my thoughts on the subject of AI personally. Maybe you can be the one to show us all what makes it great? 🙂
In this watercolor painting, I wanted to explore the magic of lanterns being released into the night sky.
A study of a honey bee, building honey comb and filling the cells with golden stores.
I’m not a big New Year’s Resolution girl, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seriously done that or just made a joking one in my head when I was a teen cause I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. What I do like doing instead is resetting my habits and schedule after Christmas. Because no matter what phase I am in my life that week between Christmas and New Year’s seems to wreck my daily schedule and motivation like no other.
My plan was literally to plan, I opened Google Docs and made myself a table for a daily schedule. I have tasks I want to be doing each day or every other day – devotions, exercise, Japanese learning, writing, sewing, knitting, art, and cleaning. Without the schedule, I tend to fixate on one thing all day or jump around not making progress on much of anything except for getting through my YouTube music playlists. My solution? Blocking my time like college. Spending a chunk of time, an hour or two, the most three on a given task to get things done and keep my motivation up.
In the morning I’ve decided I have the option to do devotions, Kanji study, art (natural light dependent), or writing. In the afternoon I prefer knitting, sewing, or writing. Intersperse cleaning and exercise in between tasks. The results? One week in and I’d say, I like it! I’ve made progress on my Kanji vocabulary goals – learning 60 Kanji between two lessons. Blocking the Japanese lessons for first in the morning for two hours is the best time for my brain to absorb it. Knitting or sewing in the afternoon has helped me through that mid-afternoon slump.
It’s also allowed me a way to walk away from sewing if I am not enjoying the process. Instead of devoting a whole day to sewing like I did in the past, blocking sewing to a few hours in the afternoon lets my mind feel like I can accomplish a project and still feel okay walking away after an hour. Because sometimes sewing can make me angry. Yesterday, sewing made me quite mad after my three of my hems jammed into the needle plate. The hem was driven down by the needle and unable to be removed without stitch ripping and eventually ripping a hole in the hem. I was angry and ready to be done and instead of angry sewing, I pivoted to something else knowing I could pick up tomorrow and I would because of my new schedule.
Another motivator that prompted me to reset my daily schedule was the writing ideas I had. I mentioned before that I have a fiction idea that I have tabled for now for a more pressing idea, a non-fiction fashion research project. This is going to be a big project that needs structure to get done because I have not researched since college and it intimidates me a bit to think of doing that again without the access of inter-library-loan. I don’t know how straightforward the process is going to be on my own without the resources and my mentor to encourage me forward.
I’ve started writing poetry again, mainly to cope with big emotions, something I want to discuss further in a separate post. I’m enjoying it. I enjoy how it makes me feel to write for the fun of it again. I’ve been writing for the fun of it more and more. Last week, I wrote two lengthy pieces that could be blog posts, but I’m not sure if they are “done” yet if that makes sense. And then there is this blog, I need to be more consistent. A reset I am after this month is to get consistent and if necessary make a content calendar to keep myself on task like I used to in my digital marketing job.
I want to paint more, to sketch daily, and I truly feel handcuffed by the weather. This fall and winter it has been exceptionally dreary. Like we get hints of sunshine and then the gray rolls in. Today, it is mid-morning and the sun has technically risen but I can’t see it behind the sleet, the dark shadows cast by the gray clouds, and the racing wind. It is hecking depressing and I like rainy days and spooky gray skies, but this is truly messing with the art. I need to figure out a lighting situation. Once I do that I hope to get sketching and painting consistently again. Either way, Spring will come or my lighting solution will.
My sewing and knitting waves of creation follow seasons, the weather seasons, and not the fashion seasons because I can’t keep up and tend to forget that fashion seasons are the opposite of what you would think they would be. That being said, I made a big push in the fall to wrap up cold weather projects before December and since November, I have taken my foot off the gas pedal. But this coasting has to come to an end at some point and that is what this schedule is for because I have purchased fabric for some big, ambitious makes and those are going to take time. For knitting, I’d like to develop more knitting patterns and start looking at launching a shop in some capacity either with patterns or finished goods. I feel more confident in my knitting skills right now than in my sewing skills, but I am going to challenge myself to track my patterns for sewing this year.
This reminds me, I need to transfer a self-drafted pattern I cut out yesterday to my brown kraft paper before I sew up the side and finish the garment. I should go do that before I forget!
Yesterday, as I video chatted with my mom a beautiful sunset washed across the sky above my house. The clouds glowed a cool icy lavender and the sun began trekking westward on a pink and orange fire. It was stunning, a showstopper. A sight I look forward to each year because sunsets, in my opinion, look more beautiful against the canvas of snow and leafless trees. There is a stark contrast that doesn’t appear real and yet it is.
I snapped a picture knowing I had to try painting this, and try over and over again until I learn how to get it right. This is the first attempt of many, maybe a lifetime I don’t know.
My go-to in school, during sermons growing up (being honest here), or even while watching television was to have a notebook in hand and to sketch. Usually, my hand would gravitate first to flowers or stars and then sweep towards the runway and I would sketch fashion designs. I did this from 11 years onward until, I think I started sewing which is ironic because you’d think I’d sketch more now. Lately, during phone conversations, I’ve noticed if I’m not doing chores like dishes or folding laundry while catching up with friends and family or knitting, my hand gets an itch to draw. Yesterday as I sat in my husband’s home office while video calling I grabbed random scrap paper and his pen in order to make sweeping gowns. Why? I think old habits and dang, I noticed my listening skills go up when my hands are busy.
I wouldn’t say I struggle to sit still, I think my mind just tends to wander as I conversate with others, and with the random creative energy swirling in my mind, I begin to feel restless. But as I grabbed that familiar pen and began to sketch my mind became clear and tuned to the topic at hand.
I remember my notebooks in school were adorned with dresses, jackets, and full-collections down the side of my history notes interspersed with a flourish of stars and flowers. When I used to watch movies with my mom growing up I would sketch my favorite pieces from the costume design. I think that’s why I fell in love with Joe Wright’s 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. I know, that the pieces used in the movies are painfully not Regency Era fashion, but those moments of costume design sparked my imagination as a teenager who loved history and fashion.
I didn’t realize I had stopped doing this as a habit until yesterday, and honestly, I don’t want to stop sketching like that again. I think a new goal in 2024 will be to continue sketching when I watch instead of filling my hands with knitting. There’s a special creativity that seems to come from these moments.
Do you like to multi-task like this? What’s your go-to way to relax?
A recent pick up of mine was a fanned brush for detailed, expressive brush strokes. It’s a cool technique that I look forward to playing around with.
One Rabbit Riot 