Make something that couldn't exist without you.
Design is my favorite form of art right now. I flirt with lots of mediums, but over the past few years, through all the renovations we’ve taken on, design has become an obsession.
There is this need in me to create, and it manifests in many ways across the seasons of my life. Lesson plans. Workouts. Books. I struggle to put anything into the world half-heartedly if my name is on it. It has to be beautiful.
I was listening to Elizabeth Gilbert on a podcast where she defined art as:
making something more beautiful than it needs to be.
How true does that feel? We don’t need to add poetry to language, but we do. We don’t need to add ornament to architecture, but we do. We don’t need to hand write a card when a text would do but something in us reaches for more.
Now, with AI, I fear we are losing our sense of art. Quietly outsourcing the essence and brilliance that makes us human.
That’s why, more than ever, I’m going back to what feels alive:
Shopping at galleries
Supporting small business and local
Researching the artists and brands behind the work
Making my own things
Bringing nature in
It can be hard to wait, to resist the pull of instant gratification, the ease of Amazon. But there is something different in an object made by human hands. Part of the maker’s story lives inside it. It leaves an imprint, a vibration, on your space, on you. And it ripples out.
And that goes for what you make too. When you create something yourself, it carries your energy. Your hours. Your satisfaction. Every time I walk into my bathroom, I see a design that existed only in my imagination, and now I live inside it. The intention behind every tile I chose, every mood board, every hour lost searching for the right artwork, paint color, the perfect finish. Could I be prouder if I’d done it by hand? Obviously. But my vision and intention is in that room
Maybe the antidote to AI isn’t to boycott it, or pretend it isn’t happening. Maybe it’s simpler-put your fingerprints on something.
Make something that couldn’t exist without you.
To me, that is making art.
