The mother of an astute philosophical thinker once described life as "a box of chocolates". She's right, or course, as most mothers are. When you work on paper, you never know what you're going to get.
Grayson Perry says that your mistakes are your style. Given the amount of mistakes I'm guilty of, I hope it's true.
It doesn't take much, it's true. Sometimes a little is all you need. A little time. A little graciousness. Ten breaths, one after another. A little art. A little music. A few small letters stacked into ten good words: You're ok. You're ok. I promise you, you will be.
"There are times when ten pages of some book fall under your eye just at the moment when your very life...depends on your reading those ten pages", Thomas Merton says. When a sequence of sentences get printed that say every thought, every feeling, that you've been trying desperately to…
I've been thinking about how to draw a distinction between ethical and non-ethical generative #Art
For instance, I like using the bit art & mandelbrot bots to start collages. These are randomly and mathematically derived. Ethical, imo.
Contrast that against the LLM's which are built off of stealing people's labor (sound familiar?). Largely unethical, imo.
Another sort of generative art that I'm involved with is #DataSonification & #Image2BonkWave. These use a copy left python script and open source DAW's producing #CreativeCommons music. Ethical and quite badass, imo.
"Beginning is the hardest step", Carlo Rovelli says. First impressions matter. They are vital. Irreplaceable. There are no second chances at them we're told. But, all art is the art of iterating. Of starting and restarting. Making your mark and making it again…
"A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter, is a world without anything to live for." - Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
It's not suffering when you choose the pain over the profit. When you choose the process over the goal. When you choose calluses over tenderness. It's not suffering when you want the hurt more than the reward.