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Hey Reader,

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an artist in 2024.

We are clearly in the age of digital art, media and AI and it's often unclear what separates artist from artisan, and creator from automator...

I certainly don't have all the answers, but here are some thoughts I felt compelled to share with you tonight.

Being an artist in 2024 isn't just about making something beautiful or making the viewer feel something; it's also very much about cutting through the noise, pushing mediums forward and changing / adding to the conversation around you.

Artists are the disruptors. We're not just creating; we're challenging, questioning, pushing boundaries. We're showing up and saying "I exist, just the way I am and I will never stay static" ... despite the systems around us that lean toward efficiency over creativity.

Whether or not we like it, there are now a growing movement of digital artists who can take the cold, calculated lines of code and AI and infuse them with raw, human emotion. This is art and image-making at a very different pace.

There's a new, decentralized art world slowly growing too. It is unclear what kind of work will be in art museums 50-100 years from now, and how much that that will even matter to our culture.

While machines churn out infinite remixes, we're still the ones injecting new information – sharing the uncomfortable and real feelings, and crafting the narrative. That's our power as artists.

So, how do we maintain our edge against automation? By simply being ourselves, and refusing to be predictable. Share the messy process, the doubts, the breakthroughs. Make people lean in, pay attention, and question their own perceptions. Thoughtful simplicity is one of my best tools for this – and for now, that is something humans are still a lot better at.

Aim to engage authentically, but don't pander or hop on the latest trend. Connect with your people by challenging them, by making them think, by leaving them a bit unsettled.

We're living in a confusing but exciting a time. Working with your hands is starting to feel like a form of resistance to machine work, and to the speed of media consumption. Should humans always make the work? Or just think the work?

It's an ongoing conversation, but for me art still means slowing down, creating my vision however I feel like it in that moment. There's not much of a line between the thinking and the making, the physical and the digital.

In the end it's about believing strongly in your values, sharing those values, and acting as both an artist AND a connector.

If you read all the way down to here, just want to say thank you... Let's embrace the messy, the doubt, the breakthroughs, and show that creativity and humanity still matter.

Cheers,

— Efdot