Has there been too much negativity in these last posts? I feel like there’s been too much negativity in these last posts. I took a lovely walk this evening and caught a gorgeous sunset. Here’s a photo that doesn’t do it justice.

Just saw that Instagram test ran an AI and OF COURSE they chose to use a Black woman. Years ago, maybe 3 or 4, I said that the only reason companies were eager to develop AI was so that they could tell a computer to “tell me a Black story”, then reap the rewards without paying any Black artists (I’d dig up screenshots of this conversation but it’s buried somewhere in my archived Twitter DMs). A few months after writing that, Shudu, an AI fashion model “from” South Africa debuted on Instagram. Shudu (or, rather, her tech bro creators) secured a modeling gig and made it into Vogue. We should have burned it down then, but we didn’t, and now we have an AI “proud, Black, queer, truth-telling momma” launching her IG account. (update: “Mama Liv” as well as other AI accounts were taken down following “backlash“)

My annoyance with the AI debate is that it’s usually centered on AI not being as “good” as humans artists. And while that may be true, it’s not the fight we should be fighting. Do you think the guy who gave AI the prompt “Taylor Swift covered in marinara sauce” cares that her wrist is bent at a weird angle or that there are two light sources in the image? Hell no. AI is good enough for all the average person cares about “art”. The issue has always been who gets paid. Vogue can subscribe once to Shudu and never hire a model again. Instagram can run the Mama Liv AI and never do revenue sharing with influencers again (quick side note: I find it incredibly creepy that HiMamaLiv kind of reads like “Hi, I’m Alive”). Hollywood would love to replace actors and animators, and I’m sure there are publishing higher ups who wonder if ghost writing could just be handed over to ChatGPT and cover design to Canva. It’s always been about the money.

Anyway, I’m not going to harp on the ugly side of this debate. I’m going to share proof that supporting human artists feels good! Check this out…

Back in my Twitter days, I followed a lot of artists. Periodically these artists would open up for commissions and if I found myself in a place where I could support them, I would order their take on my old profile picture. If that seems narcissistic, well, A) I kinda am and B) I originally tried “one person stealing french fries from another person” but that turned out to be too open-ended for what I wanted to be a simple commission (what characters? what’s the setting? what type of fries? steak or crinkle cut?). I received a number of these but I never knew what to do with them. Most are buried (again in my archived Twitter DMs), but here are a few favorites that I had saved in weird places.

They’re all great but that last one really cracked me up.

All to say, it’s very easy to take art for granted. And, personally, I have a very hard time balancing how much I like a piece of art and how much I’m willing to pay for it. But I do know this, there’s no piece of AI art I like enough to pay one cent for. Unless, maybe, it’s me covered in marinara sauce.

Last year, over on Twitter, illustrator Lee Gatlin posted this sketch:

It made me think about a topic that’s been nagging at my mind in recent years. Namely, I have a worry that that young people’s visual literacy is dropping at an alarming rate. Why is this a concern to me? Let’s talk about CRT TVs.

Computer monitors (which essentially looked like CRT TVs) were a big staple in my early career as an illustrator. I worked mainly in kids educational media and was often called on to draw kids sitting around computers. These computers were big and bulky and hard to draw in an appealing way. I always kind of wished there was a better looking computer. And then came the candy colored iMacs.

That was an exciting moment. I actually remember the first time I drew one of those. They were fun, friendly, and gave me the hope that maybe we were entering a new golden age of design. Maybe we’d get back to things like this:

As an illustrator, you want to draw interestingly shaped and proportioned things. When you do this your imagination runs wild, and connections happen in the most unexpected ways. Could a TV double as a fish bowl? Maybe the TV is full of teeny tiny actors who put on shows just for you? Maybe the TV can be mixed with other types of electronic or mechanical gadgetry? The possibilities seemed endless.

The educator in me thinks a lot about how illustrations help shape how kids see the world. At their best, picture books are gateways to imagined worlds and a kid who reads picture books can learn to create their own imagined worlds, and then their own real worlds. The artist in me wants to draw worlds rich in design and in meaning. I hope that these worlds inspire kids to make their own, better worlds. I might draw a bubbly computer, but maybe the next generation will draw a bubbly computer with wings, that works off solar energy and delivers educational programming to kids all over the world. Endless possiblity!

But, sadly, it was only a year or so later that the first iPhone came out and very soon all tech was designed to be a black rectangle. TVs? Black rectangle. Computers? Black rectangle. Telephones? Black rectangle. Digital books? Black rectangle. Everything is a black rectangle these days and it depresses me.

One of the most magical things in the world to me when I was a kid was the toy store. San Francisco had a four story tall FAO Schwarz, San Mateo had the shorter (but wider!) Talbot’s Toyland. Both are gone. Do they make sense in books anymore? Would a young reader understand what a toy store is? 3 Magic Balls was one of my nephew’s favorite stories. I read it to him dozens of times.

When kids today grow up and become illustrators themselves, what will they draw? The toy aisle at Walmart?

Okay, I just said “kids today”. It’s totally possible I’m indulging in Boomer Doomerism—after all, Corduroy took place in a department store—maybe none of this is a big deal but I can’t help but think that it is.

Other things that are going extinct that makes our world poorer:

Bus drivers

Newspapers and paperboys

Paper maps

Colorful elders

And anything Richard Scarry drew.

One time my nephew and I were watching old cartoons and we saw an old Mickey Mouse short in which Mickey and Donald ate corn on the cob. They did it like all good cartoon characters did, thus:

My nephew said “Why are they eating like that?” I explained they were mimicking the action of an old typewriter. His reaction: “Oh.” It didn’t diminish his enjoyment of the gag that he didn’t know what a Remington was. And his curiosity was fired up for a moment so I dunno, maybe none of this is such a big deal. But, still, those damn black rectangles.

So… is there a point to any of this? So much of what I’m describing is out of our control. Apple isn’t going to suddenly make cartoonishly round iPhones again and Toys R Us has long ago declared bankruptcy. I guess what it comes down to is that the job of the children’s book illustrator has become more important than ever. Sounds dour and dire (and maybe self-aggrandizing) but it’s entirely possible picture books have become the best last stand against the death of imagination. So let us fill our books with the richest, most beautifully imagined worlds we can conjure. The fate of the world may depend on it.

Two days before New Years I saw a reel on Instagram that flipped quickly through a bunch of words. You were to take a screenshot and let word you land on be your fortune for 2025. I got mine (“connection”) and thought, “What is this baloney?” For some reason, the word didn’t connect with me and I decided to make my own reel. I put an IG story asking people for their favorite words. I collected a handful, then started writing affirmations for each. I collected some photos (many mine, several borrowed), put them in a video and set them to music. This is how it came out:

It was a lot of fun to make and it was extremely gratifying to see many people say their words resonated with recent events or thoughts in their lives. I say gratifying because although I wrote these quickly, stream of consciousness style, in the span of a single evening, each word carried a special intention. I didn’t want these to just be jokes (although GRATEFUL and SMORGASBORD lean heavily in that direction), I wanted them to have the potential of inspiring people in some way.

For those of you who are stumped by your word, I’m posting each slide below so you can read and digest them at your leisure. I’m including each word’s “too long, didn’t read” summary and, where significant, my thoughts behind the writing.

Happy New Year!

Anachronism

TLDR; use your hands, make something

Lunch

TLDR; get outside, especially if you work at home

Hullabaloo

TLDR; engage in quiet resistance

Tchotchke

TLDR; identify your emotions to help process them

Mashed Potatoes

TLDR; embrace chaos

Milieu

TLDR; choose your friends wisely, be a good friend

Cavalcade

TLDR; research before panicking

Spumoni

TLDR; you can still find joy in the memory of lost things

Crisp

TLDR; don’t worry what others think of you

note: this comes from a true story. I posted a video of me eating celery over on TikTok. I was test running an idea where I’d eat celery and then stitch it to a video of a rhinoceros eating celery (in celebration of Big Rhinoceros, Little Rhinoceros). Someone commented “I peed in your celery” and although I seldom care about comments on social media, this one really got to me!

Cacophony

TLDR; listen to your heart/trust your intuition

Grateful

TLDR; be grateful, even for the worst pun you ever read

Shampoo

TLDR; focus on that which is essential, let the rest wash away

Smorgasbord

TLDR; branch out of your comfort zone

Drawer

TLDR; practice introspection, allow yourself the opportunity of discovery

Aubergine

TLDR; be yourself!

Googly Eyes

TLDR; it’s never too late

Spelunk

TLDR; look for the light, hope

Sit-Spot

TLDR; you are not separate from nature, respect that

Vivacious

TLDR; live boldly

Sussuration

TLDR; spend more time in contemplation, less in reaction (also, get off social media)

Ratty Sneakers

TLDR; practice empathy

Discombobulate

TLDR; don’t try to reason with people who argue in bad faith

Love

TLDR; love thy neighbor

Sumfin’ Gleebus

TLDR; your future is yours

note: these were submitted separately but I was inspired to merge them together into one entry

Preposterous

TLDR; be curious

note: there’s a bigger story behind this one, but I’m going to save it for another day.

Listening to: