I wonder though ...

Could the advent if AI generated images and texts create a re-newed passion for hand drawn and handmade art? Just like people long for their homelands when they move far away, or sing folkloric, agrarian music once they have settled in the city, could handmade art make a comeback in spite of the increase in artificial "art"?

All my life I have been creating, drawing, and writing and that won't stop anytime soon. In fact this new form of fast-"art" is actually making my move deeper in the way I love to create - physical art with colored pencils, water colors, collage, cut & paste.

As a teenager I learned about zine culture and fell in love with the concepts of zine culture right away. The handmade imperfections of these little booklets will always be so endearing to me. But, even more than that is the counter-culture sentiments they contain.

And now that I am a blogger and publish a lot of my work digitally, I desire to continue to create physical art as a means of sharing my writing alongside my publications here on hive. Many times I have created a post that felt so inspired it transformed into a physical zine. This is the story with the zine I am working on in the images included in this post. I wanted to create a handwritten, physical copy of the recipes for skin care that I have shared on social media and here on HIVE.

But before I go on, maybe I should explain ...

What is a Zine?

Zines are handmade, self published booklets and – unlike magazines and books – can be made by anyone with a message, a bit of artistic vision, and access to a printer. Zines also have the benefit of being as short or as long as the creator wishes and can cover any subject matter and be of any style, much unlike traditional publishing.

Many different zine enthusiasts have attempted to pin point the first zines in history. It is impossible to know just when they started and by who. More likely what we now called zines is a reflection of the human desire to express oneself, sometimes anonymously, in a sea of main-stream beliefs.

Hand copied poetry, photo-copied manifestos, and the small scale publishing of counter culture information .... zines or some similar type of media have always served to shed light on subjects outside of the dominant culture.

Tools of the Trade ~

To make a zine all you really need is paper, a pen, and a message to share. In this particular zine I have collected my favorite herbal skin care recipes and included my own photography of the process in order to inspire the reader. The images add fun and color and also illustrate how all the ingredients really are natural and many of them are pretty easy to come by.

Other zines I have made are more free-flowing, artistic and have less of a pre-determined subject in mind. In such cases I tend to include my own illustrations or copies of illustrations I find interesting. In such cases I think it is best to modify any art that is not my own. This is where elements of collage come in which is a technique of cutting and pasting found images into something entirely new!

This is where I see the potential for AI generated images to be incorporated into an artist's practice. I question if we really can or should call AI generated designs art. Such generators are a tool but not in themselves art. And I fear that many artists are giving up their creative energy in exchange for the hollowness of digital and pre-made everything.

Let us get back to doing some aspects of our life, and especially our creative work, by hand.

Snail Mail and the Culture of Physical Trades ~

My handmade zines are later copied and shared with friends, sold in my shop, and traded with other creators all over the world. I think this is the aspect I most love about handmade art.

Here is a letter I sent to a friend. In back is my very own "The Handmade Zine" in the middle a lovely postcard from a ecological artist, and atop a mini-zine that I ordered from a witchy media shop in Belgium.

And here are the letters and zines I received last week in the mail. Full of collages, DIY bindings, and handwritten little details, this is the kind of art that really makes me inspired. Something I cannot currently say about the AI images I have seen as of late.

But, I am no purist, maybe one day you may see such an image as an aspect of one my collages. Balance is key!