Just made my first purchase of artwork for my site! I have a little chat box on my front page and I’ve purchased a bunch of cute little black cat emotes for it. I’ve also found an artist to commission for the other artwork I want to replace across my site. I’ll probably start working with them either next month or in the new year once our finances recover from the holidays. I’m excited to be starting this transition though and supporting fellow artists, moving away from the AI placeholder art I’ve been using.
.
When it comes to AI, I do feel rather conflicted. I do see a lot of usefulness to it as a productivity tool, and it’s a really useful advancement in technology if used correctly, I think. But, I also think it’s something you really have to navigate your morality around too and determine the correct ways to use AI that it isn’t taking away from others. I’ve reached a point in my website building where I think AI has served a really great purpose for me in visualizing the kind of space I want to create. And I will likely continue to use it in the future as far as placeholder art goes. But, I think now that there are certain aspects that feel more permanent and set in stone, I want real artists to kind of take the reigns on those aspects and make it feel more authentic and soulful. It’ll be a long process and might never really ever end, but I am really excited to be starting this transition. It’s something that feels really good and the right thing to do from this point.