#smashbook

[ smashbook ]

i don't know how many of you remember the smash collection that k&company put out back in 2011 but i have been obsessed with these since i was a teenager. i never had the money to get it when it was in stores and it's always been something i regretted. it seems silly but there was something about this collection that just pulled me in. these were basically the predecessors to junk journals. there was something exciting about being so reckless and filling one of these little books with whatever i wanted. and though my siblings and i made our own knockoffs i never stopped wanting these. i've randomly collected a few pieces over the years, but i was just holding onto them.

[ my idea book ]

basically, this little journal is a physical version of a pinterest board. it's a place where i can write down new story ideas, paste in clippings from magazines, sketch out new OC's, leave future me notes. i think every creative person, or really every person in general, needs one of these. a journal, a junk journal, a smashbook, an upcycled novel, a planner with sticky notes and scraps of newspaper articles stuffed between the pages - anything. something that can't just be deleted. it doesn't matter what it is, just as long as you have it.

regardless of how convenient digital mood boards and spreadsheets are, i think there's something truly magical about holding a physical manifestation of your thoughts and ideas in your hands. at least for me, i've always felt like my ideas and goals were more tangible if i had something physical to work with. a paper copy of a manuscript in my hands. a journal filled with thoughts. an anniversary card i can hang up and cherish, rather than a text that will just get buried in a sea of other texts.

and with the rise of a.i. we need a return to traditional art now more than ever. we need people drawing, painting, writing, knitting and crocheting and embroidering, sewing and making jewelry and writing plays and movie manuscripts and poetry, pressing flowers and binding books.

billionaires want the war on art. they want us to stop creating so a.i. can take over. a.i. art is cheaper. a.i. art does not illicit the same feelings art created by a human being does. a.i. art is numb. it lacks heart, and that's why the ruling class wants to replace us with it.

because heartless art doesn't touch anybody. it doesn't dare us to move. to change. a.i. art is shallow. lifeless.

they want us compliant, easily pliable. they want us to give up on our dreams, to give up on the hope that the world could be a better place where everyone is equal and valued. billionaires and ceos and politicians don't want that world because they can't control us in that world. which means they don't want art.

art is what gives hope to the soul.

when we stare at monet's water lily paintings, they overwhelm us with their beauty.

when we read 'do not go gentle into that good night. rage, rage against the dying of the light' it sparks a fire within us; it makes us want to keep fighting, to do something that matters with our life.

when we read about katniss everdeen in the hunger games, we understand the beauty of sacrifice and what it means to truly stand up for what is right no matter the cost.

still i rise by maya angelou.

the 'be kind' speech from everything everywhere all at once.

the scene in the handmaid's tale when offred can't walk and all of the other handmaid's bring her scraps of food so she can still eat.

aragorn's speech in lord of the rings.

these things touch us in that deep place, leaving us irrevocably changed. this is what they hate most. not the art itself, but it's ability to connect. to bring us together in spite of our differences.

art is rebellion in the purest form. art is, and always has been, about humans reaching out, extending a piece of their heart so that someone else might see it and resonate with it, and in doing so both the artist and the art appreciator are reminded that they are not alone. it is a coming together. art is a battle cry. someone crying out and saying 'no, this will not break me. the world is brutal and i've lost everything but i am going to turn this grief into something beautiful. i will persist, no matter how much they want me to perish.'

which is exactly why we need art. good art. terrible art. pretty art. brutal art. fucked up art. half-assed art. creepy art. lovely art. traditional art. abstract art. it doesn't matter if you took a crayola crayon and scribbled all over a piece of paper. it's still art. it's still made by human hands and for that reason it will always be superior to anything artificial intelligence can come up with. keep creating.

keep resisting.

do not perish.

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