Tess Needham

Reading The Dancing Plague by Gareth Brookes, I’m entranced. The book, about the 1518 “dancing plague” in which a sudden compulsion to dance spread like a contagion, is amazing and absurd. The illustrations, a combination of pyrography and embroidery, are wondrous. Masterful. Images from Broken Frontier The amount of work and skill in every page is evident, as I can see every stitch and every…

On a recent trip to New York City, I visited the New Museum for the New Humans: Memories of the Future exhibition. The exhibition explores our changing definition of humanity in times of technological advancement. That includes tech from the past as well as visions of the future, and where humanity might go from here. The exhibition was a vast, multi-story affair. I was there for several hours…

I loved this answer from Nick Cave in a recent Red Hand File: It made me think of something I wrote recently about generating a zine with AI: These tools feel best when they’re filling a genuine need. When they’re doing something I’ve struggled with, it feels magical. When they’re doing something I enjoy, it can feel like a loss. For “good songwriters,” AI songwriting tools are bad because…

I’ve been using AI more and more for creative projects, testing the boundaries of what it can do, and what it feels uncomfortable for it to do. The good I’ve found that chatting with an AI bot in the early stages of a project can feel like brainstorming with a creative partner. It can offer related ideas, synthesise stream-of-consciousness notes, and do deep research. It’s good at taking in…

For the second challenge in the I Am Not a Robot project, Jamie‘s brief was: Vibe Coding Challenge time 🙂 Choose one of the following, These could be separate apps that talk to WordPress, or built directly as WordPress plugins—up to you. 1. Smart Link Manager Scans for broken links, suggests fixes or redirects, and recommends relevant internal links to improve UX and SEO. 2. Post Rewriter…

As anyone reading this blog already knows, I have feelings about AI and creativity. So when we Automatticians were tasked with dropping everything and spending a month in pairs building and shipping work (“Radical Speed Month”), the first thing that came to mind was to explore this topic further. I suspect there are a lot of creators out there who feel the same way I do — sceptical, but curious…

A few weeks ago, we said goodbye to our beloved 18-year-old cat, Misty. We’ve had Misty since she was 8 weeks old, and she’s travelled the world with us. She was so special to us, and so loved. It’s been a devastating thing to go through, and it’s still difficult to think or write about. But I did want to work through some thoughts I’m having about the creative impulse in times of loss and…

I packed my sketching supplies for the trip to WordCamp Asia in Mumbai, India, excited for the opportunity to get more practice sketching street scenes. As expected, the streets were chaotic, but I managed to snap some inspiration pictures from the back seat of a Uber, pushing its way through gridlocked traffic as scooters and tuk tuks zoomed past. I also walked around some of the main tourist…

I’m not anti-AI. Not at all. In fact, I use it daily in my role as a marketer at WordPress.com. It can be an incredible tool to help organise my thoughts, do research, help edit, and to remix my ideas in new ways that then spark other ideas. But I’m often reminded of the places where AI erodes the creative experience. And I’m wary of relying on it too much to replace our creativity. I feel the…

Although I wasn’t able to sketch scenes live and outdoors, I spent downtime in my hotel room sketching from photos I had taken during the day. Although I see problems with some sketches, I still learn from each one. Two attempts at the same scene

My high school art teacher had strong opinions about who the better artists in our class were. According to her, I wasn’t one. I believed her, so I finished school thinking: I’m not an artist. I stopped making art, but I didn’t stop loving it. I go to galleries and stand as close as I can to the paintings — studying the brush strokes and the colours, trying to understand how someone made…

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in Liz Steel’s 2-day sketching workshop on Cockatoo Island, here in Sydney. Liz runs online sketching courses through Sketching Now, and in-person workshops around the world. I’ve been following Liz for some time now. I came across her blog and immediately fell in the love with her lovely loose sketching style. Her tips and tricks on the blog about…