Help!

Use the tools. Ask for help. Keep your brushes moving.

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The FASO Way newsletter — exploring how to thrive as an artist in the age of AI

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Today’s Article

The following article was written by Debra Keirce, a regular contributing author to The BoldBrush Letter.

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Help!

FASO Member Debra Kerice, USCG Rescue Swimmer - Skills That Save Lives, 10” x 10”, Oil on panel

❤️ Please click the Like button—the little heart icon at the top and bottom—if you believe artists should be free to use the tools and resources that genuinely serve their work, and that asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. Your click is one small form of assistance—but it helps this message travel farther and helps FASO build the kind of artistic community where none of us has to go it alone.

Artists need to stop self-sabotaging. We shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help, and we need to stop treating modern tools like moral hazards.

In today’s creative zeitgeist, we are bombarded with an exhausting amount of artistic dogma. We are told there is a “right” way to create, approved venues to exhibit in, and that using certain tools is somehow “cheating.” And naturally, there is always a new panic on the horizon. Consider AI right now, which plenty of people are convinced is about to derail the entire art world.

I’m not here to champion every controversial tool under the sun. I just think we occasionally forget to apply common sense to these discussions. Personally, I paint and draw in a deeply traditional way, yet I rely on photography and modern paints and sealants. The truth is, we should all have the freedom to look at everything in the toolbox, decide what is genuinely useful to us as individuals, and create without the dead weight of moral judgment.

😊 We built FASO to push back against a world that treats art like content and artists like algorithms. Your work is more important than that. The world needs beauty more than ever. If our mission appeals to you, then you need a serious, beautiful home for your art, the details are below, after the essay.

—Clint

Way back in the day, sharing your process was considered professional suicide. Old-school artists guarded their techniques like state secrets. We’ll never know the exact alchemy behind some of their effects, but let’s be honest about the fact that they weren’t working in a vacuum. They were using every hack they could get their hands on:

• Vermeer’s Camera Obscura: The 17th-century version of a projector.

• Workshop Apprentices: The original multi-tasking assistants.

• Indentured Servants: Let’s just say labor laws have improved considerably since then.

• Questionable Pigments: I’m looking straight at you, Mummy Brown.

• Grids, Plumb-lines, and Nails: The analog ancestor of the perspective tool on your photo editing software.

• Graphite Offsets: A brilliant little hack made by pressing damp paper over a raw graphite drawing, to make prints.

• Photography: Long before our digital age, daguerreotypes replaced some portrait paintings and assisted artists in executing others.
  

If a master artist from 1650 walked into your studio today, they wouldn’t be offended by a projector or an AI app. They’d just be annoyed that they didn’t have one.

However, pearls were made to be clutched. Think of the things today’s artists love to panic over:

• AI Apps: The new digital frontier. Could you use one to brainstorm compelling titles or punchy descriptions for your art without breaking any ethical codes? Absolutely.

• Assistants: The modern evolution of the workshop apprentice. Would it change your life to hire an intern to handle your social media campaigns so you can actually stay in the studio?

• “Vanity” and Co-op Galleries: The alternative to high-end gallery gatekeepers. Can we reframe these not as desperate measures, but as joining a team of ambitious peers to make things happen?

• Social Media Alliances: Digital barn-raisings. Why not coordinate with peers to lift each other up and achieve some marketing goals?

• Photo References: Because squinting at a subject for fifty-six hours is hard on both the artist and the model. I am personally so tired of the old trope that painting from photos is somehow inferior to painting from life. It’s a choice, not a moral failing.

• Paid Ads and Features: Everything is monetized today, which means marketing always comes with a spin. Some complain about the cost of being seen, but if paid reach fits your budget and actually connects you with your target audience, it’s just a smart business expense.

Instead of digging our heels in and resisting change, what if we used our natural creativity to integrate these tools in ways that actually enhance our art journeys?

And while we’re at it, can we finally put the myth of the Lone Wolf artist to rest? Why are we so allergic to asking each other for help?

We are living in a golden age of information. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single proprietary art technique left. Yet, many of us still act like we’re guarding the location of the Holy Grail.

Why not change the script?

• Form an alliance with a peer to curate your own indie show.

• Swap honest intel on which art societies and show experiences actually worked for you.

• Admit that you don’t know how to edit a reel and ask a younger (or just more caffeinated) friend for a tutorial.

So often, it seems we are quicker to give up, or play the victim, than to explore the simple assistance right in front of us. If there’s one area where you need to be tenacious, it’s this. The artists who never give up on finding what moves them forward are the ones who find the success they’re looking for.

My parents’ generation often viewed asking for help as a sign of deep-seated weakness. But as I’ve aged, I’ve realized the opposite is true. The further you go, the more help you need. It’s simple survival. You observe what works for your peers, you steal their best ideas legally, you avoid their lethal mistakes, and you keep your brushes moving.

Collaboration has been the secret sauce of my own career. Organizing traveling shows, appearing on podcast interviews, saying yes to helping others, actually asking for help in return… This behavior has enriched me far more than any solo endeavor ever could.

It turns out art isn’t just about what you produce. It’s often about the people and resources you meet while you’re producing it.

I want to hear from you in the comments: What is one “controversial” tool you use and love, or one time you reached out for help and it actually saved your sanity? Tell us your stories. It makes the whole community better.

PS — If our philosophy resonates with you, please join us. This is about more than just where you host your website. In a world of growing AI, this is about joining with others who wish to protect the ecosystem of human artists. It’s about working with people who view the importance of human art the same way you do. If we don’t band together in this time, we risk losing something important to the all-consuming beast of the algorithm.

Debra Keirce
www.DebKArt.com

Join me each month for free updates on this art adventure at
https://debkart.com/email-newsletter

Editor’s note — this piece was not written with the assistance of AI. We are aware that Substack’s Pangram-powered AI detector scores it as partially AI written. Pangram is, in this case, wrong. Pangram’s tendency to incorrectly score human-written works as AI-generated is explored here and here.