some different things I've been thinking about coming together.

I started out thinking about the claim that AI makes art accessible to the disabled, and how I draw with the hand I nearly lost (in fact, how I was trained to hold stuff tightly screwed with my drawings for years, and I had to re-learn that in turn). But honestly, what really made the difference with art for me wasn't a plagarism machine or even savvy physical therapy, but praise or encouragement at the right time, and being interested enough to keep going when I suck. If I have an inborn anything it's the "this interests me," not whatever "artistic talent" is.

I think a lot of the AI "artists" want the compliments connected to the highly polished stuff, there's never a stage where you put stuff on paper and it just sucks or even it's good but kinda bland without color or a background. Intersects with this myth about talent, learned hopelessness that if I can't make it look really great now, I'll never be able to make it look really great. None of the really shitty drawings or off days get to count at all.

And THIS part, I understand buying into several hundred percent. I was discouraged from drawing as a kid, and now that I'm no longer right in the middle of my-art-sucks-and-I'm-a-miserable-failure, I can more clearly see how that internal talk echoes that earlier discouragement.