Process (Artist Q&A)

Artist Process Q&A

Q: Is this digital art or material art?

A: It's unequivocally material art. The digital tools I use—Stable Diffusion, ControlNets, and custom-trained LoRAs—are crucial to my workflow, but the art itself only fully exists when pigment touches paper. Like traditional woodblock prints, my works derive their power from their tangible presence: texture, pigment saturation, paper grain, and the nuanced imperfections of the printing process itself. The digital stage is preparatory—an advanced form of sketching—but the final object lives entirely in the physical world.

Q: How does your process start in the field?

A: My work begins outdoors, shooting reference photographs with a Fujifilm X-H2S and a Sigma telephoto lens. The 4:3 sensor gives flexibility for cropping later, and the zoom lets me isolate interesting compositions without physically disturbing the environment. I selectively edit these photos in Lightroom, bringing forward details and contrasts that initially sparked my interest.

Q: How do you bridge photography and AI-generated imagery?

A: The photograph acts as a starting point—a visual note rather than something to be faithfully copied. I feed these images into Stable Diffusion through multiple ControlNets, which reinterpret depth, edges, and color relationships, significantly altering the composition. I then guide this reinterpretation further using LoRAs, especially my Blockprint Textures model, trained on historical Ukiyo-e prints. This process isn’t just replication; it's about creating something entirely new from a photographic seed.

Q: Does working with AI streamline your process?

A: Quite the opposite—my workflow is deliberately slow and iterative, usually taking two to three days per image, sometimes more. Each step involves careful adjustments: rebalancing ControlNet inputs, refining prompts, masking, and meticulous inpainting. I cycle through various specialized tools—InvokeAI, ComfyUI, ForgeUI, StabilityMatrix—each imparting different biases, which often produce unexpected but useful variations. It's a constant push-and-pull, a dialogue between human intuition and computational randomness.

Q: Why introduce hand-drawn sketches into a digital workflow?

A: AI tends to either mimic the original photo too closely or drift into surreal abstraction. When this happens, I pause the digital process and use Procreate with an Apple Pencil to sketch my intention clearly, creating an intermediate, manual interpretation. This sketch serves as a fresh visual reference, nudging Stable Diffusion toward a balance between photographic accuracy and expressive reimagining.

Q: How do you prepare the images for physical printing?

A: Once an image emerges from Stable Diffusion, I perform final clean-ups and color adjustments in Photoshop, preserving the flexibility to radically shift palettes if the piece demands it. To achieve an authentic printmaking aesthetic, I trained custom LoRAs specifically to introduce subtle registration errors and replicate paper textures—such as deckled edges and print irregularities—that I admire from traditional Japanese woodblock prints. These digital artifacts translate seamlessly into pigment-on-paper through the precision of modern Canon giclée printers.

Q: Why is the physical print so important to you?

A: I experienced an epiphany after digitally enlarging and printing a Fayga Ostrower screenprint as a giclée. Despite being a reproduction, the print retained what Walter Benjamin famously called 'aura'—the unique presence traditionally associated only with originals. I realized digital processes could produce entirely new originals by freshly applying ink to paper. That discovery transformed my understanding: what I make isn't digital art; it's contemporary printmaking—authentic pigment on real paper, sharing lineage with traditional woodblock and screen prints.

Q: How do collectors respond to your prints?

A: Collectors typically connect immediately with the tactile presence and compelling physicality of the prints. While the process—AI assistance, digital workflows, and high-end printing—is intriguing, it remains secondary. The primary appreciation centers on the tangible object itself, and rightfully so. Each print, in limited editions of 100-200, comes with archival-grade inks on acid-free cotton rag paper, ensuring longevity and collectability.

Q: How do you see authorship in collaboration with AI?

A: Authorship has historically shifted with every technological advancement—printing, photography, even Ukiyo-e, where the named artist rarely executed the actual carving or printing. AI, to me, continues this tradition. Authorship in my work lies in curatorial precision, constant judgment calls, and the nuanced direction I provide at every stage. While the diffusion model is a powerful collaborator, it's ultimately my vision and choices that shape the final outcome.

Q: You also make films—what's the connection?

A: The arrival of digital film technology offered me something new in distribution rather than composition, allowing instantaneous global sharing without traditional lab processes. This digital democratization reignited my excitement about filmmaking. Similarly, my printmaking embraces digital tools to redefine rather than diminish the significance of the physical print. Both film and printmaking, for me, represent old vocabularies revitalized by new grammars.