Accessibility

I have a confession to make about my writing process. I write most of my pieces on the notes app in my phone, not on a word processor. Well except for my poems which I write on paper first, and everything else I've posted on Vocal so far (except the dragon story, which lets be honest was not my strong suit but always explore outside your genre!)

Oddly I am an incredibly tactile person, I'm a visual artist, I worked in filmmaking, analogue photography, I paint with oil which is beautifully sculptural; a phone is one of the least connected ways to create, but damn if it doesn't cut out like three to five steps between me and a story. Hell I even keep my grammar mostly under control so this might be a non-issue (even if I didn't grammar systems are classist). I think my physicality in my jobs (framer, reptile keeper) and in my other areas of art makes me want to curl up with my phone to write for the world.

I also find writing more vulnerable so if I can put a phone screen and a notes app in between me and the emotions. I'm there.

I have written frequently in the past about accessibility in art making and accessibility means different things to different people. I for one find it strange a creative community like Vocal does not have a disability centric community. I am new here so I could be wrong, in fact point out to me if there's a better community to post this on. I feel with the prevalence of disabled artistic people there should be more space made for us.

So I have a little bit of a more nuanced view on AI art, I think it's wonderful that images are being made by people who may not otherwise be able to create work. It's awesome to me. The problem I have is allowing styles to be stolen and ethics not being followed or talked about when creating AI images. I know as a visual artist myself I feel that the unauthorized use of an artists style is horrible. However AI helped me create at a time when I could barely move from anxiety.

Just like a physical pen or pencil takes more work than a computer, a computer takes more work than a phone. There are so many more steps to typing on a computer and when each step takes a spoon by the time I get a word processor open I'm already halfway through my alotted pens for the day.

Of course extremely long form things are written on a computer, that takes a different kind of concentration, but long-form for me is more than 10,000 words. Other than that I can lay in bed and put as few barriers in between me and creating as possible. Sometimes I even paint in my bed, if it's between that and not making something I will always choose the thing that's less detrimental to my health. Which is make something.

I think what I'm trying to say is art making must be made more accessible, storytelling must be made more accessible. Gatekeeping is unhelpful when stories are on the line. Isn't that the purest thing we are protecting here? Stories. It's the most valuable thing we have as humanity, and every voice should be able to be heard.

I think my feeling is also that all stories are important for different reasons, essential in the way that we relate to each other, to the past, and to the future. So accessibility to hearing those stories is essential to the world, whether that's writing or AI painting or verbal or signed language. Everyone deserves to tell their story