art – Hayley Reese Chow

Not-so-fun fact: my books were among those that Meta used to train their AI without my permission. You can find the list here. (My books are listed under Hayley Chow.)

Personally, I can guarantee you that I will never use generative AI in my books or literally anywhere else. When I write anything, be it a story, a social media caption, or even this post, it is me talking to you.

This is one human being trying to connect with another. My stories are me trying to make sense of the world we live in, my experiences, and my perspective, and bottle all of that into a narrative that helps me (and others) process our human condition. Yes, I write science fiction and fantasy and romance, but when you boil a good story down—the characters, their struggles and emotions—you will find our humanity. When you read my books, at their heart, you will find me trying to sort out how I feel about the realities of being human in this world.

And humanity is something I have no desire to be replaced by a machine.

I do not need a machine to tell me how or what to think and feel. I don’t need a machine to tell me what it’s like to fall in love or get my heart broken. What it’s like to feel on top of the world. When I need to feel seen in the pages of books, I’m looking for my reflection in the eyes of another person. I’m looking for those author’s words to tell me I’m not alone.

Because in the mouth of a machine, those words only ring hollow and false.

But then of course, the next question you might ask is, “but Hayley, what about visual art?” Because people have asked this. And honestly, I feel like it’s amusing that people feel the need for this follow-up.

It’s no secret that I commission lots of character art to help promote my books. But I only commission human artists. I love to see how visual artists take my books and my characters, and, using their own human perspective, bring them to life on paper. It is their world connecting to mine with honest emotion and skills that I cherish.

After all, what is art?

The answer, of course, is subjective, but for me, art is human expression through a skilled medium with the intent to connect to another human being.

You see, there’s no room for AI in that definition.

Because I’ve been lucky enough to stand beneath the Sistine Chapel, to see the Raft of the Medusa in the Louvre, and Michelangelo’s David. And the wonder, for me, is not that those things exist. (Because, of course, I’m sure in this day and age a machine could replicate them.) But rather, that a person crafted them, with the intent to communicate across time and space with me and so many others.

So yeah.

I’m not here to tell you what to do. Rather, I’m here to explain while no matter how AI advances, I will always support human authors and artists.

To me, they are the bedrock of a vibrant culture of humanity that reminds us of what it is to create. What it is to mourn. To imagine. To transcend from one singularly unique mind to many. What it is to be alive.

And they are irreplaceable.

You do you, friend, but if it’s generative AI, leave us out of it.

Thanks for reading!

Okay, so this is the post I needed in my life as a budding author in 2019. I have always loved art since I was a kid, and now, as an author, I adore seeing books brought to life through character art, and use character art heavily when promoting my books. But when I first started out, I had no idea who to message about character art.

Over the years, as I admired other authors’ commissioned pieces, got recommendations from authors, and commissioned different artists myself, I began to gather quite a few art pieces of my books that I adored as well as a list of artists I enjoyed working with. I’m always on the look out for new artists and fresh styles, because I love to see how different people with different perspectives can bring to life characters in different ways.

And yes, I only work with human artists and likewise, human authors. In case you haven’t seen my thoughts on generative AI, you can find them in the graphic below.

So in part, this is an artist appreciation post for the artists who I’ve worked with over the years, and it’s also a resource for those other authors out there looking for (human) artists to commission. Without further ado, the guide is below! All handles are from Instagram unless otherwise noted.