Why every revolution in art feels the same — until it doesn’t.
When I was in design school, we had an assignment that changed how I saw everything that came after. The task was simple: pick an object — anything — and track its evolution through five eras of design. Furniture, architecture, typography, didn’t matter. I think I chose a piece of furniture, though I can’t remember which one now.
We began in Egypt. Did that form, that motif, that symbol exist there in some way? Then we moved through the eras — tracing its echoes through Greece, the Renaissance, the Industrial Age, and finally into Modernism. At each stage, it changed. Of course it did. But it persisted. The human desire to make, to repeat, to refine — that never disappeared.
That project taught me something that has never left me: there is nothing new under the sun. There are only new iterations of the same creative impulse.
The Fear of the New
Fast-forward to now. The panic over AI sounds eerily familiar.
When photography arrived, painters said it was mechanical, soulless — a threat to “real” art. When Photoshop came along, photographers said the same thing. Every generation declares that the next tool will be the death of creativity, and every time, the artists who lean in redefine what creativity looks like.
I recently heard photographer Nick Knight say something that stopped me in my tracks. He compared the outrage around AI to the same outrage that once surrounded photography. His point was simple: it still comes down to choice, curation, and vision. The tool doesn’t replace the artist — it reveals the artist.
He caught a lot of heat for saying that, but he’s right.
From Hand-Carved Corbels to CNC
A few weeks ago, I was walking through the Garden District of New Orleans — those gorgeous homes draped in history and humidity. One of the preservation rules there is that every home must look true to the mid-1800s on the outside. The fretwork, the dental molding, the corbels — all of it.
But inside? Do whatever you want. Modern lighting, smart thermostats, an elevator if you’d like. The exterior preserves the story; the interior adapts for the times.
It struck me that this is how creativity has always worked.
The first of those decorative details were carved by hand. Today, only a few craftsmen still work that way; most of it is milled by machine. Does that make the house less beautiful? No. It simply means our tools have changed. The idea of beauty — the human need to shape, preserve, and adapt — remains intact.
Learning to Connect the Dots
So when I hear people panic that AI will take all the jobs or destroy art, I can’t help but shake my head. The pattern is so clear if you’re willing to trace it. From looms to lenses to Lightroom — every tool that accelerates creation has been met with fear before acceptance.
Yes, automation can replace some roles. That’s not new either. The Industrial Revolution did it first. The real question is: what are we doing to grow beyond the work a machine can easily replicate?
The artists and thinkers who will thrive in this next era are the ones who learn to direct technology instead of deflecting it. They’ll understand that creativity isn’t threatened by new tools — it’s refined by them.
The Real Work
Maybe the real question isn’t whether AI will replace us.
Maybe it’s whether we’ll stop exercising our creativity long enough for it to try.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that progress and preservation can coexist — as long as we keep connecting the dots.
Art history is a mirror — every era reflecting what it feared most about the next.
And yet, somehow, beauty endures.
My hope is that you’ll keep tracing those echoes with me — from the marble workshop to the digital canvas — because that’s where the real education happens: in seeing how it’s all connected.
you said: