08/19/2026
Let me get this straight…
I work full time. I’m a wife, mother, grandmother, farmer, caretaker of all the people AND critters around this Funny Farm. I make my own beeswax products, homemade jams & jellies, AND Rum Cake Bundtlets.
I create the products. I test the recipes. I make them. I package them. I label them. I market them. I sell them. I tend to the farm, the animals, my family, my home AND work a full-time job.
But because I can’t draw a good-looking stick figure and choose to use AI to take MY ideas and turn them into something that actually looks professional… I’m lazy? 😂
NOPE.
I know a whole lot of farmers, homesteaders and small business owners who wear 47 different hats every single day. Most folks couldn’t hang a week doing everything we do.
We aren’t using AI to replace the work. We’re using a TOOL to help us do the work we don’t have the time, money, or talent to outsource.
The products are still HOMEMADE. The recipes are mine. The ideas are mine. The work is mine. The time, trial and error, ingredients, messes and clean-up are ALL mine.
And the time and money I save by using AI? That goes right back where it matters most—to my FAMILY. More time with them and more money in our pocket instead of paying someone else to make my ideas look pretty.
So excuse me while I save myself a dollar AND a whole lot of time by letting AI make my ideas look better than the stick figures I’m capable of drawing.
I’ve got a family to enjoy, animals to feed, beeswax to melt, jam to can and Rum Cake Bundtlets to bake.
I was gonna wait till tomorrow to post this but I’m fired up! To completely not allow a business to rent booth space at your venue because of their AI assisted logo or label is ridiculous!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the whole “AI art vs. real art” argument, especially because I’ve seen plenty of artists asking businesses to stop using AI for labels, logos, characters, etc.
And I get part of it.
There ARE legitimate concerns about AI, especially when somebody is intentionally trying to copy a living artist’s exact style or use AI simply to avoid paying someone whose work they clearly want.
But some of the arguments being thrown around are also a little ridiculous.
Because somehow using Canva, Picsart, Photoshop, templates, stock graphics, one-click background removers, filters, automatic retouching, smart resizing and all the other computer-assisted tools is considered “creating”…
…but using AI to help develop an original character or concept suddenly means you have no creativity?
Come on.
If I open Canva, pick a premade logo template, change the words and slap my business name on it, did I suddenly become more creative than somebody who spent two hours directing AI through 30 revisions trying to get a completely original idea out of their head and onto a screen?
The tool doesn’t determine whether there was creativity involved.
The decisions do.
AI is incredibly useful for small businesses because it lets people who cannot draw actually VISUALIZE what’s in their head.
You can say:
“I want a rugged old boar who looks like he’s spent 30 years behind a bar.”
Or:
“I want a mysterious pig witch doctor with this personality, this setting, these colors and this mood.”
And suddenly you have something you can actually LOOK AT, critique and develop.
That doesn’t mean an artist has no value.
Actually, I think artists have something AI still struggles tremendously with: consistency, intentional details, personality, storytelling and the ability to take a character and truly make it their own.
AI can be the sketchbook.
Canva can be the layout table.
And the artist can take the concept and turn it into something truly original and polished.
Technology has always changed creative work.
Digital cameras didn’t kill photography.
Photoshop didn’t make graphic designers fake.
Canva didn’t suddenly make everyone a professional designer.
And AI isn’t going to magically replace genuine artistic talent either.
It’s another tool.
What matters is how you use it.
