It’s been just over two years since I started a newsletter, with a few drawings decrying the misery of the first few months with a newborn alien. (Read it here, if you’re curious and enjoy things that are a tad TMI.) I was a bit obsessive about the “it gets better” adage, and when that “better” moment was truly going to arrive. I think drawing about it was a way to move that time period along.

Time did go by, and as the newborn became less alien and more human, I have become less interested in having this be the regular theme of what I’m writing, drawing, and thinking about. This isn’t new. I started Sketchbooks and Legal Pads to explore two spaces I have always found to be disparate — law and art (and then, technology) — and over time realized I didn’t like having these disparate versions of my thoughts strewn all over the place.

I am one person (surprise!), thinking and writing and drawing about all these different things, so it is possible to have a single container for seemingly opposing things. (Me, I’m the container!) I’ve decided to turn Maddy Not Mommy and Sketchbooks and Legal Pads into a single container.

Welcome to Yes, You Can Totally Do This! the newsletter about how we can all draw, be creative, and deal with the serious stuff with a little bit of delight.

I believe that communicating complex ideas or difficult concepts in a playful, visual way makes them easier to absorb. Delight, humor, and joy have a place alongside our serious world, helping us to stay engaged and hopeful.

Illustration of blonde woman reading a MN state laws books, wth colorful ideas coming from her head.

On top of that, I believe that everyone is creative and can draw. (Stop saying, "I can't draw!" I don't believe you!)

Did you just say you can’t draw?! I don’t believe you!

Illustration of a surprised person, with facial features created by blobs pasted on.

I use comics to interpret and simplify complex concepts. A few times a month, this newsletter will use comics to explain something in law, tech, or another part of our complicated world. Other weeks, the post will focus on drawing, creativity, or the value of making art. Life with small child is sure to make its way in here as well because it’s still shaping how I think about all of these things.

This is just a more expansive way of thinking about what I’ve been doing this whole time, so whatever brought you here initially is still part of the container. For example, in addition to the tiny alien drawings, in the past I’ve written about how I value scribbles,

Are scribbles a waste of time? I don't think so.

MADDY BUCK

JUL 10

Every idea starts with a scribble. I remind myself of this whenever I’m working on the ugly part of a project that feels like a chaotic mess.

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how to make sense of recent Supreme Court oral arguments,

What's Happening with Birthright Citizenship?

MADDY BUCK

MAY 27

Before you turn away at the seriousness of that subject line, I can assure you that a) this edition still includes drawings of babies and b) next week’s will feature the word “potty” numerous times.

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how I think we can all be creative,

Maybe we're all secretly creative

MADDY BUCK

APRIL 23, 2024

We're just hiding it...

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and how AI could provide artists a new avenue to receive value for their work, if we just prioritize this (or if the law forces us).

There Could Be a New Market for Our Digital Art, But We're Giving It All Away for Free

MADDY BUCK

AUG 14

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When new technology uses old work in a new way

MADDY BUCK

DECEMBER 20, 2024

It should lead to new forms of compensation, no?

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Serious topics and delightful art seem like opposites, even to me sometimes. But as a lawyer-artist, I can’t help but combine them in everything that I do.

Illustration looks like it's on a yellow legal pad. It is of two lawyers in suits, with colorful shapes coming fro their thought bubbles. Text says, "Are lawyers secretly creative?"

(Answer: I think many are.)

Outside of this newsletter and my illustration projects, I am working on a graphic memoir about about law school, the law's connection to women in the workplace, and finding a path that feels right. Sometimes that project makes its way in here as well.

Thanks for being here, as always.

Scribbles, Collage, and Artists Going to Work

I often think about how weird it is that bad decisions are being made or destruction is happening in one place, but the sun is still shining, the pasta still tastes good, and kids are still running around laughing in my neighborhood. I’m not really asking for this to change, exactly. If we were all in despair 24/7, then we couldn’t accomplish anything that might alleviate whatever is bringing us down. But I still find it weird.

It’s summer. Summer is the best. But I keep reading the news with disbelief at how the values I thought were important to this country (supporting research, consulting expertise, welcoming refugees, maintaining allies, respecting laws, avoiding extortion) are being thrown overboard.

This isn’t news to anyone. It seems to be the hardest thing to talk about lately because there aren’t quick, easy remedies.

When the pandemic took over in 2020, all the writing projects I’d been working on stopped. Meaning, I stopped writing. I didn’t know what to say, so I just moved blobs around on a page and made collages.

I haven’t lost my words this time, but I have been noticing the appeal of toddler art. I started scribbling in my sketchbook the other day, and may need to fill the entire book with scribbles. It was that satisfying.

There’s a Toni Morrison quote that illustrator and graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton has been sharing lately. It goes like this:

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.

I don’t know how we’ll rein in the absurdity, but I’m going to keep thinking about this quote as I get to work.

Thanks for being here!

Oh! And in other news, my Book of Anger zine is being added to the Zine and Wellness collection of the Bodleian Old Library at Oxford. Time to visit the UK!

There Could Be a New Market for Our Digital Art, But We're Giving It All Away for Free

I’ve gotten kind of obsessive about something lately.

Illustration of a sad artist stuck between two rocks: "To be seen, must share work online." and "work shared online is more easily appropriated." Text says, "But for many creatives, productivity isn't the biggest challenge: it's compensation."

AI companies fed vast amounts of copyrighted work into their technology to create the AI we have today. All this creative work has provided economic value to the booming AI companies, but the creators of the original work weren’t compensated. Shouldn’t that violate copyright law? Well, I think so. But the Courts are still deciding, and the loudest voices are suggesting it was totally fine for them to do this, as if there was no other way to develop such a revolutionary technology. I don’t think that’s quite right.

When I was invited to adapt (into comics) an AI vision paper called Shaping AI this year, I noticed that the paper’s discussion of AI’s potential impact on media and entertainment had overlooked this issue. If AI is so smart, can’t it be applied to solve the problem of artists not being compensated (or even asked) when their copyrighted work was used to train AI models?

I was pleasantly surprised when the authors took my feedback and highlighted this idea as one of the milestones to focus research on and try to make possible. The illustrations in this post are my adaptation of that section of the paper.

illustration of a theatre in old times and a movie theatre showing same actor. Text says, "The advent of movies gave stage actors a new venue for their skill."

Illustration shows a venn diagram showing that acting work grew with advent of movies. Text says, "One that spread their reach, expanded their profession, and created new forms of compensation."

Illustration shows a woman in an old fashioned dress saying, "These new-fangled recording devices? Will they ruin the theatre?" The text says, "Before film, stage actors may never have imagined that this new technology would create more opportunity."

Illustration of artists drawing on a purple arrow pointing to a question mark. Text says, "How might AI provide a similarly valuable new venue for the skills of today's creators?"

Illustration shows a computer screen that shows with drawings the following: art by artist used here, so money owed to that artist." The text says, "Could dAI help to create a framework that protects and compensates the creative work.

I believe that if we decide that it is a problem worth solving, it would be possible to develop AI in a way that allows artists and writers to be compensated for this new, additional form of value that their work has, as “AI food.”

What I don’t know yet is how to make that happen.1

Thanks for being here!