Midjourney and I are NOT on the Same Wavelength

(For those of you who are not familiar with Midjourney - you type in a prompt and it generates images based on that prompt.)

It’s not going well with Midjourney and me. I want to tell you that the technology is faulty but like with all bad relationships I will make excuses for it and tell you it’s really my fault.

I had settled on “discussing” memory using Midjourney. Having just lost our Mom, I was thinking a lot about all the stories that were lost when she died. I asked two of my sisters to tell me a memory of sailing as children. One sister’s memory was vague and fond and the other’s was specific and terrifying. The images created by the fond memory were as innocuous as you would expect. Having been there when this memory was formed, I can only tell you the water was cleaner (unless those are jellyfish floating in the foreground).

The terrifying tale yielded an image of a Dad and three daughters (there were four daughters which I made a point of writing in the prompt) on a boat smiling. This image was triggered by a story about my eldest sister nearly drowning trying to pull the jib down while sailing during small craft warnings way out in the Chesapeake. Other details include my father holding on to her legs so she wouldn’t go overboard, while trying to keep hold of the tiller and my Mom screaming at him from the cabin that were were all going to die (loved my Mom but she was not a foxhole kinda gal). This is what THAT all looks like to Midjourney.

From the moment I first dipped my toes into these waters (pun unintended but I’m just gonna leave it there) I understood that success completely depended on writing a good prompt. Now, mind you, I think I’m a pretty good writer. I love words. This is a skill I have honed over a lifetime of writing almost daily. When I started in my pre pubescent years I called it journaling, now I call it morning pages because it conjures up “The Artist Way” and, while still hokey, adds an air of legitimacy.

While expressing myself in written words may come easily, describing my visual art does not, so maybe I should have realized this was not going to be a walk in the park. Creating imaginary environments with my words seemed like something I could excel at but then I realized creating imaginary worlds is not what I do. My visual art has always been more focused on finding the imagery that is real that when I am successful makes the viewer stop and take a second look because it does not look real. So I think I’m gonna tell Midjourney that I need some space. It’s not it, it’s me.