
Corbin and I recently watched “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.” I’ve always loved stop-motion films, especially projects from Aardman Studios. Their attention to detail—from the faint coffee stains on Wallace’s mug to the exact model of fire hydrants used in the UK—earn their movies permanent real estate in my heart.
Like every Wallace & Gromit movie, “Vengeance Most Fowl” opens with Wallace’s hilarious mechanized morning routine: a Rube-Goldberg machine to bathe and dress him, a machine to butter and jam his toast, a tea machine, and even a “pat” machine to pat Gromit’s head (he’s such a good boy). “Vengeance Most Fowl” shows Wallace’s highest-tech morning routine yet, his gadgets completely saturating every corner of his life. Even for Wallace & Gromit standards, it’s a lot of machines.
Gromit loves to garden—it’s his sanctuary. One day, after the usual machine-made breakfast, Gromit opens the back door only to meet Wallace’s newest invention; a smart-gnome. “Just watch him do all those tedious gardening tasks!” Wallace proclaims, and excitedly sets the smart-gnome to trimming, weeding, and mowing every square inch of his dog's carefully-cultivated garden. Gromit looks on in horror, watching the robot dig up every tulip and square-off every bush, transforming his lush sanctuary into a lifeless, grid-like lawn. “Neat and tidy!” the smart-gnome declares. Gromit’s shoulders slump, but onlookers applaud, asking Wallace where they can get their own gardening robot.

Gromit’s strained relationship with robots is only amplified when Feathers McGraw, a villain from a past movie soon takes control of Wallace’s new invention, creating an army of smart-gnomes to help him steal the city’s famous “Blue Diamond.” Wallace and Gromit have to devise a plan to recover their now evil smart-gnomes, stopping McGraw’s heist.

The story culminates with an epic showdown between Wallace and Gromit, and Feathers McGraw’s evil AI army. Wallace retrieves the “Blue Diamond” and Gromit cleverly disables the “evil” setting on the garden gnomes. But in the midst of the mayhem, Feathers throws Gromit off a bridge. As he plummets down a deep ravine, the garden-gnomes link together and grab his hand. They pull Gromit back up to the bridge and save his life. The moral of the story? AI can be used for both evil and good. And Gromit the AI skeptic is ultimately grateful the smart-gnomes were there when he needed them.
• • •
Which brings me to the reason I’m writing this blog post. While editing my website the other day, I noticed a new feature on Wix—a widget suggesting AI-generated blog posts, complete and ready to publish. Staring at my website, I couldn’t help but feel like Gromit; shovel in hand, watching a smart-gnome trim and mow my garden into oblivion.

When my mom was growing up, it was cheaper for her family to sew their own clothing rather than go shopping (especially in a family of eleven). As a result, my mom, Grandma, and many of my aunts are accomplished seamstresses. Growing up, my mom sewed all our Halloween costumes, and many of our church clothes. In the fall, she would also make us dozens of cans of homemade grape juice, apricot jam, and canned fruit. I remember always wanting to try “Welch’s Grape Jelly” as a kid (I thought it looked so tasty in its flashy packaging), not realizing what a privilege it was to grow up eating fruit from my Grandma’s backyard.

Nowadays, it’s not cheaper to preserve your own fruit, and it’s definitely not cheaper to sew your own clothing. Doing things “the hard way” is now a luxury.
Which is why I’m defensive of my analog passions. Talking to a student the other day, I mentioned how drawing on my iPad for hours at a time makes me feel irritable and antsy. After about two hours of digital work, I start to feel an itchy sensation creeping over my body, which usually won’t leave until I go outside. However, if I’m working with real materials—smudging, dabbing, erasing, and wiping—I could work for ever. I much prefer painting with messy fingers over clicking around on Photoshop.
The perfect irony of “Vengeance Most Fowl” was that Aardman Studios explored my tech trepidation using the most tedious analog form of filmmaking; stop-motion. Every object in “Vengeance Most Fowl” was designed, built, painted, distressed, and arranged. Every character’s outfit was knitted, painted, or sewn. Every word, movement, and expression was carefully sculpted. For reference, it took the “Boxtrolls” team an entire week to shoot each one minute segment of footage (not including the time spent building and lighting sets, designing and building puppets, writing music, taping dialogue, or editing). What’s the result? We the viewers—used to polished CGI visuals, halfhearted plots, and lackluster character development—are completely amazed by their artistry.

The final scene of “Vengeance Most Fowl” shows Wallace’s new and improved morning routine—still techy, but optimized for his and Gromit’s happiness and connection. His “pat” machine is nowhere to be seen, and rather than wrestle their finicky tea machine, Wallace uses an old-fashioned tea kettle. “There’s some things a machine just can’t do, eh, lad?” He declares while patting Gromit’s head.
Wallace took back the joyous parts of his morning routine. At times, I’ve had to do the same. While I can’t deny using digital tools has streamlined many parts of my process, I have to be careful to not outsource what brings me joy.
As author Joanna Maciejewska once said, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”
It’s a miracle to make a living as an artist, and for me much of that miracle is thanks to recent technology. I can run my business from anywhere, answer any question in minutes, and share my work with hundreds of people online, all while having historically high amounts of leisure time. We are so lucky. Like Gromit, I’m grateful for the advanced technology of our day.
But stay away from my garden.

Citations:
Johnson, R. (2024, December 23). A grand return: A cracking set visit to “wallace & gromit: Vengeance most fowl.” Animation Magazine. https://www.animationmagazine.net/2024/12/a-grand-return-a-set-visit-to-wallace-gromit-vengeance-most-fowl/
X.com. X (formerly Twitter). (n.d.). https://x.com/AuthorJMac/status/1773679197631701238?lang=en
Love, love, love your newsletters, Audrey! Wish we could spend more time with you and Corbin...🥲