Throwing it back to last weekend’s awesome LightBox Expo event in Pasadena where I got to hangout with the fantastically talented Paul Antonson (@pantonson) all weekend and soak in the creative energy. I hadn’t been to a big creative event like this since before the pandemic and I didn’t realize how much I needed it til I was there.

It was a thrill to meet Prof Ben Zhao, who leads the team at the Univ of Chicago that created Glaze (@theglazeproject) and Nightshade to help artists combat against Artificial Intelligence training on artwork without the artist’s consent!

It was just as thrilling to meet Karla Ortiz (@kortizart), award-winning Concept Artist on MCU projects such as Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok, and the Loki series. But even more impressive is how she is leading the fight for artists copyrights against AI systems like Midjourney and Stability AI through a class action suit. Such an important fight for the future of artists.

Taking in all the creativity was recharging! We had so many conversations with random people there – everyone was excited! The energy was electric! A huge thank you and congratulations to Jim Demonakos (@jimdemonakos) and his team for putting on an amazing event. I’m really happy I finally got to experience it! Going to keep my eye out for next year’s dates haha!