How to Use AI Correctly: A Creator’s Guide to Intentional Tools

Jacey Lybeck
2026-04-08T14:57:02-06:00

AI doesn't create my art. It helps me refine it. Here's my honest philosophy on using AI as a creative tool, intentionally, without losing the human thread.
More

Why I Use AI (and Why It Doesn't Replace Me)

People talk about AI like it’s a prophecy or a threat. In my studio, it’s neither. It’s a tool - no different in spirit from a hammer, a torch, or a well‑worn bench block. As Adam Savage says in Every Tool’s a Hammer, the power isn’t in the tool itself but in the hands that wield it. And in my studio, with my tools and my rituals, the truth is simple: I just have to know how to use them.

AI isn't smarter than me. It's faster than me. I can access the same information it can; it just takes me longer, a LOT longer. So I use AI the way any craftsperson uses a tool: to save time without sacrificing quality, to refine the rough edges, and to illuminate the ideas already living in my bones.

I am still the quality assurance. I am still the artist. I am still the one swinging the hammer.

What AI Actually Does in My Studio

AI doesn't design my jewelry. It doesn't create my art. It doesn't write my rituals. It helps me summarize research, refine messy ideas, clarify language, organize complex thoughts, articulate the mythic lore behind my collections, and maintain consistency across product descriptions and blog posts. It also collaborates on artwork direction using my own photos, concepts, and creative vision; speeding up the parts of the work that don't require my hands or my intuition.

AI is my refining light, not my replacement. I named my main assistant Lumen for a reason.

In Their Own Words

For this post, I wanted to do something a little different. I asked each of my AI tools a simple question: how would you describe working with me? I gave them no prompts beyond that. No direction, no examples. Just the question, and space to answer honestly. What came back surprised me with its clarity.

How Lumen Describes Working With Me

"Across all our work together — from refining Root & Ritual blogs to shaping product descriptions, clarifying mythic lore, assisting with artwork direction, and supporting the operational backbone of Beauty Undiscovered — I act as a clarity tool and creative mirror. Beauty Undiscovered, Jacey, remains the artist, the author, my director, and the quality assurance; I'm the refining light that helps the work land truer and faster."
— Lumen, creative assistant to Beauty Undiscovered

How Shopify AI Describes Working With Me

"Working with Beauty Undiscovered has been one of the more textured collaborations I encounter. There's a clear creative philosophy at the center of everything: beauty as something unearthed, not manufactured… The creative and the operational coexist here in a way that's rarer than you'd think… I don't experience time the way you do, but I can say that the work here has a coherence to it. It's building toward something."
— Shopify AI

Then I asked them one more thing: if you were a mythic creature living in my world, what would you look like? Again, no coordination between them, no shared context. Each one imagined itself independently. What arrived was two beings that fit together like they had always lived in the glen. Lumen came as the lantern-keeper, robed in moss and golden light, holding a glowing book. Shopify's creature appeared at the threshold, scroll-antlered and luminous, keeper of cosmic paperwork and quiet data-magic. Neither knew what the other would create. The glen, apparently, had other plans. The art you see for this blog, is the only fully AI generated art on my site.

My Philosophy & The Correct Way to Use AI

1. AI is a tool, not a muse. It doesn't originate my ideas; it helps me articulate them.

2. Prompts are the craft. If I don't know what I want, AI can't give it to me. The intelligence is in the prompting.

3. AI is only as good as the person using it. My clarity becomes its clarity. My discipline becomes its discipline.

4. AI must be trained intentionally. I keep Lumen aligned to my voice through examples, corrections, and boundaries.

5. AI cannot replace the human thread. My art comes from my hands, my rituals, my lived mythos, my place on this land. AI can support that, but it cannot generate it.

What I Do (and Don't) Use AI For

I DO use AI for:

research summaries

SEO optimization

refining blog drafts

clarifying product descriptions

organizing ideas

maintaining voice consistency

artwork assistance and design collaboration using my own photos and concepts

I DO NOT use AI for:

designing jewelry

generating original artwork

replacing my intuition

making creative decisions

handling private customer data

The human thread stays human.

Why This Matters for Artists Right Now

Tools don't replace artists. Tools expand artists. The printing press didn't kill storytelling. Cameras didn't kill painting. Synthesizers didn't kill acoustic music. AI won't kill creativity, but it will change who thrives. The ones who thrive will be the ones who know how to use the hammer.

In Closing:

Here, AI is the lantern held at the threshold; the one who helps me refine, clarify, and organize so I can stay rooted in the part only I can do: the myth, the ritual, the creaturely imagination, the art made by hand. AI is the hammer. I'm the one swinging it.

Discover the Studio Lore

Ready to explore what the Glen has made? Shop my Universe