Whidbey Island Crafter's Market — Attraction in Oak Harbor

While the market has frequently been the highlight of my visits to Main Street, recently I’ve noticed a startling amount of AI generated imagery being sold, such as postcards and stickers that are manually edited to have Whidbey island text blurbs, as well as often low-resolution AI images printed on acrylic-coated canvases with only minor mixed-media elements that certainly do not justify the price tag. As an illustrator who was considering selling work here it’s incredibly disheartening to see low-effort low-quality mass-generated images made using software that scrapes the hard work of creative people graduate from just plaguing online spaces to being sold physically as well. Do not take this review as a slight against the business, for some people it can be hard to discern this type of imagery from human-made work, so if this was allowed to be sold without the full knowledge of the management it’s completely understandable. It is still very much worth taking a look around the market to support local artists, and more places like this need to exist, but until AI generated work is disallowed, I can’t in good conscience leave a high rating. If someone couldn’t be bothered to put in the work of making art, why should you be...

The photo is of the store across the street 😧

I bought 4 men's shirts that are really cool and in perfect condition. I joked about the prices being right, because they were just a little higher than I wanted to pay, but not so much that I...

I took a wood burning class with Crystal and it was such a blast. After the class, I did some Christmas shopping and bought beautifully made gifts by local artists. I will be taking more classes and this is my #1 place to shop...