Local artists are giving big props to Small Mart, saying its ban of AI use makes them more inclined to sell their work at the Friday marketplace. 

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Carly Holbrook, the painter and button maker behind Carly Makes Things, said she “appreciates the ban” because it protects the market as a space for artists to showcase their work. She began selling her art at Small Mart in August, not long before the market posted a video about the ban on Sept. 1. The market takes place Fridays at the Davis Square Plaza Marketplace. 

Holbrook said she is a relatively small artist, so AI has not affected her business. But, she said, the technology is “cluttering the online space” and “discrediting” artistic value by stealing other people’s art and recreating it.

Small Mart made the move because it “is a market for artists, for makers and for artisans … and generally speaking, AI isn’t art,” said Wiley, a co-owner of Small Mart who did not give a last name. Wiley also owns High Energy Vintage in Union Square. 

Not taking a flyer 

Wild Planet owner Shannon Donahue has sold at Small Mart for years, and said she has started making flyers for her business by collaging to defy the “AI slop” posters she’s seen online and throughout Somerville. 

“I don’t want an AI tool to make my artwork for me because … there’s almost no point to being alive if AI is going to do all the fun things for you and you still have to do all the drudgery,” Wiley said. 

Small Mart explicitly banned AI-generated items and flyers from the market following feedback from vendors about one artist that sold some AI-generated materials. The longtime vendor still participates in the market, but no longer sells AI-generated products.

AI art, which often contains mistakes, “shouldn’t really be displayed next to people who are making actual art,” Wiley said.

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Policy statement

The application to sell was also updated so that it states, “We do not accept vendors selling mass produced goods [or] vendors selling AI generated imagery.” Prior to creating the policy, Wiley and Small Mart co-owner Bridget Duggan simply rejected applications from vendors who sold AI-generated designs. It added the policy to discourage those vendors from applying at all, Wiley said. 

“Art is a celebration and an expression of the human experience,” Wiley said. “Most generative AI was trained on people’s real art without [giving them] any credit.”

Pete Moulthrop has been making the flyers for Small Mart since its founding in 2022. 

AI “is not really intelligent, it is just generative” and often makes mistakes, he said. This became apparent to him when some of his clients tried to use AI to make flyers, but realized Moulthrop’s work was more accurate and necessary for their business, he said. However, he has lost some clients who are using AI instead of his services. 

 “AI kind of homogenizes everything towards a specific kind of corporate, samey, sanitized aesthetic,” said Isaac Smolund, co-owner of the Malden-based pop-up Nebula Books who has sold at Small Mart once and hopes to again. 

Smolund and co-owner Jess Sanford “come from a software engineering background and I think part of wanting to do things like Nebula Books is that we really get a lot out of” physically interacting with others, he said. 

“If you didn’t make your art, I’m not going to buy it,” Sanford said. If a market they sold at allowed AI art, they would not sell there again.

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