Claude and the Creative Practice
There's never beena better time to be acreative on the internet
This is the story of how AI tools are expanding my practice — not replacing it — enabling me to bring even my wildest ideas into crystal-clear reality.
Three short films on what that actually looks like — and a catalog of the things we've built together. Less about the technology, more about the work we put out in the world.
What it actually looks like to make at the speed of thought.
The Case
I open on the fear so many creatives feel about AI, then flip it: working through Claude Code and Claude Cowork, I’ve never felt more enabled. This is the most expansive moment I’ve known as an artist.
The Build
I designed the exact portfolio I always wanted — gallery lightboxes for my photography, and onchain collections turned into living, searchable experiences that would have cost six figures in dev work two years ago.
The Ecosystem
A tour of what it unlocked: the WINDOWS fractal explorer, BUILDINGS ownership maps, DRIP DROP’s machine-vision rarity, the ALLSHIPS arcade and restaurant map, a Vibe Tools database, dining-club booking, and a self-built Calendly and mentorship pipeline.
The Throughline
These tools gave me back time, range, and — counterintuitively — some of the humanity the internet had taken from me. I close with a call for artists to take the leap and build on land they own.
From a single sentence to a finished, shipped experience.
The Home
A hands-on tour of the digital-art half of my new site — the home I built basically alone with Claude, even though I’m not technical — on the belief that artists should be their own platform, marketplace, and distribution network.
Drip Drop
My generative-photography puddles, with machine-vision rarity, live marketplace data pulled from OpenSea and Etherscan, and a share-to-X image generator built right in.
Drive
A decade of iPhone car photos wrapped in a used-car-salesman world. Claude identified every vehicle, so the whole collection is searchable by make, year, and model — plus contests, an infomercial “TV,” and collector maps.
The Invitation
Proof that you can turn a body of work into an explorable ecosystem. DM me if you want to build one — and everything I used lives in the Vibe Tools database on allships.co.
A manifesto in support of relentless curiosity and the embrace of the unknown.
The Multiplier
Tracing my life through every wave of technology since the 1980s — TV, the family landline, the AOL disc, MySpace, Tumblr — to one idea: each new tool multiplies everything you already know and can do.
The Craft
Photography is never mastered, only expanded. Every new technique is another word in a visual vocabulary, and the combinations are as endless as games of chess.
The Unlock
Vibe coding finally lets me turn my two-in-the-morning ideas into reality over a cup of coffee — like the Python scripts that spin my thousand WINDOWS into infinite fractal grids.
The Charge
To every artist who feels crowded out: resist the urge to disengage with this technology. Harness its power instead, and make the impossible real.
My favorite co-creations with Claude
- 01ALLSHIPS.COcommunity · platformThe creative community built on a simple idea: a rising tide raises all ships.
- 02NYC RESTAURANT MAPallships · interactiveAn interactive, isometric map of the places we gather our creative communities.
- 03ALLSHIPS EVENTSallships · irlIRL experiences are essential for forming true human connection — connect online, reinforce relationships over shared bread and levity. Dining clubs, gallery shows, social events, and more.
- 04VIBE TOOLSallships · toolsA curated, searchable database of AI tools and platforms for developers and creators.
- 05DAVEKRUGMAN.COMportfolio · siteMy central source of truth — photography, writing, and digital art, all under one roof.
- 06MEET WITH DAVEbooking · toolMy Calendly killer — open time slots light up like windows, synced live to my calendar.
- 07WINDOWS // NYCphotography · interactiveA living archive of one thousand New York windows, explorable down to the pane — a cross section of the island at the center of the world.
- 08BUILDINGS // NYCdata · ownershipEvery building mapped to who holds it — and to every window inside.
- 09DRIVEgenerative · motionA photographic, typological study of cars with an entire world built atop the scaffolding.
- 10DRIP DROPweb3 · gallery1,111 pictures of rain hitting puddles in Times Square — natural patterns illuminated by corporate billboards, analyzed by machine vision and embedded on the blockchain as fine art objects.