Can AI replace human creativity? In this third essay of the Crafting the Future series, author, artist, and speaker Galitta Tassa shares the unexpected moment AI made her question her own artistic value—and the deeper realization that transformed the way she sees creativity, technology, and what it means to remain fully human.
Crafting the Future Chapter 1
“The book is almost ready. All it needs now are the illustrations,” my editor said with a smile.
I couldn’t help smiling.
She had no idea that the search for those illustrations had begun years earlier.
In fact, the search for the face of Queen Sheba had become one of the most extraordinary creative journeys of my life.
When I first finished writing The Road to Malchuta, that was then called The Princess Who Went to Look For The Moon, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: this story needed images. Not just beautiful pictures, but images that could reveal something words alone could not. I wasn’t looking for the face of an ancient queen. I was searching for a face that could speak to humanity’s future.
I spoke with illustrators from different countries. Some were incredibly talented—one of them was even my favorite illustrator, someone whose work I deeply admired. I hoped that if I explained the book’s feeling well enough, they would see what I saw.
They couldn’t.
Every artist created something beautiful.
None of them created her.
“I was frenetically searching for the face of Sheba.”
הדרך למלכותה מסע המנהיגות של נסיכת שבא נכתב על ידי גליתה טאסה
Looking back, I realize I wasn’t searching for Queen Sheba at all. I was searching for myself. Being a Yemenite Jewish woman in Holland made me want to understand my place in the world. Coming from a culture influenced by Africa, India, and Arabia shaped the music I made, the stories I told, and parts of my spirituality. I was looking for an image of the human being we are capable of becoming.
After a while I realized something uncomfortable: perhaps I wasn’t looking for someone else’s interpretation. Perhaps I was being invited to discover her myself.
Long before writing books, I had studied graphic design and painting. As a teenager, I spent countless hours drawing, painting, and experimenting with colors and forms. Those creative muscles had been quietly waiting for years.
So I picked up my pencil.
At first I simply sketched faces. Then another face.
And another.
I found myself asking strange questions. What happens if I soften the eyes?
What happens if I bring together African beauty with Arabic elegance? What if there is something Mediterranean? Something ancient? Something timeless?
Little by little, I stopped looking for the face of an ancient queen.
I began searching for the face of the feminine future. Every drawing taught me something new.
Some women looked fierce. Others carried immense compassion. Some seemed playful, while others radiated the quiet confidence of someone who no longer needed to prove anything.
Without realizing it, I wasn’t just creating illustrations. I was entering a conversation. Each face became a mirror reflecting another aspect of feminine wisdom.
Looking back now, I understand that I wasn’t inventing Queen Sheba.
She was patiently introducing herself to me.
The remarkable thing is that this search lasted for years.
Not days.
Not weeks.
Years.
People often imagine creativity as a lightning strike—a brilliant idea arriving fully formed.
My experience has been almost the opposite.
Music sometimes appears unexpectedly. A melody lands somewhere deep inside me, and I rush to record it before it disappears.
Painting has always asked something different. It asks me to slow down. To observe. To listen.
To return the next day, and the day after that.
Most meaningful creations in my life have arrived this way—not through certainty, but through patience. Not by forcing an answer, but by staying curious long enough for something unexpected to reveal itself.
As I continued drawing, something surprising happened. The search for one woman’s face opened the door to an entire inner landscape.
Without planning it, I found myself exploring feminine archetypes and qualities that would later become the foundation for projects like The Thirteen – Sound Healing of Thirteen Grandmothers and a design I call Happy Goddessa.
Looking back, I can see that creativity was already leading me somewhere I couldn’t yet understand.
Then something almost humorous happened.
After years of searching, drawing, and finally choosing the face that, for me, embodied Queen Sheba…
the publisher selected a different portrait for the cover. I remember feeling disappointed.
Until a few months later, when I gave the finished book to my two nieces.
They looked at the cover and immediately said, “She looks like a Yemenite bride… like us.”
In that moment, the journey came full circle. Without intending it, the story had found its way back home.
Then another unexpected conversation began. One of the editors looked at the book and said, “This should become an animated film.”My first thought was pure panic. “That would take years…”
Out of curiosity more than conviction, I opened an AI image generator.
I wondered if it might help me communicate the visual world I had carried inside me for so long.
To my surprise…it did.
Not perfectly.
Not instead of drawing.
But differently.
AI wasn’t replacing my imagination.
It was becoming another creative instrument. Like a paintbrush. Like a camera. Like a musical instrument.
It didn’t remove the years of searching.
It gave me another language for continuing the conversation.
And suddenly I understood something that has stayed with me ever since.
I don’t have to choose between tradition and technology.
Every creative medium carries its own frequency. Its own limitations. Its own possibilities.
The real question is not whether we use AI. The real question is:
Who are we becoming while we create with it?
A question for you
Have you ever worked on something for years before you truly understood why it mattered?
Or discovered that a new technology didn’t replace your creativity—but revealed another part of it?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
In Part Two, I’ll explore what this experience taught me about imagination, AI, and why the future of creativity may depend less on technology than on the quality of our humanity.
Crafting the Future is an ongoing essay series exploring creativity, humanity, storytelling, and what helps us become fully ourselves—and fully alive—in an age of rapid technological change.
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