A daughter turned her mother's art PDF into a living online catalogue in 7 hours
Working from another country, a daughter used AI tools to turn her artist mother's static PDF into a public Notion catalogue in about seven hours.
This is a story about love, legacy and a few smart tools. When her mother, visual artist Mae de la Torre, found her catalogue overwhelming to manage in the early stages of Alzheimer's, her daughter built her a home for her work online. She did it in about seven hours, from another country, and shows how simple AI can carry real human weight.
Mae de la Torre Digital Catalogue
Before
Her mother had spent decades making powerful art, but as she began navigating the early stages of Alzheimer's, managing and presenting her catalogue became overwhelming. The work sat in a static PDF with no system for sharing it. Mother and daughter live in different countries, and the usual routes of manual digitisation, website builds or hiring designers felt slow, expensive and emotionally exhausting.
“She had the art. She had the legacy.”
In their own words
The turning point
She chose to treat AI as a partner rather than a shortcut. She used Claude to pull images and details out of the PDF, built a clean CSV database through careful prompting, and connected it by API so it could be reorganised. ChatGPT became her co-pilot for the structure, the views and how the catalogue should feel to a visitor.
“This was not just automation.”
In their own words
After
Today her mother's work lives online in a clean, accessible Notion catalogue. What would have taken days by hand took about seven hours. Mother and daughter now refine it together remotely, as artist and curator.
What it lets people do
The catalogue gives an artist's lifetime of work a clear public home that anyone can browse. It lets a family spread across two countries keep curating that legacy together, without needing a developer or designer.
What they learned
She learned that structured prompting can turn a static archive into a living system, and that small, simple AI tools can have an outsized human impact. Most of all, she saw that speed was never the real point: the point was giving her mother back a sense of agency over her own work.
“Optimisation is not just about speed — it’s about restoring agency”
In their own words
Mae de la Torre Digital Catalogue was built during AI Mastery.
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Written 15 February 2026 Submitted by the storyteller
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