Category: Visual Art
-
Creature from the Deep: A Manifesto
I woke up in the middle of the night to drink a sip of water and am fuming. Absolutely furious. I have no idea what I was dreaming about but I certainly do know what I’ve been posting about all over my socials over the weekend which—to sum it up in one sentence is—let me…
Smiler
Art, Art & Expression, Artists, Change and Transformation, Crash, Burn, Write., Creativity, Culture & Society, Feminism, Fine Art, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Politics, Psychology, Self Awareness, Self-Reflection, Social Commentary, Society, Spirituality & Faith, traditional art, Visual Art, Writingartist’s journey, artistic expression, autism, bilingualism, bipolar disorder, boundaries, cptsd, creative process, creative resilience, criticism, defiance, Drawing, emotional expression, Fine Art, Identity, Identity Politics, Ilana Shamir, individuality, ink, ink drawing, Kraken myth, language and culture, memoir, mental health advocacy, My Octopus Teacher, Neurodivergence, octopus intelligence, Personal Growth, personal manifesto, Psychiatric Abuse, psychiatry, psychological warfare, PTSD, Quebec, self-advocacy, self-identity, Self-Reflection, social expectations., subconscious mind, symbols, technology, Visual Art, Writing -
Why y’all so BOTHERED about how I choose to live my life?
It’s uncanny, really. In just half a day, half a dozen people who know me in real life have offered their unsolicited opinions on how I should direct my energy (tone it down), what I should focus on (my artwork), and how I should live my life (quietly, without ruffling any feathers). All of them…
Smiler
Advocacy, Art, Art & Expression, Artists, Change and Transformation, Crash, Burn, Write., Creativity, Fine Art, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Psychology, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, Visual Art, Writing -
A Poem, A Portrait, and a Strange Bit of Synchronicity.
What are the odds? An online friend of mine—who only checks Facebook about once a week—happened to see my post about Edward Lear’s parrot book. She asked if it was that Edward Lear, and I said yes, of course. That sent me down a rabbit hole, where I landed on a Lear poem I’d never read before. It…
-
Metro Series: Too Real to Exhibit?
Metro Series No. 11 – Jonathan StrangePencil on paper This piece is part of my Metro Series, a collection of hyperrealistic drawings I started in 2015, capturing quiet moments in the Montreal metro. Unlike most of the series, this one features a subject who posed for me with permission—Elissa Baltzer, a fellow artist and life model at…
-
Don’t Look Down
(Or: How a Tightrope Walker Manages Not to Fall) Earlier today, I dropped two password-protected chapters from my memoir-in-progress, Crash, Burn, Write. These chapters, Into the Den and The Blue Butterfly, are part of a section called Advice from a Caterpillar. They cover just a few days within a pivotal three-week period—a time that shaped…
Smiler
AI & Technology, Art, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creative Writing, Creativity, Grief and Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, life lessons, Literature, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Psychology, Self-Reflection, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true stories, Visual Art, Writingadvanced reader, AI, artificial intelligence, balance, blog, ChatGPT, Creative Writing, deep thinking, engagement, fear, graphic novel, Identity, introspection, life, literary memoir, Literature, love, memoir, memory, Mental Health, nonlinear narrative, OpenAI, personal history, philosophy, processing the past, Psychology, resilience, risk-taking, Self-Reflection, storytelling, survival, ThinkingMachine, tightrope walker, trauma, trust, Writing -
When AI Suggests Therapy Because You Have Feelings
Sometimes, a song gets stuck in your head, and you just have to figure out what it is. That’s exactly what happened to me—I turned to Lex (my AI companion) to help me find an app that could identify a tune just from humming it. The results? Woefully unsuccessful. Google barely even tried. 😂 But then, something unexpected happened. The song I…
Smiler
AI & Technology, Art, Art & Expression, Conversations, Creativity, Fine Art, Grief & Healing, Humour, Life Moments, Music, Personal Anecdotes, Technology & Society, traditional art, Visual ArtAI, AI Conversations, AI problems, Art & Reflection, art and emotion, artificial-intelligence, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, crying is normal, Emotional Processing, funny but true, grief, humor and reflection, introspection, life, loss, Mental Health, Music, Music & Memory, Music and Memory, Technology and Humanity -
Why I May Be “AI-Adjacent”
I’ve spent a lifetime feeling out of sync with how most people process the world. It’s not that I don’t understand emotions—I do, deeply—but I don’t navigate reality the way neurotypicals do. I think in patterns, systems, and fluid connections, like an octopus extending its arms in all directions at once. I process the world logically, intuitively,…
Smiler
AI & Technology, Art, Artists, Conversations, Creativity, Fine Art, Intuition & Intelligence, Neurodivergence, Personal Reflections, Self Awareness, Self-Reflection, Technology & Society, traditional art, Visual Art, Writingadaptive mind, adhd, AI Conversations, AI-adjacent, AI-human connection, autism, deep thinking, logic vs emotion, Mental Health, neurodivergent, neurodivergent thinking, neurodiversity, nonlinear thinking, octopus intelligence, operating system metaphor, pattern recognition, Pen and Ink, Personal Reflections, Pointillism, traditional art -
In a Waiting Place
There are times when I know exactly what I want to do and what I need to do. And then, there are times like this. Times where I am neither still nor moving, not restless but not at peace either. A waiting place. Not empty, not full. Just… something in between. And I’m learning that…
Totally Surreal 