Insights for cultivating an internal ecosystem where cancer cannot thrive.

A personal piece inspired by the following quote: “I have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being. I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time.” James Baldwin

A personal piece on the theme of memory. “Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.” Tennessee Williams

A personal piece on the theme of memory. “People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.” Eckhart Tolle.

Personal work on the theme of Memory. “One lives in the hope of becoming a memory” Antonio Porchia.

A personal essay. Nearly 20 years later the author comes froward with sexual violence inflicted on her by the late Peter Beard.

The early identification of young adults at high risk for schizophrenia is essential for their successful treatment. How can we find and help them?

Ketamine has been used in the psychiatric community to treat depression but its exploding in queer communities where high rates of loneliness and rejection often lead to depression and other challenging conditions.

Queer users are also staring down the dark side, including high tolerance and dependency, the risk of deadly fentanyl contamination and physical side effects which can be fatal.

Experts say in 10-15 years we'll have a new "opioid crisis", but it will be Ketamine.

Canada Post released these Holiday 2022 stamps with three birds that remain with us through the long winter months. The Cardinal, Grosbeak and Bluejay. Their brilliant colours and visits to backyard feeders brighten the season, and like other birds and animals, they can bring us meaningful messages, which vary by culture or tradition.

“Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation” by Maud Newton

The author’s attempt to seek answers to personally troubling questions about her white Southern family’s role in the slave trade….

“I came into being through a kind of homegrown eugenics project. My parents married not for love but because they believed they would have smart children together.” Her father was both an Ivy League graduate and a white supremacist who extolled the virtue of slavery and covered the brown faces in the child Maud’s books with nail polish because “birds of a feather flock together.”

The eclectic Nashville based singer-songwriter, activist, and collaborator ( @Zedd ) returns to her country roots in her third album. Maren’s songs explore concepts concerned with the struggle to find a higher moral purpose in an industry that doesn't make that easy and the quest to speak difficult truths.

The hummingbirds are a direct reference to a song on this album, which is a tribute to her young son.

This image was created for Rolling Stone. It recounted the nefarious manoeuvrings of agents claiming to represent the best interest of their Only Fans clients, all the while bilking them of their considerable earnings.

Cover of The New York Times Book Review. "Oh William!" by Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge). "I am not invisible no matter how deeply I feel that I am.", spoke to me and inspired the concept for this image.

A beautiful and poignant essay, on the toll of slowly losing a loved one,

"Grief I have learned over the last few years, is like a stained-glass window in my mind, imbuing every ray of light with different shades of sadness..."

The Untold Story of the Portuguese Diplomat Who Saved Thousands From the Nazis

As the German army marched across France, Aristides de Sousa Mendes faced a choice: obey his government or follow his conscience—and risk everything

“From the early days of the pandemic, researchers worried that the heightened stresses of lockdown and the limits on mental health care would intensify the risks of eating disorders for adolescents and young adults.

Eating disorders among young people have exploded across the nation…”

My contribution to the Friendship Friday series in celebration of H&W's 31st anniversary.

In 1764, French astronomer Charles Messier cataloged the great spiral galaxy known as Andromeda Galaxy as part of The Messier objects, a set of astronomical objects, from star clusters and nebulae to galaxies.

The Andromeda Galaxy, known as Messier 31 or M31, was formed roughly 10 billion years ago from the collision and subsequent merger of smaller protogalaxies.

A youth pastor once tasked with judging the modesty of swimsuits admits on Facebook how he looks back regretfully on his past stance. The (unexpected) result was a series of vicious attacks from religious leaders, men especially. Link to article

The real impact of this pandemic will be unknown for quite some time.

A Collection of Mysterious Stories About the 5 Senses.

Whether it’s the taste of a comfort meal, or the feeling of a heavenly hand, these sensory accounts are nothing short of miraculous.

Recently published feature in 3x3 Magazine.
Interviewed by Mark Fox @designisplay.com
“The quality of inscrutability, of an image that is simultaneously clear yet veiled, is a persistent feature of Sandra’s work, and it prompts not simply passive interest, but active contemplation. This invitation to contemplation is one of the recurring pleasures of Sandra’s work, and I find myself poring over the details of her illustrations in an effort to decipher the external cues of deeply internal and private states of being.”

Ibogaine turned Dimitri’s life around, and AA helped him stay off opioids. In the age of Covid, how some in recovery are leaning into the new psychedelics revolution.

For each person who dies of Covid-19, experts say there are at least nine newly bereaved and at least 37,000 children in the United States have lost a parent to Covid-19 so far. And although grief is a universal experience, it can contribute to lifelong racial inequality, as Black Americans experience the loss of loved ones far more frequently and earlier in life than white Americans, contributing to differences in mental and physical health outcomes.

“Many of the mental health experts I spoke to expressed concern that once the British population is fully vaccinated, the government will have its happy ending. It will recast its pandemic response as a victory and will invite everyone to move on psychologically from this devastating pandemic year. That the speed of the vaccine roll-out is indeed cause for celebration does not detract from our need, as individuals and as a nation, to begin to confront our losses, to find ways to “grow through grief”. If the UK does record a surge in serious mental illness in the coming months, it will not only be a result of the pandemic, but also the product of years of austerity, the swingeing cuts to mental health and community services. Just as the physical effects of the virus have exposed how inequality has weakened British bodies, the emotional aftermath of the pandemic may be felt more forcefully in the UK because so many people were vulnerable to begin with. Perhaps our grief will force us to confront these social injustices.”

Books: The Blackwell Sisters and the Harrowing History of Modern Medicine

The Blackwell sisters opened the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women, which went on to treat more than a million patients in its first hundred years.

Their degrees made them pioneers, but the sisters pointedly rejected feminism.

Taxidermy is a Metaphor for Our Time
How a kitschy art became a symbol of sex, loss, and self-invention.

“Mostly Dead Things” the debut novel by Kristen Arnett, taxidermy is a family calling and a mourning ritual.

A timely piece published just prior to the 2020 US election.
The author recalls the same date 4 years ago.
“Remembering election night 2016, when the world changed in the space of one symphony.”

How Plastic Plagues Us for a feature about the dire state of our oceans and specifically the effects of plastics on seabirds.

Holiday 2020 Stamps created for Canada Post. The project involved a lot of research and an interesting dive into the meaning of the elements artists have chosen to include in the Nativity, including the presence of animals. The inclusion of the ox and donkey, dates back to at least the 4th century and is thought to illustrate Isaiah’s prophecy “The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master’s crib. “

After almost a year of working on this project these animals are still my favourite part.

The Big Vaping Dilemma.

A Box of Memories

The author recounts her emotional reaction to the discovery of a treasure box and ultimately and emotional powder keg. In it were letters her mother wrote to her during the months when she was in a psychiatric hospital before she returned home and died by suicide.

Portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald inspired by this quote by Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast, “His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless “

“Take My Breath Away” Coral Snake Full Beard. Coral snakes have a powerful neurotoxin that paralyzes the breathing muscles.

Personal Series

“Handsome Prick”. Porcupine Full Beard. Porcupine quills, while pretty to look at from a distance, are cleverly designed by nature to include a microscopic barb that burrows deep into flesh. Those quills can travel through the body and puncture internal organs and most likely guaranteeing no second date.

Personal Series

“Cone of Silence” Cone Snail Goatee. A few microliters of cone snail toxin is powerful enough to kill 10 people. Once the poison enters your system, you may not feel symptoms for a few minutes or days. Instead of pain, you could feel numbness or tingling, before everything goes silent.

Personal series

PENCanada Annual Report 2018/2019

PEN International has focused on the shelter that freedom of expression ought to offer women. A manifesto adopted at the 2017 Congress condemns the “legal, physical, sexual,
psychological, verbal and digital” violence levelled at women writers and journalists around the world, and warns that “the act of silencing a person [denies] their existence. It is a kind of death.” The Women’s Manifesto concludes that “Humanity is both wanting and bereft without the full and free expression of women’s creativity and knowledge.” This report pays tribute to five women who embody the value, and fragility, of that creativity and knowledge. Our title comes from a minor political skirmish in the US senate. In 2017 Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, read parts of a 30-year-old letter which condemned Jeff Sessions, the candidate for US attorney general, for using his office “to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.” Warren was warned that the United States Senate rules forbid imputing to a colleague “any conduct or motive that is unworthy or unbecoming.” Unfazed, she continued. After successfully moving to silence her for the rest of the hearing – more than 30 hours – Majority Leader Mitch McConnell justified himself thus: “Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

“The Invaluable Science Behind a Tiny Tropical Fish”
We share 80 percent of our “disease genes” with the zebrafish. Here’s a look at how scientists are using the model organism to study cancer, aging, brain disorders, and race.

Columbine 20 Years Later
Anxiety and depression are increasingly plaguing American adolescents. Understanding why may help reduce teen suicides–and mass shootings

The Imp of the Perverse
Two centuries after his birth, Edgar Allan Poe
has become our era’s premier storyteller.

Toxic Religion
A feature about a weekend retreat for former fundamentalists
that gives them the strength they need to rebuild their lives.

The Maternal Brain
Cover for the Boston Globe Magazine on the wonder of the maternal brain. “Motherhood brings the most dramatic brain changes of a woman’s life.”

The Maternal Brain
Full page for the Boston Globe Magazine. “In the newborn months, a mother’s interaction with her baby serves as further stimulus to link her brain quite tangibly to her baby’s. 

The Maternal Brain
Last in the series for the Boston Globe Magazine on the maternal brain. “A surge of oxytocin at childbirth allows a woman quite literally to sync to her baby through a coordination of biology (synchronized brain responses and heart rates) and behaviour (matching responses in gaze, touch, and vocalizations).”

Poisoned Ivy
The Chronicle asked 5 female professors from various institutions to illustrate their experiences or thoughts on this issue. 

The Gift
For a feature exploring the hopes and fears of a same sex couple attempting to become parents through a surrogate.

Darkness Into Light
A feature documenting a personal account of depression.

Einstein in Japan
An account of Albert Einstein's travels through and fascination with Japan prior to WWII.

2 out of 3 People See Depression at Work.
Here's How to Keep Your Team Well.

Your employees' mental health can affect your bottom line. here's how to help them--and your business.

Sexual Assault on Campus: A Special Report
On campuses across New Jersey, more students are coming forward about sexual misconduct, but confusion remains.

The Remarkable Influence of A Wrinkle in Time
How the Madeleine L’Engle novel liberated young adult literature.

How can schools cultivate a greater sense of overall safety, in both physical and emotional terms? This feature explores this pressing topic, offering ideas and strategies for ensuring that students and teachers feel protected, supported, and free to learn.

Personal piece exploring textured veils over men's faces.

Personal piece exploring textured veils over men's faces.

Personal piece exploring textured veils over men's faces.

Personal piece exploring textured veils over men's faces.

Personal work from the series Black and Blue.

"Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; 
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind"

by William Wordsworth

Personal work.

“Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll.
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.
Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.”
Lord Bryon.

My contribution to RESIST!, curated by Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman. 

Personal work from the series Black and Blue.

"Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment thither,"

by William Wordsworth

Personal Series exploring loss and inspired by the poem “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” by Willian Wordsworth.

Personal work from the series Black and Blue.

"But yet I know, where'er I go, 
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth."

by William Wordsworth

A personal piece created in reaction to the USA withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.

A feature about the effect that artificial intelligence can have in analytic models and how it can show bias that might not be intended.

Caring for Syrian Refugees
For an article about Canadian nurses proving care for Syrian refugees. Canada welcomed over 25,000 Syrian refugees in 2017.

For an article on constitutional law dedicated to Indigenous issues

A personal work loosely inspired by Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. 

Personal work from the series Black and Blue.

“By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more“

by William Wordsworth.

A personal series exploring various seaweed species in place of human hair.

A personal series exploring various seaweed species in place of human hair.

A personal series exploring various seaweed species in place of human hair.

A personal series exploring various seaweed species in place of human hair.

Eurasian Collared Dove
Personal work.

A Day In The Life Of A Lawyer At The Border
An immigration lawyer recounts his experience with parents and children trying to enter the US at the southern border.

Yearning
Restless longing is at the core of the human condition, urging us onward through life. What happens when it veers off course?