Introductions are hard...

It's a big scary world out there and I'm just a guy. Maybe I can grasp some semblance of control by curating my own quaint little cyber-establishment? We shall see. This site is meant to serve as my professional profile, artistic portfolio, and virtual hangout space, and I hope you'll make yourself comfy and stick around awhile.

Confronted with unemployment for the first time in my adult life, 2025 has supplied me with more than my fair share of free time to waste and ponder my own existence. I thought perhaps this website can be an outlet for some of my daily feelings, shower thoughts, and persistent anxieties.

First off, my background. My name is Shae and I've been doing art in a career capacity for about three years now, but the ghosts of Jobs Past will tell you that I've been making art my business for much longer than that. In school, teachers will reprimand you for doodling on the margins of your homework, but in the real world, my insistence to stray from the main objective and maintain a laser-like focus on aesthetics has actually awarded me quite kindly. Art was never in my job title at first, but I always found myself there anyway. As a retail guest service rep, I found contentment meticulously creating hand-drawn break schedules, over-designing the whiteboard we used to keep track of online orders, and in my down time, drawing pictures on sticky notes or receipts. Later, hosting at a local gastropub, you were more than likely to find me covered in chalk after finishing my latest sandwich board masterpiece in exchange for the daily shift meal. Over the years I fell in love with typography, branding, merchandise, and the idea that you could tell so much of a story in a single image - without the consumer even knowing they were reading a story in the first place.

Finally, in 2022 I happened across a job as an administrative assistant for a local nonprofit. I kept track of event attendees, scheduled meetings, and analysed a whole lot of data. When people asked what I did for work, I would usually say "ya know copy paste? yeah, that's what I do". It was riveting stuff. And then came a pivot. As the story goes, my company was gearing up for our annual event, attended by 500+ students and professionals from the region. We were working with a marketing firm who decided last minute that they no longer had capacity to provide design work for our event, and so the baton was passed on to me. I was terrified and overthought every step of the way, but a couple short months later, I was unrolling ten foot long banners and unpacking t-shirts with my designs on them. Seeing my work in action was exhilarating and I knew I would never go back to assistant life and the copy-paste of it all. To be a little cliche, I had found my calling.

After that, I was determined to cram art into every possible nook and cranny of what I did. I love nothing more than to start a piece with nothing more than an outline in mind, then to take off running and see where it takes me. I'm always looking for ways to keep learning and improving. I think the mark of a good artist, for better or for worse, is a constant dissatisfaction with your own work. The gears never stop turning as I develop my style and refine my approach.

A little bit about me: I have a strong disdain for injustice, cold emails, networking events, and other corporate nonsense; but I love community, culture, and genuine human connection. I value authenticity and originality, and music and art of all kinds are constantly inspiring me. Looking ahead, I am eager to do even more with my work and continue to prove myself as an artist. I want to make tangible things you can hold in your hand. I want to be surrounded by vibrant colours and those who enjoy them. I hope you'll join me as I embark upon the next chapter of my artistic and professional journey, and if any of what I've written here resonates with you, I hope you'll reach out and we can work together in some capacity. Thank you for intercepting this shout into the void. Until next time,

- Shae (they/them)