for over 10 years, I have poured my heart, soul, and many many hours (on average, 5 hours / piece, but sometimes 40-60 hours, occasionally, 200+...) into crafting many, many... ...image files.
just. pushing colored pixels around in a 2D Array.
I used to exclusively use Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom graphics tablet + pen; recently I have almost entirely switched to using Procreate on an iPad + Apple Pencil for everything.
I have repeatedly entrusted these intricately crafted image files to various large corporations, asking them to hold onto my little trays of colored pixels, to make them available to the public, to share them with the right people on my behalf.

this experience has been very meaningful to my growth as a person. every silly little image file I published onto the internet created a window through which people around the world could see me... and they did!
people even went out of their way to let me know that they saw me! and that they liked me anyway!! I will always be grateful for this.

BUT THE LARGE CORPORATION-GOVERNED PLATFORMS THAT WE USE TO INTERMEDIATE THESE EXPERIENCES... my gratitude for them is stretching thin.
I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED, mANIPULATED and DISEMPOWERED TOO MANY TIMES!!
in the process of centralizing my work for this site, i learned that i have felt this way about social media for at least 8 years! (e.g., see this comic from 2017 -- that year, my sister and I both had work featured on Cartoon Network's social media accounts.
you'd think this would be a good thing, and it was cool, but the effect the attention had on me mentally and emotionally was tangible and disquieting.
and (more importantly) in my work as a human-computer interaction researcher [ex] I have talked to so many artists who have been repeatedly betrayed and disempowered by the platforms they entrust their artwork to, and depend upon for their creative livelihoods -- something I am privileged to not have to worry about in the same way.

so it is about time I treated my 10-year compilation of image files --- yes, even the cringey emo baby-queer coming-of-age ones --- with the respect and care they deserve. I have started by building them a home.

the file tree at left mirrors a folder on my computer.
to post, I shall put the new file(s) into the folder, then sync it-- and then it will appear here and you could look at it also if you wanted.
I will probably tell social media about this occasionally, but not all of the times.
hehehe maybe i'll hide things in here like unhinged manifesto mode blog posts hehehehe
so yeah the viewing of shm's art will not be a smooth and seamless art-viewing experience. but frankly. i do not want this for us. i lovingly hope for more art experiences that are bumpy and just chock full of seams that we can fall into and sit inside and maybe hold each other within. i think art is worth slowing down for.

(thanks to the brilliant sophia liu who is definitely responsible for my commitment to frictive, seamful, hypertext-y interface design. also whenever i use the word intertwingled (which i definitely do on this site) that is also their fault)

(i do want to work on improving the accessibility & usability & fun of this site, e.g., writing alt text, adding more art and hiding fun secrets... i plan to add a feature where you can share art with me, too...) this will take me some time. ty for ur patience. reach out if you have feedback/ideas!
I'm also so excited to make interactive / strangely formatted / deeply inconvenient digital art now that I am no longer cONSTRAINED within the fLATTENing, CARCERAL REGIMENTATION of sOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMs and their FOUCAULDIAN CONSTRAINTS oN CREATIVE MEDIA

thank you for reading, for looking, and for maybe even seeing me.
love and sparkles,

shm, september 2025