Chronically clever; chronic pain turned creative.
Hello art loving friends! I’m Jess and I’ve been playing with art since I was maybe five or six years old. So it didn’t take me long after high school to decide to get my Bachelors of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal. Unfortunately only a couple years after graduation I developed a rare migraine condition called New Daily Persistent Headaches. Which basically means a headache/migraine hits you out of the blue one day and never goes away, it’s there when you wake up, when you are asleep…always. It’s safe to say I lived many years in a cave of darkness with audiobooks as my best friends. Finally in year four I got that diagnosis of NDPH and while there’s no known cure, medication brought the pain levels to an actual functioning degree, most days that is. Slowly I started creating little crafts to pass the time, and often I would make greeting cards for friends and family. So in the last couple years I’ve been able to create a bit more steadily and hopefully the improvements and inspiration can only go up from there! I find when I get inspired by a new creation I can set aside my pain for a little while and just get lost, it may come back with a vengeance but it’s always worth the reprieve. I love working with watercolours, pencil crayons and ink mostly, as it gives me the most control and I love how the colours pop and blend perfectly. While I may have started this journey with greeting cards, I’ve gone on to create much more, including bookmarks, symptom trackers and colouring pages! My love of art is endless but unfortunately due to this lifelong condition it has taken many years to be here creating again and it is therefore a very slow labour of love. Thank you for visiting and I hope to see you again soon!
To keep up to date on my more recent designs you can follow Chronically Clever on Instagram @ChronicallyClever.