Of course, this debate has become even more heated, with celebrities and creators throwing their hats in the ring. George Lucas recently likened AI sceptics to luddites clinging to horse-drawn carriages and described AI as the ‘future of film-making’, whilst Reese Witherspoon has been encouraging women to learn how to use AI.

On the other hand, many high profile individuals like Keanu Reeves, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Stephen Fry have been outspoken about the unethical and invasive nature of AI. Cate Blanchett has even stated that she’s “deeply concerned” about the adverse impact AI can have on humanity as a whole.

The main argument in favour of AI seems to be that there have always been technological and societal advancements that have been rejected by those resistant to change. As humans, however, we’re very adaptable. Arguably, the changes that have made life easier and more pleasant for humans have also had a detrimental effect on the natural world. Compared to our ancestors, we’re currently living like kings, whilst a mass extinction is going on as we speak and the climate crisis is literally killing thousands of people around the globe. Perhaps those luddites would be saying “I told you so” right now.

As a creative, my stance on AI has always been rather sceptical, particularly given the nature of how generative AI is built and trained. The majority of my opinions, however, have been built on my own research, as well as interviewing experts and professors on the topic for our podcast, Unquestionable. Admittedly, one of my own friends has worked on building the AI industry for a number of years and has given me his own opinion on it (spoiler alert; it ain’t good).

What even is ‘AI’?

First of all, AI as a concept is broad and vague.

Artificial intelligence in some form or another has been knocking around for years, decades even. AI started creeping into our awareness during the 1940s in mathematical models and introduced as a specific field in the 1950s. Alan Turing published a paper in the journal Mind, asking ‘can machines think?’ and whether a machine could convincingly imitate human conversation. Fast forward to the 1980s and AI started being used in the corporate world, creating a billion-dollar industry. Slowly, the use of AI started trickling out into our everyday usage in online algorithms, Siri, fingerprint and facial recognition technology etc.

In 2015 OpenAI was founded, followed by companies like Anthropic and Midjourney. OpenAI developed a chatbot - ChatGPT - which was initially deemed ‘too dangerous’ to release to the general public. At this point, the Eliza effect had already been studied way back in 1966 and acknowledged the dangers of a chatbot with supposed ‘human intelligence’ for those interacting with it.

Despite a mutual agreement amongst those in the industry that releasing a chatbot would be potentially dangerous and unethical, OpenAI went ahead and released ChatGPT to the public in 2022. It reached 1 million users in 5 days and 100 million in 2 months - the fastest-growing consumer application in history. People started using it to write emails, brainstorm ideas, debug code and a thousand other mundane tasks.

This type of AI - the AI that is now used by millions of people all over the world - is generative AI.

Today, ChatGPT has become a heavily-used and relied upon program. People use it as a therapist, a doctor, a personal assistant. Many controversies have already started cropping up - ChatGPT feeding into people’s delusions and psychoses, convincing people to commit suicide, increasing isolation and loneliness to name a few. In 2023, Anthropic released Claude, an AI model trained to follow a set of ‘principles’, positioning Claude as the safety-focused alternative to ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, Midjourney, a program developed to generate realistic photos, now blurs the lines between reality and misinformation. AI-generated photos are constantly going viral, with people becoming more confused and sceptical about what is real and what isn’t. A whole host of AI video generators have also started cropping up, making the problem worse and, naturally, people are now speaking up about the pervasive and worrying effect of AI on the world.

Although the EU introduced legislation in 2024, banning 'unacceptable risk' AI (social scoring, indiscriminate surveillance etc.), heavily regulating 'high risk' AI, and requiring transparency for generative AI, the industry still to this day remains heavily unregulated throughout the world.

So, do we just need to ‘get with the times’?

Let’s start with the notion that AI is just another technological advancement that we need to either accept or be left behind.

I’ve seen AI being compared to electricity, cars, cameras, even the trusty pen. In some ways, AI is a technological advancement, which seemingly makes our lives more convenient, detects and cures cancer and could potentially solve climate change. What’s not to love?

There are some core differences between AI (specifically generative AI and the more pervasive AI systems we use in our everyday lives) and technological advancements that we’ve seen in previous decades; the environmental impact, the economic impact, the ethics of AI and even the biological impact on us as humans.

How is AI trained?

One of the biggest arguments against generative AI, particularly within the creative industries, is that it is built and trained by ‘scraping’ data from websites. Before AI, this process was known as simply web-scraping or data extraction.

Naturally, computers can’t pluck information from thin air. It’s now common knowledge that when you type a question into ChatGPT or any other chatbot, it will ‘scrape’ the internet; websites, forums, etc., to generate an answer.

This seems harmless enough when you’re looking for a recipe, writing an email or trying to research a topic. Save for Susie’s online recipe blog, which is now getting half as many hits, surely it just saves you time?

Well, whilst generative AI programs are built from taking online data, tools that generate AI ‘art’ are built by scraping human-made art without consent; writing is generated by scraping authors’ work and videos are made by scraping videographers’ work. Anybody who has put their work onto the internet to share with others in good faith is now being plagiarised daily, by programs that scrape, take and spit out.

But people have always taken inspiration from other artists!

This is another argument that I’ve seen pop up recently. Many artists over the years have used the age old argument that ‘good artists copy, great artists steal’. Surely this is no different to a computer stealing your work and then churning it out for another to claim?

There’s a fine line between using another artist’s work as inspiration and plagiarising their work entirely. As somebody who has spent most of her life painting, drawing and creating a career as an artist, I’ve learned a great deal about what makes art ‘great’, what draws people to a specific piece of art and why certain artists throughout history are revered.

Each artist has their own story, their own struggles and passions. Art is a reflection of the self and that’s what makes the art industry so eclectic. No two artists’ brush strokes are the same. No two musician’s voices are identical. The only way to view the world through the eyes of your favourite author or poet is by reading their work. Art has a soul, it makes people laugh and cry and feel something.

Reports have now shown that generative AI models that aim to create pieces of original art/music/film, often reproduce existing works and fall below the threshold of originality compared to human-created work. AI systems are literally regurgitating human-made work and calling it original. ‘AI artists’ (if you can call them that) are able claim a piece of plagiarised art as their own with a simple typed instruction. Decades of real-world hard work, skill-building, networking, learning, growing, desperately struggling to put food on the table, all flushed down the toilet at the click of a button.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise - as I stated earlier, computers can’t pluck data out of thin air, so of course the art, music, films and writing that AI is spitting out isn’t original. AI works by scraping data - data is taken from the past. Art is about the future.

Naturally, many creatives are loudly outraged about the sudden influx of AI-generated art, writing, music and film flooding the market. It’s one thing to make a fun little image to send to your friends but now, people are selling AI-generated work as their own.

In 2025, Christie’s ran an ‘AI art’ auction, Augmented Intelligence, which sold over $700,000 worth of AI-generated and AI-assisted artwork. They aimed to showcase how artificial intelligence is not only ‘reshaping creativity’ but also attracting a new generation of collectors and investors. More than 3,000 artists signed an open letter to Christie’s, demanding that the auction be cancelled and calling it an act of ‘mass theft’.

Increasingly, artists are now discovering almost exact replicas of their work being sold on sites such as Temu and ‘AI artists’ are popping up on social media, claiming to sell pieces of art that are almost exact copies of other people’s work. In fact, the more original and unique an artist’s style is, the more noticeable the plagiarism becomes. With no laws in place to prevent this sort of plagiarism, artists are now having to try and protect their own work from being scraped.

Let’s talk about the economy

Whilst creatives are fighting a losing battle against generative AI, others are losing their jobs entirely and being replaced by AI. This can be as literal as being made redundant or as insidious as losing clients gradually over a period of time because they’ve decided to use AI instead.

Either way, this is something we’ve seen time and time again throughout history. During the industrial revolution, many people lost jobs, as machinery started to take over manual labour and, again, when computers emerged, more jobs were lost again. However, whilst some jobs were lost, many jobs that previously hadn’t existed soon emerged, reinstating a state of equilibrium within the economy.

Whilst the AI industry has boomed in recent years, jobs in linguistic programming, AI training, AI ethics, etc. have also emerged. AI has undoubtedly created some new jobs that previously didn’t exist. In fact, some argue that AI could create millions of new jobs.

Let’s hope that’s correct because The World Economic Forum (WEF) has predicted that 92 million jobs will be replaced by AI by 2030. Current statistics also predict that 60-80% of jobs are expected to be automated or transformed by AI by 2050 and women are 3 times more likely to be affected in high income countries. We’re already seeing the effects of AI on the job market, with less and less jobs becoming available in the past 2 years alone.

The problem with such a huge disruption to the economy compared to previous technological advancements is that money that previously would have been redistributed is now going into the pockets of an extremely small number of extremely wealthy AI CEOS, who have made it very publicly known that they do not have the general public’s best interests at heart, let alone that of the natural world.

AI’s impact on the natural world

We’re now seeing AI data centres (the global infrastructure powering AI) popping up all over the world, including the US and the UK.

Data centres not only have an horrific carbon footprint, destroy ecosystems and result in deforestation but they also use ridiculous amounts of clean water for cooling and energy production. In short, data centres could not be worse for the environment. On top of the destructive practices we already partake in as a species, like industrial farming, deforestation and flying private jets, it’s unlikely the planet (and therefore humans) will be able to recover from this amount of resource-draining.

But is it really fair to blame your next door neighbour, who uses ChatGPT to write her emails, or your local bakery for printing out an AI-generated flyer, on the impending doom we’re all facing? Particularly when AI is now being shoved down our throats against our will. Now, our phones and laptops are full of AI features we never asked for and the governments are using AI in for surveillance, healthcare and research. Surely asking Claude a question isn’t going to impact the environment that much?

How much of an impact does using ChatGPT actually have?

Every ChatGPT query, Claude response or Gemini search runs on GPU hardware inside an AI data centre. According to the UN, studies have found that day-to-day usage of AI accounts for roughly 80-90% of total energy demand. Generating a single AI image can require more than a thousand times the energy of simple text classification, while video generation demands even greater resources.

Those who live in close proximity to these AI data centres are already learning the hard way how detrimental they are to the natural world and even to our health. Locals have complained about water now being ‘undrinkable', unbearable noise pollution and negative effects on local eco-systems, such as bees dying. A data centre in Wyoming was recently found to have contaminated the local water system with a deadly bacterium known as Cupriavidus and researchers have found a link between an Amazon data centre in Oregon and a rise in rare cancers and miscarriages. Did we learn nothing from Erin Brockovich?

Speaking of which, Erin Brockovich herself has started reporting on the effects of data centres in the US, creating a map of ‘areas of concern’, including data centres, proposed centres and construction sites.

Share

AI and our wellbeing

Wellbeing has always been something that I’m passionate about and we often talk about health and happiness with experts on Unquestionable. The argument that AI will revolutionise (and indeed already is revolutionising) modern medicine is a fair one. What strikes me, however, is that whilst modern medicine improves, so too does our need for it. It seems like so many facets of our modern lifestyles fly in the face of what our bodies and minds actually need.

Our food is full of chemicals, our cosmetics, cleaning products and even our clothes are dripping in endocrine disruptors. Our air and water is polluted and our soil is lacking in nutrients.

It seems that we’re so used to poison being shoved down our throats and into our minds that we don’t think twice now about the impact of new technologies on our wellbeing. It’s no secret that since smartphones, iPads and television streaming have become staples of our daily lives that we are all now suddenly exhibiting the symptoms of ADHD.

Now, experts are starting to research the effects of AI on our minds. A study conducted by MIT recently found that AI use actually reprograms the brain, leading to cognitive decline. Worryingly, cases of dementia were already rapidly inclining even before AI started taking over our lives.

So, do we need to just ‘get with the times’?

In some ways, AI is here already and in some ways, it’s here to stay. In other ways, I’m hopeful that the AI bubble will indeed burst. Artificial intelligence is a nuanced topic and there is a world in which it is used for good, in an ethical and eco-friendly way.

Unfortunately, in order for this to be the case, the AI companies would have to be founded and run by ethical people, with ethical intentions.

As evidenced by OpenAI’s decision to release a potentially dangerous and problematic chat bot in the first place, as well as the utterly terrifying things coming out of the mouths of tech CEOs like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Bill Gates and Alex Karp, the current AI industry is in many ways built on a foundation of greed and a desperate pursuit for technological advancement, with no concern for the planet or any living creature on it.

With people now using AI in their day-to-day lives and in many cases becoming heavily reliant on it, it’s understandably a very touchy subject. Many people feel personally attacked when people argue against AI.

The rise of AI, along with its lack of regulation is completely unprecedented and therefore can’t be compared to technological progress in years gone by. I’m yet to hear an argument in favour of AI that justifies the level of potential destruction it brings with it and further still, I’m yet to hear a person who doesn’t use AI argue in favour of it.

Ultimately, to simply ‘get with the times’ and accept AI the way it is currently being used would mean accepting a world in which AI has drained the planet of natural resources and has made us all sicker, poorer and stupider.

What do you think the best course of action is?

Thank you for reading (or listening - did you know you can apparently listen to these things like a podcast?)! If you got to the end of this Substack, it means that a) you’re a trooper b) you are a paid subscriber and for that, I love you!

Feel free to share with anybody you know who may enjoy this substack!

You can find me on my website or social media:

Instagram | X | Facebook | Bluesky

Maybe it’s just a weird, self-deprecating thing that we do as humans (especially the English), where it’s considered rude if we don’t put ourselves down. It has, however, made me contemplate how much we hold ourselves back in life or tell ourselves we’re not good enough.

It’s easy to look at other creatives and explain away their success as some kind of God-given, natural ability or good luck. Especially when we’re taught by society that being a full-time creative, or indeed a creative at all, is some ‘pie in the sky’ notion. The trope of the ‘starving artist’ has held back so many people from pursuing their creative dreams, believing that they have to choose between having a liveable income or being creative.

I, of course, speak from experience. Growing up, being an artist seemed so out of the realm of possibility, having been raised by a firefighter and a teacher; salt of the earth working class peeps. Despite painting and drawing for fun whenever I had a spare moment, I never considered trying to be an actual ‘artiste’. I didn’t think to put myself out there, to share my art with anybody or even talk about my work. In fact, even when I did later become a full-time artist, I continued telling people that I was a teacher, purely out of a fear of judgement.

what is creativity?

Before we get started, I think it’s important to lay the foundations of what I mean by ‘creativity’.

We, as humans, are inherently ‘creators’. It’s in our DNA. We create human life, we build houses, we decorate our homes, we create recipes, we design clothes and cars and even our gardens. Even running a business or doing accounts can involve creative problem-solving. If you’re a living, breathing human, you’re intrinsically creative. And if you don’t feel creative in the slightest, you just haven’t found your creative wellspring yet.

Although I’m an artist in the traditional sense of the word, when I talk about creativity and art, I’m not just talking about painting and poetry and music. I’m also talking about baking and carving and renovating and knitting and fixing cars. Anything that puts you into that ‘flow state’.

So now that we’ve clarified that, let’s get back to talking about what holds us back from being creative…

Read more

I have been painting since I was a kid and when, as a wee 18-year-old, I went out into the ‘real’ working world, I continued to make art in my spare time. It felt intrinsically part of me; natural and meaningless. I wasn’t painting to make money, to impress anybody or build a business. In fact, becoming a professional artist seemed so far out of the realm of possibility to me that I considered becoming an artist about as often as I considered becoming an astronaut.

Those of you who already know my story will know that I was working in the film industry at the time (another opportunity that kind of fell into my lap without much thought or consideration) and it was without much thought or consideration that I then decided to pursue a career as a primary school teacher instead.

Needless to say, I realised pretty swiftly (in my first year of university to be completely honesty) that this wasn’t my calling and my plan was to finish my degree and go back into the film industry, as an ‘on set tutor’ for child actors. After finishing my last year at university, however, I got offered a job and thought I’d be a fool to turn it down. Cut to a few years later, when I was still teaching full-time, tutoring in the evenings, coming home exhausted and marking books and planning lessons through the weekend. I had no time, no energy, no money and no life force.

Art became a distant memory. I no longer had time to pursue all of my whimsical little hobbies, much less spend hours hunched over a painting. In some ways, I have my short-lived career as a teacher to thank for my drive and motivation to finally pursue a career as an artist.

So, as you can see, like most** creatives, I didn’t become an artist because I had lofty ambitions to become a world-renowned, successful artist like David Hockney, or to make a sh*t load of money and retire at the age of 40. I simply loved painting and wanted to do more of it. It brought me joy. Teaching, did not.

** I say most creatives. I remember having a conversation with a fairly successful and well-known ‘Instagram artist’, who came to visit me in my studio one afternoon (as it turns out, she actually just wanted to come and do an investigative-style interview about my entire career, as I sat there feeling like a hostage in my own home). When I asked her why she had become an artist, however, she explained that her and her boyfriend were just brainstorming how to make a load of money one day during lockdown and it was either start a drop-shipping company or learn how to draw so they could sell prints and art tutorials. Needless to say, I don’t welcome people from the Internet into my studio anymore. I don’t want that bad juju ruining my sacred space!

Read more

In fact, my entire career so far has been yoyo-ing between intense periods of inspiration, flow and motivation and then staring listlessly out of the window for months at a time.

When you have a creative hobby, it can often feel like there’s a wellspring of inspiration and ideas waiting to be unleashed and never enough time to unleash them. A friend of mine (who owns a very sensible, grown-up company in recruitment) is constantly drawing, painting, knitting, making collages, sewing clothes, baking, gardening. She has an abundance of ideas and creativity and not enough time to fulfil all of her creative needs. I often feel envious of her effortless ability to come up with ideas and inspiration, whilst I’m staring into space with nothing.

I genuinely believe in my core that humans are creators and when we’re not creating, we’re just slowly dying. Maybe not physically, but spiritually.

Read more

Over the past decade, the rise of social media and online selling platforms has massively changed the art world. When I first started painting and drawing, back as a wee 19-year-old, the idea of becoming a full-time artist seemed completely out of the realm of possibility (and considering I was working as a body double for a Bond girl on Skyfall at the time, that’s saying a lot). At the time, as an artist, you were either represented by a gallery or publishing house or you painted for fun on the side of a ‘real’ job.

I remember going into galleries and showing the poor Saturday workers my portfolio of drawings and paintings to their sympathetic smiles (my artwork was truly dreadful back then). My friend David still teases me about the time when we went into a high street gallery one afternoon. I showed the disinterested lady working in there one of my paintings and when she simply smiled politely, I said defensively, “Well, I’m only 19!” and stalked out of the gallery. Years later, that same gallery would reach out to me, asking if I was interested in representation. Ah, how I love full circle moments.

In March 2011, I was working on a show and we were filming on location down at West Wittering beach. One of the guys I was working with was showing us all this new, revolutionary app, where you could use your phone like a polaroid camera and edit the photos. We sat around the fire on the beach that evening and took photos of each other, editing them with the most horrendous filters and posting them on our pages, with as little care of curation as humanly possible. Little did I know that years later, that app was going to become part of the scaffolding of my entire career.

As social media emerged, particularly alongside YouTube, eBay and then Etsy, artists were suddenly able to showcase their art, share their process and sell their work without needing a gallery or a publisher.

Only a few years previously, in 2008, Damien Hirst had shocked the art world by selling his work directly at auction, bypassing (and royally pissing off) his long-time dealers and galleries. He brought in roughly $200 million.

Now, albeit on a much smaller scale, artists were suddenly able to do the same - sell their work directly to customers without the need for a gallery or dealer. Of course, this sort of sales model comes with a ceiling. As people slowly started to trust the internet to make purchases, artists were able to sell their work for a fair profit but there are some sales that people still prefer to make in person.

Read more

My latest series of work, The Natural Order, has been a deviation from my usual style and concept. Over the years, I’ve used my art to raise awareness or money for conservation causes or animal welfare issues. It’s always been my biggest passion - protecting our natural world.

During the run up to my Impermanence solo show back in 2022, several news channels ran stories about my art. The general headlines were that I was protecting wildlife because I used to suffer from mutism and sought solace in nature as a child - now I wanted to use my art to protect those without a voice (animals). Although a compelling take on my art, if I’m perfectly honest, I had never considered that this was why I painted animals, until I was asked about it in an interview for BBC Women’s Hour.

The truth is, although I’ve been passionate about wildlife since childhood and have always enjoyed being in nature, I paint animals because I enjoy painting them and I raise awareness and funds for conservation of the natural world because it’s a cause that is important to me. There is an abundance of important issues in the world that need our care and attention; famine, war, trafficking, the dubious ethics of technological advancements, a lack of healthcare for some countries, to name but a few.

Read more

This is something I’ve been grappling with for the better part of 8 years now.

When I first decided to pursue a career as an artist and business-owner, I was still working as a teacher and tutoring kids in the evenings, leaving very little time to dedicate to my new side-hustle.

I would work late into the night and on weekends, building up a portfolio of work and making a website, branding and a catalogue of artists for my art gallery, Art Basket. I would spend hours and hours hunched over my laptop, the insides of my cheeks chewed to shreds, and was still just about scraping by financially.

When I finally made the jump from working 3 separate jobs to becoming a full-time artist, I suddenly had so much time and freedom, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Fresh from the working world, I was determined not to go back there and I would do whatever it took to keep my head above water. I loved working for myself, choosing my own schedule, waking up whenever I wanted, travelling and networking. For me, it was worth the uncertainty of not having a regular paycheque and the stress of managing my own taxes.

They say when you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life.

That’s how it felt for a while. I felt so genuinely grateful to be doing what I loved for a living and to actually make money from something I did for fun. I worked 7 days a week and rarely took time off.

When the pandemic hit and we were forced to stay at home, I doubled down even more on my work. Aside from my daily walk in the woods and my weekly trip to the supermarket, I practically ate, slept and breathed my work. Despite it being a pretty stressful time (and awful for those who lost loved ones etc.), the lockdown was a fruitful time for me. Everybody was at home and they wanted art to fill their walls with!

Read more

Over the years, we have spoken to many experts on our podcast about the impact of tech use on our mental, emotional and physical health. No matter the flavour of guest; their background, age, education or training, the message has always been the same: technology has made our lives infinitely more convenient and we are now more connected with the rest of the world than ever before. Yet we are somehow lonelier and less content than ever before too.

Now, with the rise of AI and people using LLMs as therapists, advisors, and even friends, the situation is only worsening. It’s no secret that we have a ‘loneliness epidemic’, particularly in males.

I have always been fairly open about my own struggles with tech. I live in a cabin in the woods, I don’t have a TV, I like to read ‘proper’ books and I spend my days painting animals. One would be forgiven for thinking that I am fairly ‘pure’ when it comes to tech. Alas, no. I have long struggled with phone addiction; whether it be feverishly doing online jigsaw puzzles in between my daily tasks, or doom scrolling to the sound of my laptop streaming some show I’m barely paying attention to. I always have music or a podcast blaring, so I don’t have to sit in silence with my own thoughts.

My first addiction was probably ‘Doodle Jump’ some 15 years ago, although, as a teenager, I was hunched over the family computer playing ‘The Sims’ for days at a time with the rest of my generation. I had to delete ‘Candy Crush’ off my phone after somebody pointed out that every time I stopped to think about something, I would automatically reach for my phone. These addictive games became my way of tuning out of the real world, like a coping mechanism.

We recently spoke to science journalist and founder of Screen/Life Balance, Catherine Price, about ‘How to Break Up With Your Phone’. She pointed out that social media apps like TikTok and Instagram are designed with the same addictiveness as casino slot machines - made to get you hooked and keep you playing for as long as possible. Dragging yourself off one of these apps does indeed feel like stopping a freight train, once you’re locked into that dopamine-filled penny machine.

Read more

Have you ever had a week, or a month, or even a year where it feels like everything you touch turns to gold?

Good news comes out of nowhere, opportunities seemingly fall into your lap, you’re in a constant state of flow and productivity and inspiration.

I once read that humans have a tendency to overestimate how long positive emotions will last and, similarly, when we’re feeling down, we think that will last forever too. It’s called ‘affective broadcasting' and apparently, we’re just really bad at it.

When you’re having one of those periods of success - a ‘summer’ of life - it feels like it will last forever. “Well, I’ve finally made it, it’s only going to get better from here on out!”

If your summer lasts an entire year, or sometimes even several years, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everything is just going to be fine and dandy forever.

Until it’s not.

Read more

Shoebox coffins and garden burials and twig grave markers and lots of tears.

When our old family cat, Rufus, reached the end of his days, my sister and I, both teenagers, had to take him to be put down, as my mum was so unwell at the time. I remember coming home from the vet and sitting on my bed in silence, shaken to my core and unable to process what had just happened. Rufus had been a part of our family since I was about 5 years old.

As children often do at strange and traumatic times, I quickly brushed off any emotion and life carried on as usual. Fleeting were these experiences of death.

As an adult, I have often watched people around me lose pets and be thrown into a deep grief - a grief that I thought I understood until it happened to me. When you lose a ‘somebody’ - a parent, a sibling, a best friend, god forbid a child - the loss is so huge, tangible and universally understood by everybody that any loss ‘less’ than that seems to get brushed off as insignificant. How can you even compare the loss of a wife or a child to the loss of a cat?

When I witnessed my dad, who had indeed lost a wife, a child, a sibling and both parents, lose his cat, Amber, I couldn’t understand how his grief could be so all-consuming. I put it down to him excavating unprocessed grief from all of the other losses he had experienced. And maybe that was true to an extent.

Over the years, as friends lost their beloved cats and dogs, I always offered a few well-meaning, sympathetic texts or phone calls and would think no more of it.

Maisie Green.

I got Maisie when I was 21. Having always wanted a dog, as soon as I reached adulthood, I immediately adopted one. She was only a wee pup and her previous owners couldn’t handle her stubborn, mischievous personality. For the first few years of her life, she was 'crazy Maisie’ or, as my dad nicknamed her, ‘devil dog’ (although we had about 35 other nicknames for her, as most pet owners do). She was yappy, loyal, loving and anxious (she really was the dog-version of me) and training her was a real labour of love.

One of the things about owning a pet so young is that they are with you through so many pivotal stages of life. Every job, relationship, heartbreak, house move. The silly twenties and then the ever so slightly more sensible thirties. She was my anchor and she kept me tethered to this world when everything felt unpredictable.

As she got older, she suffered the usual health issues that ‘brachycephalic’ dogs like pugs and French bulldogs do (they’re terrible breeds that really should not exist and it’s a hill I’m willing to die on). Issues with breathing, disc disease, followed by going suddenly blind. It was all I could do to offer her a peaceful, safe retirement. She spent her days basking in the sun on my deck and going for short, slow walks in the woods surrounding our little home.

She was my constant companion. My days were spent repeatedly checking on her, making sure she hadn’t wandered off, making sure she wanted for nothing. I would take her to my tennis matches and she would sit on the lap of a teammate, contentedly barking from the sidelines. She would come with me to record our podcast and sleep on the sofa next to me, snoring loudly throughout.

I knew that she wouldn’t be around forever but it was a thought that I shoved violently to the back of my mind. Despite being blind and slow, she was happy and healthy. She still wolfed down her food, begged to sit on my lap, played with her little tiger toy and wagged her tail playfully. I convinced myself that she would be around for years and losing her would be a ‘problem for another day’.

But one evening, she suddenly became unwell and a trip to the emergency vet at 2 in the morning followed. She stayed in the little vet hospital and progressively got worse over the next couple of days. The vets couldn’t work out what was wrong with her - just that her little body was deciding to shut itself down. They tentatively suggested exploratory surgery but I knew it was time.

I’ve watched family pets die before but nothing can prepare you for the decision of having to put your own little soulmate down. The weight of the decision is unbearable. In the face of all of the evidence pointing towards their pain and suffering, you start to question everything. What if it’s an easily-fixed problem and I’m choosing to end their life prematurely? What happens after you die? I’ve always believed that death isn’t the end but what if I’m wrong? Is it cruel to kill them? Is it cruel to keep them alive? Will they know it’s coming? Are they scared? Are they internally screaming “don’t kill me!”?

As I drove home from the vet, a leaflet about pet bereavement, a lock of Maisie’s fur in a little envelope and a pet crematorium business card shoved on the passenger seat, I wondered briefly if I should stop at the petrol station and put some air in my car tyres. It’s always fascinated me how when you go through some of life’s biggest tragedies, the most mundane thoughts float into your head. Then I remembered that it would probably look weird pumping air into my tyres whilst crying hysterically.

There were a few things I noticed.

Maisie loved summer. She was a real sun-worshipper and her silky black fur used to turn brown from sitting in the sunshine. On hot days, we would continuously move her into the shade or bring her inside and she would stubbornly trudge back over to the warmth.

When she was diagnosed with disc disease, I was devastated. I asked the Universe, God, whoever would listen, that she would get to enjoy at least one more summer. I wanted her to be able to enjoy basking in the sunshine on the grass outside at least once more.

She ended up enjoying 3 more summers. And on the 1st September 2025, she passed away.

We’d been enjoying one of those rare English summers where every single day is bright, sunny and warm. Maisie had spent every single day of it outside in the garden. The day she died, the sun disappeared entirely and it rained every day for months.

The days following her death, I sat on the floor by the French windows and stared out of the window at the rain for most of the day. In the evening, I would drag my sorry arse to a friend’s house, where we would hardly talk, eat dinner, watch TV, then I’d go home and cry myself to sleep.

I noticed very quickly that my friends who had lost pets of their own went above and beyond. They sent texts, called, brought around food, they invited me to their houses, so that I could sit in silence and be miserable in company. One of my friends sent me a little ‘Maisie’ memorial stone for me to put in the garden, I received cards of sympathy and little trinkets. A paw print Christmas tree decoration and a little illustration of Maisie. I was given a framed photo of me and Maisie at the beach, a few weeks before she had died and one of my friends did a special Hindu prayer for her.

Complete strangers on the internet sent me kind messages, told me they were praying for me and for Maisie, lit candles for her and sent me messages about their own losses. Selfishly, I enjoyed reading messages about other people’s loss. It made me feel less alone.

I felt like I was part of some weird, sad club and I was being enveloped in love by all of its members. ‘The Rainbow Bridge Club’. I had never even heard of this phrase before Maisie died but it quickly became part of my vernacular. It felt like everybody knew not only how painful it is to lose a pet but how under-appreciated and unspoken about that grief is in our society. Everybody wanted to make sure that I was given love and support and I was given it in droves. I have never felt more sad and less alone as I did when Maisie died.

It’s been almost 6 months since Maisie left her frail little body behind. The time has gone by disturbingly quickly. It feels like the more time that passes, the further away I get from the life that I shared with her. Her toys have been cleared away and her bed is now occupied by a little stray cat, who wandered into my life rather serendipitously a month after Maisie died. I named her Molly - she was to have the same initials as Maisie, the same silly nicknames and songs sung about her and the same amount of love poured into her.

Molly had spent the first year and a half of her life living on the streets alone, scared and starving to death, before a friend of mine found her. She deserved all of the love I had left to give, yet I was hesitant to adopt another pet and face all of the same grief and pain of losing her down the line. When my friend sent me a photo of her though, I took one look and told him she was mine. I guess you can have more than one soulmate.

I still often well up with tears when I think of or speak about Maisie. Before losing a pet, I probably would have thought that was a bit ‘dramatic’ or even considered there to be something ‘wrong’ with me for still carrying emotion around like that. But I think in that sadness there is beauty too.

Whenever I see a post pop up on my feed about a stranger losing their pet, I always make sure to send a little love and kindness. Pet grief really is so very underestimated I think it’s important for people to know that they’re not alone and they’re not overreacting.

What I have learnt.

What I have learnt about owning pets is that it is so very different to human relationships (duh).

Human relationships can be very transactional in nature. They are a delicate balance of give and take, kindness and support, laughter and friendship. We gravitate towards people that are similar to us in nature, values, kindness, or age. We set ‘boundaries’, we have ‘limits’.

With pets, we give and receive love unconditionally.

I have a friend who has recently adopted a stray cat. She is very timid in nature and is quick to bite, scratch and swipe if she feels under threat. I always joke, “that cat rules the household with an iron paw - don’t dare even look at her the wrong way”. But she is still loved unconditionally, with as much patience and compassion as is humanly possible.

Although some people would argue that they absolutely can and do communicate with their pets, there are no spoken words between an animal and its family. It’s not discussions, debates, jokes, secrets - it’s just pure energy, pure love.

Human relationships can be very transitory. People come and go, move house or even country. Even the people we live with aren’t always in the same room at the same time. But our pets spend almost their entire lives with us. They’re there throughout every stage of life, every high, every low. They become our responsibility, our routine, even our purpose. We use them as an excuse to leave the party early, we rush home to feed and walk them. For many people, their pet becomes the centre of their world and we are undeniably the centre of theirs.

If you have lost a pet, know that you are not alone. If you know somebody who has lost a pet, remind them that they are not alone.

It’s never ‘just a pet’.

Thank you for reading (or listening - did you know you can apparently listen to these things like a podcast?)! If you got to the end of this Substack, it means that a) you’re a trooper b) you are a paid subscriber and for that, I love you!

You can find me on my website or social media:

Instagram | X | Facebook | Bluesky

Please feel free to share this post with anybody who may need it. ❤️

I’m not just talking about the stuff of nightmares suddenly emerging into our every day lives, desensitising us to the sort of horrors that are usually in movies, or the fact that we haven’t had a ‘quiet’ news day for about 6 months. After all, those things aren’t really changes. They’ve always been there, festering below the surface. Maybe in some way we’ve unknowingly allowed things to get this bad.

No, I’m talking about the changes I’ve made over here in my little corner of the world.

Lately, it’s been difficult to remain informed, whilst not spiralling into a pit of despair. If I were going to write a dystopian novel, I think that the synopsis would be something akin to “the most evil and corrupt hold the most power and money, whilst criminals roam free to rule the world. Tech CEOs are feverishly destroying the planet in the pursuit of even more money and control. Meanwhile, poverty, famine, genocide and ethnic cleansings are still ravaging most parts of the world.” You get the gist.

It’s easy to become apathetic when the world feels like it’s falling apart. What I’ve come to realise, however, is that apathy is probably how we got here in the first place. It’s like those people who don’t bother turning up to vote because they can’t see how one person can make any difference. Or perhaps how one little ChatGPT conversation isn’t going to destroy the planet. Or how buying something from Amazon now and then won’t make any difference.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

And trust me again when I say that every single person on this planet can and does make a difference. Whether it’s a positive or negative difference is down to the individual and often down to those seemingly insignificant, habitual behaviours we partake in.

Have you ever watched Finding Nemo? Remember the part where all of the fish get trapped in a giant net and they all ‘swim down together’ to overpower the crane and escape certain death? It takes every single one of them to swim down together in order for them to escape. I’ve seen this analogy floating around lately (no pun intended); the need for us all to swim down together, in order to restore a little balance in the world.

So here are a few relatively quick and easy changes you can make to ensure that you’re not contributing to the world’s problems and are indeed sticking it to the man as best you can! These are just changes I have personally made, so please do contribute some of your own suggestions in the comments and share with your friends!

Note: It’s also important to change what you can change. Not everybody can afford to make the same lifestyle changes and sometimes it’s about trying our best and not being perfect…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE your brain

If you can, STOP using AI. Full stop.

And by ‘if you can’, I mean, unless you’re using it to cure cancer or solve climate change, then stop stop stop. It will feel like going back to a slow, cumbersome existance at first - parts of your brain that haven’t been activated for a while will start to turn back on and this can take a bit of getting used to.

WHY: It sounds silly, but experts have been warning us for a while that using AI could actually cause long-term cognitive harm. Not to mention the devastating impact of AI on the planet. The world has now entered an era of ‘water bankruptcy’, with AI leaching water from the planet. Mark Zuckerberg has recently unveiled plans to build an AI data centre the size of Manhatten (!!) and we are already seeing the effects of water pollution in areas surrounding the AI centres in Malaysia. Palentir’s owner, Alex Karp, has also come out with some highly disturbing (to say the least) comments about the direction he plans on taking AI (I’ll let you do your own research there). If you’re currently using AI to write emails, create fun little illustrations of your dog (I’ve been there) or make up silly songs, it’s time to stop. It was fun when we didn’t realise the devastating consequences but now, there’s no excuse.

ALTERNATIVES: If this isn’t enough to convince you to stop using AI entirely, stay away from companies like OpenAI (ChatGpt) and veer towards chatbots like Claude (by Anthropic). Anthropic seem to be putting more effort into safety and ethics and are somewhat less driven by profit (for now). If you’re using AI for image creation, music creation, etc., (boo hiss), it’s certainly worth also researching the most ethical versions of these.

Google Ecosia

WHY: Google monitors everything and generates significant revenue by selling our data. It controls the flow of information, is now deeply embedded in American politics and generally doesn’t actually produce the best search results anymore. Not to mention the copious amounts of ads and the AI-generated responses it is now forcing upon us.

Ecosia is known as ‘the search engine that plants trees’. It uses 100% of its profits to protect the planet and ‘produces enough renewable energy to power all searches twice over.’ It doesn’t sell data but is more eco-focused than privacy-focused. Make sure you keep the Ecosia AI Chatbot (which is also developed on ChatGPT 🤮) DISABLED!

Iphones: You can easily make Ecosia your default search engine by heading over to your iphone settings, click ‘safari’ and under ‘search engine’, select Ecosia.

PC/Macbooks: Here are instructions to make Ecosia the default search engine on your browser.

Google Chrome Firefox/DuckDuckGo

ALTERNATIVES: There are several alternatives to Google Chrome out there; Firefox, Zen and DuckDuckGo for example. Most are focused on privacy, security and ad-blocking. Although popular, ‘Brave’ is known to use Chromium and the company has engaged in some questionable practices, so I personally avoid. Firefox and DuckDuckGo both offer the option to turn off AI features. I have personally made my main browser on my Macbook DuckDuckGo (available to download in the app store or online) and so far, so good! If you’re deleting Chrome from your MacBook, it’s worth following these instructions to get rid of all the residual Chrome muck and ensure your system runs smoothly.

Added bonus: If you’re using DuckDuckGo, you can open all videos on YouTube with its built in ‘Duck Player’ - ad-free, no ‘recommended videos’, comments or any of the other noise.

If you’re using Firefox or DuckDuckGo, make sure you DISABLE AI features in the browser settings. This stops the search engine from automatically generating an AI response and will also filter out AI-generated images from searches!

Amazon shop direct

Delete your Amazon account immediately! Or at the very least, cancel your subscription and never buy from them again.

WHY: Amazon is wasteful, unethical and, in my humble opinion, everything that is wrong with the world. I could write an entire essay on all of the terrible things Amazon has done - from the terrible treatment of its staff and sellers, to the amount of products that end up in landfill. Amazon misleads consumers and sellers and is singlehandedly destroying the economy. If you’d like to read more about all of the reasons not to use Amazon anymore, here’s a list as long as my arm. If you need more convincing, Jeff Bezoz, after pumping $75million into the far-right political propoganda movie, Melania, let go of around 1/3 of staff at the Washington Post, before declaring that Amazon would be investing $200billion into AI.

ALTERNATIVES: Shop local or buy directly from brand websites. You may not receive your product the same day, or even the next day but it’s a small price to pay for not making the world an infinitely worse place. It’s also worth remembering that when a product is cheaper on Amazon - there’s usually a very dark reason for that.

Small businesses are dying and in a world of uncontrollable consumerism, the one thing we can do is direct our spending back into the economy, rather than into the hands of one very greedy, self-serving individual.

Amazon Prime literally anything else

WHY: All of the reasons above - plus, as somebody who has never used Amazon Prime, I’ve always wondered why people pay for a streaming service, only to have to pay extra to actually watch anything (especially without ads).

ALTERNATIVES: If you don’t mind going back to the ‘good old days’ of television watching, Tubi and Vudu (in the US) have large libraries and are completely free. I often watch shows on U or channels like 4od or IPlayer and will use ad breaks as an opportunity to put the kettle on (although I don’t own a TV, so am arguably more accustomed to low-quality streaming).

If you’re happy to pay for a subscription, Streamers like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ etc. are slightly less evil (although I have my reservations about these too). Ultimately, if we stop treating entertainment like an unlimited, never-ending buffet of whatever we want, whenever we want it, we might end up re-establishing more of an intentional relationship with film and television.

Audible Libro.fm

WHY: I have a personal vendetta against Audible, after I cancelled my subscription and it continued to charge me monthly for 2 YEARS, refusing to refund me when I realised what the vague Amazon outgoings actually were. My own grievances aside, Audible is an Amazon-owned company (yuck) and has a monopoly on the world of audiobooks. They notoriously under pay their authors, unless they give Audible exclusive rights to the audiobooks (which then means libraries and other platforms cannot sell them). Greedy company.

ALTERNATIVES: Libro.fm, Libby, Downpour or your local library (!!) are all great options. Libro.fm has a similar catalogue of books to Audible, except you can download them to keep. It is an independent company and uses its profits to support independent bookstores. You can download the Libro.fm app or download audiobooks as mp3s.

Spotify Qobuz

WHY: Spotify - avoid. Another company that notoriously under-pays its artists, whilst over-charging its customers, all while quality and user-experience gets worse. The company has also recently fired a huge number of its staff to replace them with AI and profits from the company have been used questionably in recent years.

ALTERNATIVES: I personally use Qobuz, which seems to be the most ethical and user-friendly alternative at the moment. I used Soundiiz to transfer my playlists over to Qobuz for free. It was fairly quick and easy and was a fun opportunity to clean up some of my old playlists. You can also sync up your Last Fm playlists with Qobuz in the Qobuz app. It’s worth mentioning that I have avoided Deezer (another viable option) due to who the company is owned by (bad).

Ring/Nest Reolink

In light of a certain creepy advert played at the Superbowl recently, I have decided to add Ring/Nest doorbells to the trash pile.

WHY: First of all, Ring is owned by Amazon and Nest is own by Google (God, I’m getting sick of seeing the words Amazon and Google). Many people have felt increasingly uncomfortable with Ring/Nest’s facial recognition software, as well as partnering with certain agencies that leave us wondering if these cameras are more about ‘protection’ or our surveillance. Now, Ring have announced an AI-powered ‘search party’ feature, aimed at helping people to ‘find lost dogs’. Although it doesn’t take a genius to work out that mass human surveillance is more likely the aim.

ALTERNATIVES: Living in a cabin in the woods, I’m not the best person to advise on camera doorbells (my cat usually just meows at the window to be let in) but a brief online search threw up several great alternatives, such as Reolink, Eufy and Ecobee (US & Canada only).

Uber black cabs

WHY: Make no mistake, Uber is not a cab company - it is a tech company (and we know how bad they are by now, right? right?). Uber and Lyft both famously exploit their workers, taking up to 75% of the earnings in some countries and use their algorithms to target desperate drivers, who are more likely to accept cheaper rides.

ALTERNATIVES: Unless you are happy to give your driver a giant tip to rebalance the scales, the exploitation is depressing, so redirect your money into the economy by going for black (or yellow) cab companies / private taxi companies, take public transport or ride a bike! The cost of Uber is actually increasing anyway, so I don’t think the price difference is that big anymore.

Hello Fresh Riverford (UK only)

WHY: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Hello Fresh. Aside from the greenwashing, I think it’s a nice way of getting people to cook proper meals with vegetables in. The company is promoted as ‘eco-friendly’ but almost every tiny ingredient is packaged in plastic, as well as being boxed with plastic-covered ice packs. Yes, the boxes are recyclable but that doesn’t really cut it for me.

ALTERNATIVES: I have been shouting about Riverford for as long as I have been shopping there. The company is known as an ‘organic farm and organic vegetable box delivery company’ but it is so much more than that. You can buy meal kits, ‘recipe kits’ (like desserts, granolas or soups), as well as all of your essential groceries. There is a Riverford bakery, deli, butcher and greengrocer. You can also buy some pantry essentials like pasta, sauces, oats, oils and drinks.

Everything is organic and grown/reared on farms. Almost all food is grown locally and seasonally, so you can start getting in touch with nature again. One of the things I love about Riverford is that they collect all of your boxes and ice packs from the previous week when they drop off your next order. The boxes are reused - even the glass bottles of oat/coconut milk are collected, cleaned and reused. ALL packaging is not just recyclable but compostable (it looks like plastic but it’s not). It is still a relatively small company, so you get great customer service - my driver practically moved heaven and earth to deliver my order when we had flooding in our area.

The only downside of Riverford is that it is quite a bit more expensive than your typical supermarket produce, so I would only recommend this if you can afford it. For me, the quality of the produce makes it worth economising for and I generally end up wasting WAY less food, as I weigh up what I actually need for that week, instead of mindlessly adding things to my shopping trolley. I top up my weekly Riverford shop with some bits from my local health food store and don’t end up wasting a load of money on junk food and snacks, or fruit and vegetables that are going to go rotten when I don’t use them.

Protecting your data…

Without running the risk of sounding too much like a ‘tin foil hat’ conspiracy theorist, there are a few extra changes that I have made lately to protect my data and privacy.

Ever been talking to a friend about a product and then you start getting ads about said product? Ever bought your partner a gift and then before you can give it to them, their own phone ruins the surprise by showing THEM ads for it? Ever WALKED PAST a product and started getting ads for it? Sometimes, I only need to think about something before I start seeing ads.

The long and short of it is your phone is always listening. Not just when you ask Siri for something. It’s always watching and always listening.

If you own a smartphone, head over to the settings - you’re going to want to make some changes!

Iphone

turn off bluetooth when you’re not using it

settings » ‘search’ » toggle ‘Help Apple Improve Search’ OFF

settings » apps » messages » shared with you » toggle ‘Automatic Sharing’ OFF

settings » privacy & security » location services » system services > significant locations » Turn OFF

settings » privacy » tracking » toggle OFF ‘Allow Apps to Request to Track’

settings » privacy » apple advertising » turn OFF

settings » privacy » analytics & improvements » turn OFF ‘Share iPhone Analytics’

settings » apps » go through each app and turn OFF camera, microphone & location access if it doesn’t need it

settings » apps » go through each app » apple intelligence & siri » turn OFF ‘learn from this app’

Android

turn off bluetooth when you’re not using it

google account » data & privacy » web & app activity » DISABLE ‘include voice and audio activity’

settings » google » ads » delete advertising id

audit your privacy manager - if an app doesn't need the camera, microphone or location services to function, switch it OFF

Fight the passivity!

Making lifestyle changes is not easy. If it was, my yoga mat wouldn’t be gathering dust in the corner of the room right now and I would have deleted that blocky game off my phone a long time ago.

Many habits affect our mental or physical health but there are some habits that can destroy whole industries, economies, or even the planet. The only way that a small handful of individuals are able to monopolise an industry or an economy is because we, as consumers, allow them to. We buy into their products - built to appeal to our busy lives or our laziness - we use their websites, we subscribe to their services. Underneath our subscriptions are exploited workers and struggling creatives. For every ChatGPT search or fun little AI image generation, there are people in Malaysia breathing polluted, poisonous air and running out of water to drink.

The current economy and cost of living crisis has us desperately looking for the cheapest option but that cheapest option often means taking money out of the economy and directing it towards powerful, corrupt billionaires, making us even more poor and desperate. Supermarkets have us directing our money towards them, instead of to the local farmers and suppliers that are struggling to turn a profit and forced to cut back on quality. Meanwhile, supermarket food waste is going through the roof, whilst people who cannot afford to eat are desperately flocking to food banks.

It’s a vicious cycle and it needs to stop. We need to swim down together.

Good luck out there friends, let me know what little lifestyle changes you’re making to fight the system!

Thank you for reading (or listening - did you know you can apparently listen to these things like a podcast?)!

This is a free Substack article that is intended to reach and help as many people as possible, so please share with anybody and everybody so that we can swim down together!

You can find me on my website or social media:

Instagram | X | Facebook | Bluesky

As humans, we are ever-evolving creatures. We move through ages; from stone to metal to medieval to exploration to scientific revolution to industrialisation to the information age we are currently living in. In the last 50 years alone, we have seen such huge technological advancements, it’s difficult to remember the days before the internet, smartphones and online banking.

As ever-evolving creatures, we’re also extremely adaptable. We like to worry, fret, moan. Sometimes we’re pushed out of a career that we love or forced to change location, economise, reassess. Ultimately, though, we’re very skilled gymnasts. We get used to a new norm surprisingly quickly and research shows that people tend to return to a ‘baseline’ level of happiness over time after either a positive or a negative experience. At least, that’s how I reassure myself when the world feels uncertain.

But the current rate of AI development? That’s a whole new kind of change. Over time, we’ve always had new tools, machines and now technologies that have changed lives, ‘stolen’ jobs and disrupted the economy.

Remember when only scribes were able to read and write? Me neither - apparently it was a few years before I was born. Those who could write held most of the economic and political power. They were responsible for tax records, contracts, laws, even religious texts. As literacy expanded and the use of the pen and printing press increased, bureaucracy, trade, news, education and laws all changed. You could say the whole world changed (arguably for the better). Yet, this change happened over thousands of years; generations and generations and generations.

It took around 3000 years for the pen to reshape society. Industrial machines changed the world in about 100. But artificial intelligence? A decade or two. In the space of about 5 years, we’ll see such a huge amount of condensed change to society, economies, jobs and (more my area of expertise) creativity.

Read more

In that time, I’ve rarely branched out of painting, drawing or photographing animals. I’ve dabbled in other subjects and often found it to be a tedious task. Not that painting humans or landscapes or objects is any less worthy of attention and admiration - I often enjoy admiring other people’s work that is not animal-related. In fact, I often admire it more.

Because art is a reflection of self and a way of communicating how you view the world. The world would be a boring place if we all had the same interests and fascinations and the art world would be even more competitive than it already is if we were all painting the same thing.

An early Sophie Green Fine Art original, I’m not sure why this was my ‘ideal’ fish (or indeed why I had an ideal fish at all).

Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by the natural world. As a mute, I sought solace in nature and animals. I understood the animal kingdom more than I understood other people and their strange behaviours.

Animals are intuitive and natural in their behaviours. For the most part, they act on instinct. Even though humans are technically animals, our ability to communicate through spoken word, writing, creating, texting and trolling on social media sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and has created some strange social phenomena. Not to mention the opposable thumbs and apparent superior intellect (an intellect I often question when I see what’s going on in the world).

Despite having long overcome my mutism, I still view the world through the lens of that confused little girl. I still look to nature to bear life’s burdens.

I live in a cabin in the woods and go for a daily walk in the forest. When I’m overwhelmed or something is bothering me, I will put my hand on a tree as I walk past it, as if to say “Here, you take it. You’re bigger and stronger than me.” Part of me hopes that is just my imaginary nonsense - I can’t imagine how many trees I’ve burdened with my woes otherwise!

Read more

Just like I didn’t ever intend to work in the film industry as a young 20-something-year-old. My brother was an undertaker at the time (yes, he collected dead bodies for a living but that’s a story for another day) and he worked with somebody who moonlighted in the film industry as a fire safety officer on film sets. He gave my brother the name of some film agents, as I was fresh out of school and bumming about, working in shops and getting in trouble for sneaking off to the stock rooms.

I very much had the attitude of ‘why not?’ back then and I suppose I still do now (which is probably why I made this Substack). I submitted an application to all of the agencies and was accepted. Cut to a year or so later and I’m working on a film called Jack the Giant Slayer, body doubling for a lovely actress called Eleanor Tomlinson (fun fact, it was actually called ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ when I was working on it but I guess they changed the name to make it more child-friendly).

I was in the lunch queue, telling a fellow crew member about how one of my paintings had been stolen (I can’t really remember the particulars of how a painting got stolen but I was obviously very annoyed about it at the time). The lead actor in the film - a sweet young man, who actually went on to become a massive star a few years later - overheard and asked, “one of your paintings got stolen?”

I looked at him, deadpan, and said “yes.” then turned around and carried on talking to my friend. I sometimes look back on social interactions I have had with people in the past and wish I could be more, well, cool. I could have said, “Oh yeah, I actually paint, do you want to see some photos of my art?” and that could have been how I became a full-time artist. But no.

Here’s me on the set of Jack the Giant Killer and/or Slayer, no doubt covering my face in shame.

Read more

The timing is particularly fitting, as I’ve recently been reflecting on 2025 and setting goals and intentions for the year ahead. I still haven’t written a single goal on my little list yet. Not because I’m afraid that I won’t achieve them (although if I’m honest, that does play on my mind too), but because I’m afraid that I will and it still won’t be enough.

We were chatting with a podcast guest (did I mention I co-host a really cool podcast) recently about how, as creatives, we’re never truly content with where we are. Most of us are always chasing, comparing, putting massive pressure on ourselves and beating ourselves up for not doing, being or having enough.

I am definitely guilty of moving the goal posts. I want this - no, actually I want this instead - in fact, now I have that, I’ve just realised it’s not enough and I actually need more (I’m imagining myself fat and greedy, sitting on a mound of gold, even though that’s ridiculous because I’d never be fat - my metabolism would never allow it).

10 years ago, the idea that I would be earning a living off painting was utterly unbelievable. Actually, the idea that anybody would pay me real, actual, hard-earned money for something I’d essentially created for fun, would have left me squirming with discomfort and guilt. I’ve definitely done a lot of inner-work to get to the point where I’m able to make enough money from my art to both survive and also support the conservation causes that I care about.

But now, being a full-time artist isn’t enough for me. I need to be constantly achieving, growing, changing the world, etc etc.

William S. Burroughs once said that ‘when you stop growing, you start dying’ and boy, have I taken that phrase to heart.

Read more

There are a few photos that perfectly encapsulate me as a child. This is one of them. The ‘itchy chin’ face, hand-me-down clothes that usually came from my older brother or some other kid on the street, whose parents smoked, so the clothes also smelt like tobacco. I had a pair of Hawaiian shorts that didn’t quite fit the cold English climate and when I was finally allowed a brand new outfit, I opted for a black velvet (yes velvet?) t-shirt with flowers on it and a pair of lime green trainers that lit up every time you took a step. My mum charged into the house ahead of me that day to frantically warn the family not to tease me for my horrendous choices (something I only found out from my sister as an adult).

Read more

I’ve been living in a little cabin in the woods (which now doubles as my art studio, since my career as an artist took off), for nearly 7 years. My thoughts, processes and ideas rattle around in my head in my little ‘Sophie corner’, as I go for my daily walks through the forest. For years I’ve been telling family and friends that I am going to start writing them down somewhere; mainly as some kind of cathartic release me for, but also because they may be of some help, guidance or comfort to somebody out there.

I’m not here to write polished prose or fancy tutorials (I used to be a primary school teacher and I vowed never to teach again), or to perform and explain every intricacy of my career. These notes are more about the ongoing work of being ‘in process’. In art and in life.

I’ll be sharing stories, reflections, experiments and, although I’m starting this Substack in earnest, I’m sure some humour will elbow its way in too. Some posts may be short, some way too long; all of them will be honest and personal.

Enjoy!