#63: Jen Shear

"Do you have a spiritual practice?" "Driving."

Aug 24, 2025

Jen (@jen_chai_shear) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Philadelphia. Using collage and self-publishing as her primary mediums, she’s previously collaborated on projects with Studio Route 29, NIAD, No School, 356 Mission, and LAABF's The Classroom. View her harm reduction reader here.

Health Gossip with Jen Shear
Leo/Aquarius/Cancer
Philadelphia, PA

What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?

I’m health-conscious because if I don’t take care of myself, I don’t feel like a functional adult. But I also had cancer as a child, did a nephrectomy, and underwent radiation and chemo when I was 2-3 years old. I lost my hair, which eventually grew back, but I still only have one kidney. Somehow, this didn’t deter me from putting my body through hell as a teenager by self-medicating for ADHD, chronic depression, and anxiety (then undiagnosed), or binge drinking my way through a decade of living in New York during my twenties. But now I’m sober, take two different kinds of antidepressants, do yoga, and try to lift weights several times a week to stay grounded. I actually feel the healthiest I’ve ever felt in both mind and body as an adult, knock on wood.

But in general, being healthy, for me, means maintaining hormonal balance, having a solid grasp on executive function, minimizing stress, getting enough sleep, good digestion, and adhering to a routine.

How would you describe your current lifestyle?

“Punk to glam pipeline,” as my friend Diamond would say. Solitary.

Kayla Ephros’ rag doll pictured on the shelf above.

I love mornings. I typically wake up sometime between 4:30-6am and make pour-over coffee first thing. It has to be STRONG.

During the school year, I teach adjunct, so I spend a lot of time prepping for class. This past semester, I did a drawing and collage course at Rutgers, and a course on art, design, and digital culture at UPenn. I’m an over-preparer.

On the weekends, I will often either drive to an estate sale or a flea market.

At night, I like to wind down by clicking around on eBay. I am notorious for being able to fall asleep anywhere at the drop of a dime.

I am notorious for being able to fall asleep anywhere at the drop of a dime.

Was there a time when you became more conscious of your health, or your relationship to it changed?

When I lived in New York, I worked at the farmer’s market for several years, and it totally changed my relationship to food — I became more aware of things like flavor and nutrition, but also how food is grown and how to cook, etc. Sometimes Lucy Liu would buy trout and watercress from the stand next to mine at Union Square.

What’s your relationship to self-healing?

There’s this amazing essay by Carolyn Lazard called “The World is Unknown,” where they discuss the politics of chronic illness in relation to biomedicine and alternative modes of care. I’ll just quote the piece here:

“What professionals on both sides of the ideological divide refuse to understand is that most sick people — people who desire health, whatever health means — are open to anything that will work, no matter the origin. I’ve come to understand that the enemy of health is neither pharmaceuticals nor snake oil, but dogma. The body is too unwieldy to fit within any totalizing discourse.”

So I try not to be too dogmatic.

Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?

Texts: OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose by Nancy Campbell, Undoing Drugs by Maia Szalavitz, and Sexuality Beyond Consent by Avgi Saketopoulou. I’m currently reading Roar by Dr. Stacy Syms. Been wanting to read Bob Flanagan’s Pain Journal and Fuck Journal, Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals, and Testo Junkie by Paul Preciado. Would love to read a book on the history of Creative Growth in Oakland.

Practitioners & Modalities: I like cupping, foam rolling, massage balls, and yin yoga for myofascial release. I love lifting weights. I hate cardio, but just recently remembered that running helps me get out of my head. Two years ago, I volunteered to be a research subject in a study on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), so now I have a 3D scan of my brain. I would like to do EMDR and dry needling. I have been in and out of talk therapy since high school. I love a med-spa. I practice retail therapy regularly.

When do you feel the most nourished?

When I’m not overextending myself, when I can get into a flow state in the studio, when my brain feels activated, when I’m able to see the people I love, when I get out of the city.

I practice retail therapy regularly.

I tend to burn out easily, so I need a lot of time to recharge after doing any kind of project or social thing, even if it’s small. This usually looks like spending a day or two in bed with my phone on silent and the blinds drawn while watching movies back to back.

Do you have a favorite meal?

Don’t even get me started. My favorite meals are mostly comfort foods that I ate while growing up. They either come from the continent of Asia, or are fermented, or have a fun textural dimension. My mom makes natto (fermented soybeans), yogurt, miso, pickles, and kimchi, so these are my top five. My partner, Nick — his mom does an incredible kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi); it’s so heavenly. Other comfort foods include niu rou mian (Taiwanese beef noodle soup), Hainan chicken, beef pho with tendon, seolleongtang (Korean ox bone soup), chawanmushi (savory Japanese steamed egg custard), and the tofu at Fong On in Chinatown, NY. Recently, I have been making larb, which I want to eat every day in this heat. I also love foods with bouncy, qq texture like the Third Culture mochi muffins in Berkeley. I literally dream about Yamo’s tea salad in the Mission and Hardena’s beef rendang in South Philly. I can’t live without grass jelly, black sesame tangyuan, matcha-flavored desserts, kulfi, and Hallabong oranges.