Since last year, I’ve been training as an Art Psychotherapist at the Canadian International Institute of Art Therapy (CiiAT).
I’m happy to announce that I’ve started my practicum and am available for individual sessions through CiiAT’s Virtual Art Therapy Clinic (VATC). Link in bio to my booking page. 🔗☝️💫
(Also: /#/staff_member/202)
The sessions are affordable: $25 for 50 minutes. There’s also a sliding scale (as low as $10 for a single session). Just email the VATC to request.
The initial intake session is delivered at no cost, so it can be a good place to explore, ask questions, and discover if art psychotherapy is a good fit for you.
Art psychotherapy combines art making with psychological reflection and exploration.
#artpsychotherapy #arttherapy
Drawing upon the history of the shadow in Sumerian literature, my graphic poem reads:
you are my sunshade
my sweet shadow
As a student of art therapy, I often take a Jungian approach, analyzing the symbolism of artwork produced in session. For Jung, symbols mediate the connection between consciousness and unconscious material. They serve as windows into the unconscious because they bridge both domains.
Jung is well known for his theory of the shadow, which represents the unconscious reservoir of everything the conscious ego refuses to identify with, rejects, or represses.
The precise contents of the shadow vary across individuals. For example, some people may be too identified with their aggressive drives. Their shadow could be patience and calm endurance. They repress these traits because they may fear patience makes them vulnerable. Alternatively, some people may be too identified with patience and deference to authority. Integrating aggressive drives, repressed within the shadow, can enable greater degrees of autonomy and self-agency.
For Jung, the contents of the shadow needed to be integrated. Healthy psychological functioning requires balance. We need both patience and self-assertion in equal measure. This is why Jung stated that the shadow contains light: “[t]o confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light.” The shadow contains light because integrating the shadow enables psychological growth and transformation.
In my graphic poem, which draws upon Sumerian cuneiform, I seek to recover the lost history of the shadow as a source of beauty, love, and protection. This represents the shadow of the shadow: the part of the shadow’s history that has been repressed. For most of Western culture, the shadow has been viewed as a source of illusion and deception. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Narcissus is consumed by his shadow. In Plato’s cave, shadows are illusions. However, ancient Sumerians viewed the shadow as a source of protection and love.
My graphic poem and images are symbols that serve as bridges into the ancient Sumerian meaning of the shadow.
The translations are from Gudea and His Dynasty (1997) by Dietz-Otto Edzard.
My graphic poem reads:
“Your shadow encircled my heart and held me like a dream”
Drawing inspiration from the history of encircling shadows across cultures:
i. Pliny’s Natural History: the daughter of Butades encircles the shadow of her departing love. Painting begins by encircling shadow.
ii. The Divyāvadāna, a Sanskrit Buddhist text from the 2nd century CE: Artists Encircle Buddha’s Shadow:
King Bibisara “had his artists trace and color in the outline of the shadow which the Buddha projected onto a screen” (Strong).
Based upon the outline of Buddha’s shadow, the painting faithfully transmitted Buddha’s presence: “So potent was the resultant painting of the Blessed One that, when it was sent as a gift to King Udrayana of Roruka, it was welcomed with great ceremony as though it were the Buddha in person. The image then proceeded to preach the Dharma and to convert the king to the faith” (Strong).
iii. In the Hebrew Psalms: The shadow of God’s wings encircles like a garment.
Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by H. Rackham, vol. 9, Harvard University Press, 1961.
Strong, John S. The Legend and Cult of Upagupta: Sanskrit Buddhism in North India and Southeast Asia. Princeton University Press, 1992.
#graphicpoem #loveyourshadow #lys
✨️ Embrace #2 (Small on Mitsumata Iron Oxide Pink) by Daniel @Etigson . Part of his current exhibition, Love Your Shadow | Exhibiting: January 21 – February 8, 2026
Daniel Etigson is a graphic artist currently based in Toronto. His work focuses on screen prints and hand-bound art books. He’s an Artist Member and Board Member of Propeller Art Gallery, a member of People of Print, and a Studio Member and Board Member of Open Studio: Centre for Contemporary Printmaking.
Daniel’s screen prints and art books have appeared in group exhibitions and art fairs across Toronto, including at Propeller Art Gallery, Northern Contemporary Gallery, the John M Kelly Library (University of Toronto), and the Bound Book Arts Fair. He has also exhibited internationally at Clearlight Jewellery Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He holds a Master’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto.
Learn more about this exhibition in person or online, /exhibitions/love-your-shadow/
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#propellergallery #queenwesttoronto
#queenwestart #artgallerytoronto #artTO #contemporaryart #torontoart #artcollector #interiordecortoronto #torontoartcollectors #torontoartists #canadianartist #WestQueenWest #experienceart #print #screenprint #loveyourshadow
Touching the Shadow of a Tree, a series of prints by Daniel @Etigson , Black acrylic screen print on Japanese paper. 24”x13.” Printed at @openstudio_toronto .
The shadow as sanctuary, the figure becomes absorbed in the shadow of a tree.
Intertexts:
Zeami’s Toboku: “She melts into the shadow of the tree / She melts into the shadow of the tree”
Tōboku. The Noh Drama: Ten Plays from the Japanese, translated by the Special Noh Committee, C.E. Tuttle Co., 1971.
Felicitations, no. 356. Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry:
This pine represents
prayers for your eternal life.
May I always dwell
in the shadow [kage] of the tree
that endures a thousand years.
✨️Experience this series in person at Propeller Art Gallery, /exhibitions/love-your-shadow/
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.
#propellergallery #queenwesttoronto #queenwestart #artgallerytoronto #artTO #contemporaryart #torontoart #artcollector #interiordecortoronto #torontoartcollectors #torontoartists #canadianartist #WestQueenWest #experienceart #newexhibition #print #screenprint #loveyourshadow
From my artist talk @propellerartgallery on my Love Your Shadow exhibition, on till February 8th.
Here I talk about the tradition of “Buddha’s Shadow”: Foying.
In the mountain caves of Nagarahara, Buddha left his luminous shadow. The legend derives from his combat with the Naga King Gopala, a vengeful dragon spirit, who lived in the caves of Nagarahara and spread famine, epidemic, and terror.
After Buddha defeated and converted Gopala, Gopala asked Buddha to live with him in his cave. Although Buddha staid for a time, he eventually had to leave, which distressed Gopala. According to Buddhist tradition, Buddha left his shadow in the cave to safeguard Gopala’s heart.
Shaped by the legend of Buddha’s shadow, the caves of Nagarahara, located in present day Afghanistan, were an important pilgrimage site in Buddhism. Early pilgrims described the shadow as both luminous and elusive. It glimmered from afar and vanished when approached. As Fa-hsien (337-422 CE), a Chinese Buddhist monk, wrote: “From a distance of more than ten paces, you seem to see Buddha’s real form, with his complexion of gold and his characteristic marks…. The nearer you approach, however, the fainter it becomes.”
The elusiveness of Buddha’s shadow shaped it as an object of devotion. Through its luminosity and elusiveness, Buddha’s shadow functioned as a meditative device that activated the pilgrim’s imagination. It stimulated Buddhist visualization and developed the inner imagination of the pilgrim.
Based upon the tradition of Buddha's shadow, my exhibition includes the original graphic poem, which I wrote and illustrated: "In the cave of Buddha's shadow, my heart finds rest with you."
This graphic poem is available as a signed and framed digital print. It is marked 1/1 and signed Propeller LYS exhibition on the back.
#buddha’sshadow #foying
“The daughter of Butades and the Shadow of her Love” alludes to the origin of painting — as the outlining of shadow — which the Roman author Pliny relates in his Natural History.
According to Pliny, the first paintings were outlines of shadows. As Pliny writes,
“all agree that [painting] began with tracing an outline around a human figure’s shadow [umbra] and consequently that pictures were originally done in this way.”
In his account of the origin of clay portraiture (i.e. creating the portrait of the human face in clay), Pliny provides the fable of the daughter of Butades, a Corinthian potter. The fable begins when the daughter of Butades outlines the shadow of her departing lover, after a lamp throws his silhouette on the wall. As Pliny writes,
“[Butades] …[invented clay portraiture] owing to his daughter, who was in love with a young man; and she, when he was going abroad, drew in outline [lineis circumscripsit] on the wall the shadow of his face thrown by the lamp [lucernam]. Her father pressed clay on this and made a relief, which he hardened by exposure to fire with the rest of his pottery; and it is said that this likeness was preserved in the Shrine of the Nymphs until the destruction of Corinth.”
This passage hovers between enclosure and rupture. On the one hand, the shadow is outlined and encircled with a loving hand, and its image, hardened in clay, is enshrined at Corinth. However, at the same time, the narrative abruptly ends with the destruction of the shrine, and we never learn what happened to the daughter of Butades and her love. Pliny never returns to their story.
In my print, I show the daughter of Butades and the shadow of her departed love. It is a record of the shadow’s encircling embrace.
Translations from Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by H. Rackham, vol. 9, Harvard University Press, 1961.
#shadow #prints
Palingenesis: Chymical Allegories of Rebirth (Scroll), Artist Proof, Digital Print on Mitsumata Iron Oxide Pink by Daniel @etigson .
The scroll explores the image of the shadow of a flower in 17th-century science.
Part of his current exhibition, Love Your Shadow | Exhibiting: January 21 – February 8, 2026.
Through a collection of prints and hand-bound books and scrolls, Daniel Etigson’s Love Your Shadow exhibition explores the shadow as a source of beauty, protection, and love.
Learn more about this exhibition in person or online, /exhibitions/love-your-shadow/
#propellergallery #queenwesttoronto
#queenwestart #artgallerytoronto
My Love Your Shadow exhibition explores the shadow as a source of love, beauty, and protection.
Here’s a clip from my artist talk where I discuss the meaning of the oldest written word for shadow — gissu —which means both shadow and protection in Sumerian Cuneiform.
#shadow #gissu #propellerartgallery
And when I dive into the shadow of a wave, I feel you all around me.
Graphic Poem
Love Your Shadow opening reception today @propellerartgallery 2-5pm.
#wave #shadow
Watch Propeller Art Gallery and Open Studio member Daniel Etigson (@etigson ) in action as he prints an edition of photopolymer gravure prints on washi at Open Studio (@openstudio_toronto ).
Photopolymer gravure, also called digital etching, beautifully captures deep blacks and delicate tonal nuances.
The vibrant red sheets are Mitsumata Iron Oxide Pink, while the opalescent ones are Inshu Gampi, and both are available at the Japanese Paper Place (@thejppofficial ). These heritage washi papers are strong and durable, and perfect for the etching presses at Open Studio.
Daniel’s prints are now on view in his ‘Love Your Shadow’ exhibition at Propeller Art Gallery (@propellerartgallery ). Make sure to stop by to see them in person! It explores the shadow as a source of love, beauty, and protection.
🎉 Reception: January 24, 2-5pm
🗣️ Artist talk: 3pm
📍 Propeller Gallery, 30 Abell St, Toronto, ON
🖼️ Exhibit continues until February 8
Open Studio also offers printmaking classes and one-on-one instruction, helping artists of all levels explore new techniques and develop their practice; check out openstudioshop.ca for listings.
#Printmaking #Print #JapanesePaperPlace #PropellerArtGallery #OpenStudioToronto #Etching #Photogravure #Washi
![Drawing upon the history of the shadow in Sumerian literature, my graphic poem reads:you are my sunshademy sweet shadowAs a student of art therapy, I often take a Jungian approach, analyzing the symbolism of artwork produced in session. For Jung, symbols mediate the connection between consciousness and unconscious material. They serve as windows into the unconscious because they bridge both domains.Jung is well known for his theory of the shadow, which represents the unconscious reservoir of everything the conscious ego refuses to identify with, rejects, or represses.The precise contents of the shadow vary across individuals. For example, some people may be too identified with their aggressive drives. Their shadow could be patience and calm endurance. They repress these traits because they may fear patience makes them vulnerable. Alternatively, some people may be too identified with patience and deference to authority. Integrating aggressive drives, repressed within the shadow, can enable greater degrees of autonomy and self-agency.For Jung, the contents of the shadow needed to be integrated. Healthy psychological functioning requires balance. We need both patience and self-assertion in equal measure. This is why Jung stated that the shadow contains light: “[t]o confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light.” The shadow contains light because integrating the shadow enables psychological growth and transformation.In my graphic poem, which draws upon Sumerian cuneiform, I seek to recover the lost history of the shadow as a source of beauty, love, and protection. This represents the shadow of the shadow: the part of the shadow’s history that has been repressed. For most of Western culture, the shadow has been viewed as a source of illusion and deception. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Narcissus is consumed by his shadow. In Plato’s cave, shadows are illusions. However, ancient Sumerians viewed the shadow as a source of protection and love.My graphic poem and images are symbols that serve as bridges into the ancient Sumerian meaning of the shadow.The translations are from Gudea and His Dynasty (1997) by Dietz-Otto Edzard.](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6739723951515963425030_0_92c7f271cba437f7fb8bf3a1db3fe6c1.jpg?o=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&h=baa9721936412ed7e583ced3791577c3)
![Touching the Shadow of a Tree, a series of prints by Daniel @Etigson, Black acrylic screen print on Japanese paper. 24”x13.” Printed at @openstudio_toronto.The shadow as sanctuary, the figure becomes absorbed in the shadow of a tree.Intertexts:Zeami’s Toboku: “She melts into the shadow of the tree / She melts into the shadow of the tree”Tōboku. The Noh Drama: Ten Plays from the Japanese, translated by the Special Noh Committee, C.E. Tuttle Co., 1971.Felicitations, no. 356. Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry:This pine representsprayers for your eternal life.May I always dwellin the shadow [kage] of the treethat endures a thousand years. ️Experience this series in person at Propeller Art Gallery, /exhibitions/love-your-shadow/...#propellergallery #queenwesttoronto #queenwestart #artgallerytoronto #artTO #contemporaryart #torontoart #artcollector #interiordecortoronto #torontoartcollectors #torontoartists #canadianartist #WestQueenWest #experienceart #newexhibition #print #screenprint #loveyourshadow](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6766213831382916493014_0_71c81e8fbc9cd116af09d6fe1c37c6b1.jpg?o=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&h=f213b68a4a6a4672cd2456a0f6e038d2)
![“The daughter of Butades and the Shadow of her Love” alludes to the origin of painting — as the outlining of shadow — which the Roman author Pliny relates in his Natural History.According to Pliny, the first paintings were outlines of shadows. As Pliny writes,
“all agree that [painting] began with tracing an outline around a human figure’s shadow [umbra] and consequently that pictures were originally done in this way.”In his account of the origin of clay portraiture (i.e. creating the portrait of the human face in clay), Pliny provides the fable of the daughter of Butades, a Corinthian potter. The fable begins when the daughter of Butades outlines the shadow of her departing lover, after a lamp throws his silhouette on the wall. As Pliny writes,“[Butades] …[invented clay portraiture] owing to his daughter, who was in love with a young man; and she, when he was going abroad, drew in outline [lineis circumscripsit] on the wall the shadow of his face thrown by the lamp [lucernam]. Her father pressed clay on this and made a relief, which he hardened by exposure to fire with the rest of his pottery; and it is said that this likeness was preserved in the Shrine of the Nymphs until the destruction of Corinth.”This passage hovers between enclosure and rupture. On the one hand, the shadow is outlined and encircled with a loving hand, and its image, hardened in clay, is enshrined at Corinth. However, at the same time, the narrative abruptly ends with the destruction of the shrine, and we never learn what happened to the daughter of Butades and her love. Pliny never returns to their story.In my print, I show the daughter of Butades and the shadow of her departed love. It is a record of the shadow’s encircling embrace.Translations from Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by H. Rackham, vol. 9, Harvard University Press, 1961.#shadow #prints](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6766574353482663427360_0_d879c3128996c6a3043c4504ab9f63d8.jpg?o=aHR0cHM6Ly9zY29udGVudC1vcmQ1LTMuY2RuaW5zdGFncmFtLmNvbS92L3Q1MS44Mjc4Ny0xNS82MjUzMDk0NDVfMTg1NjI0MzcxODQwMzgxMzJfMTc1ODk0ODE5NzIyNzkzNjY2M19uLmpwZz9zdHA9YzAuMTUwLjEyMDIuMTIwMmFfZHN0LWpwZ19lMzVfczY0MHg2NDBfc2gyLjA4X3R0NiZfbmNfaHQ9c2NvbnRlbnQtb3JkNS0zLmNkbmluc3RhZ3JhbS5jb20mX25jX2NhdD0xMDAmX25jX29jPVE2Y1oyZ0hrR0x5WGtxT1N0RHBOT2MtczJUTDF3Z3BMUDU2ajhNa0tiQzBCU1JNcFotZHVGQzVOaFhhdmVUWkY4OExrNF9qMWFZYzVMSFlEdGNUZWYwSXpkRElUJl9uY19vaGM9QWk4MWpldzJQaVFRN2tOdndIWkYyMWkmX25jX2dpZD1Qa2Z0XzFja1FKTUNCYmNEazRjRDl3JmVkbT1BUFU4OUZBQkFBQUEmY2NiPTctNSZvaD0wMF9BZjREVjlUVmZSUWMtdEo1YU5LUWM3dkI5RTFtaHo3Q3hIV05lTlg2Si1NeWF3Jm9lPTZBMEY5RUM3Jl9uY19zaWQ9YmMwYzJj&h=2491efb356a3b2c208f192c1b2fda15b)
