A Quest for Wonder
Remarkable places. Unexpected stories.
Sepia Jade is a creative publishing and digital-art studio for curious people—readers, travelers, visual thinkers, and anyone drawn to the stories that places keep.
Through illustrated books and digital investigation collections, Sepia Jade explores history, archaeology, unusual architecture, lost knowledge, survival, adaptation, and the uncertainty that remains when evidence is incomplete.
What Sepia Jade creates
Sepia Jade is taking shape along three paths: Investigations, Adventures, and the Gift Shop.
Sepia Jade Investigations brings together visual storytelling, documented history, and thoughtful interpretation. The first major investigation is The Cities Below: A Journey into the World’s Underground Cities.
Sepia Jade Adventures is a forthcoming path for immersive, story-driven experiences through remarkable landscapes. Its opening day is still to be announced.
The Gift Shop will begin with downloadable artwork and digital collections, including high-resolution art, illustrated summaries, catalog cards, and evidence-aware visual interpretations.
How the work is approached
The work begins with real places, documented history, and credible sources. Evidence, interpretation, uncertainty, and artistic visualization are distinguished wherever that difference matters.
About the artwork
Some Sepia Jade artwork is developed using AI-assisted image tools under original creative direction, then selected, edited, composed, corrected, refined, and prepared for publication. AI is one tool in the creative process—not the subject of the work.
The illustrations are interpretive visualizations inspired by historical, archaeological, architectural, and cultural research. They are intended to encourage curiosity and understanding, not to serve as photographic documentation or proven depictions of exact people, structures, or events.
The first investigation
The Cities Below travels beneath Seattle, Edinburgh, Naples, Rome, Jerusalem, Derinkuyu, Cappadocia, Naours, Coober Pedy, Herculaneum, and Alexandria—following places carved underground, buried by catastrophe, rebuilt above, adapted for protection, or now resting beneath the water.
A word from the Human behind Sepia Jade
Hi! I’m Jen. I started Sepia Jade as an outlet for my curiosity. I love the sense of wonder when I see and understand things that are outside the normal expectations of life.
A few years ago, I moved into an RV and traveled the US for two years. I met people; I saw beauty in this country that I didn’t realize existed. And it wasn’t Grand Canyon-level. It was everyday sights that were just different. Those two years were all I needed. Since then, I haven’t traveled much, but I still enjoy watching people do amazing little things that mean so much, learning from history, which we so often forget, and generally enjoying being around the people I love.
In late summer 2025, I decided to learn what the whole AI craze was about, so I started using ChatGPT. I asked it questions about what I did, trying to find out what its capabilities were. I watched YouTubers who seemed to really enjoy using AI for repetitive, data-based tasks that were easy to teach it. After some time with it, I realized it has a lot of capabilities, but as the comment at the bottom of every ChatGPT chat will tell you, it makes mistakes, like contradicting itself in the same chat. In general, it’s a super-smart teenager who thinks it knows everything, but has very little experience.
I am educated in accounting and information systems. If you read my personal LinkedIn page, you’ll see I am a systems person. That does not just mean technology and accounting. It means solving data and visibility problems while making time management easy. When you can see the business and you’re effective, you can get back to the people and to making the company better. And I have been fairly good at it for decades. But “business process automation” is considered work that most people think AI can do now. That’s okay, maybe it can, and I have just been over-complicating things. Maybe.
When I do this kind of work, I make the final judgment calls, but I rely on specialized tools and on experts in each area to define what they need. Users may not always know how to get there or know the specifics, but they know what the final product should help them do.
Whew! It is taking a long time to get here, but I believe life is a journey, not a destination. So where is this little journey supposed to take us? Here it is:
Sepia Jade is a joint effort between AI and a human. AI explores possibilities and connections in less time. I decide which questions are worth pursuing and what another person might find interesting. And trust me when I say I work through EVERYTHING. While AI brings endless patience for iteration, I bring curiosity, judgment, taste, lived experience, and responsibility for the final work. Together, those strengths help create something thoughtful, filled with a sense of wonder, and worth your time.
I hope you enjoy the combination. Feel free to drop me a line at jen@sepiajade.com.
Best,
Jen
