I was first introduced to Canadian visual artist Franke James’ work via a link from Max Gladwell, a site that explores social media and green living. Ms. James, who describes her visual essays as “a freewheeling mix of illustrations, photographs and hand-drawn text,” sits squarely at the intersection of these two spaces.

A master of many mediums, Franke explains her work eloquently. For her essay “A Green Winter,” she says:

Whether I use illustrations or photos depends on the idea I’m trying to communicate. For example in ‘A Green Winter’ I chatted with Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics (at a cocktail party after a business event). Steven is a guy who always turns conventional wisdom upside down. So I thought — this guy is really going to say something extraordinary. I asked him how he would solve global warming. I was totally dumbfounded by his reply:

‘Why would you worry about it? Global warming is going to be good for Canada. Look how much more of the country will be populated if it’s warmer.’ To illustrate my shock and dumbfoundedness, I drew my bloodshot eye with the world spinning inside it! Clearly something that no camera could capture but something the viewer can ‘feel.’

She eventually adapted the Green Winter essay into a narrated animation, which was shown onstage between Al Gore and Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s speeches at the 2007 Green Living Show.

Franke refers to her work as ‘conceptual art’ that’s designed to express her personal concerns about the environment and global warming. The starting point for her pieces is usually a personal environmental action, such as when she decided to give up her SUV and convert her driveway into a garden.

What first drew me to Franke’s work was a piece born from her attendance at a discussion between Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Kingwell called “An Evening of Dialogue on Social Change,” which inspired this essay. It’s a fascinating take on two great thinkers, and Franke’s reactions to what they discussed. It’s also more thoughtfully executed and engaging than the hundreds of hurried tweets and blog posts that invariably swirled around the event as it was happening.

Jason Calacanis (founder of human-powered search engine Mahalo) recently created a stir in the blogosphere by announcing his retirement from blogging, due in part to peoples’ abbreviated attention spans and increasingly self-motivated publishing interests. Perhaps in this pay-per-click, SEO’ed world, it’s a good time to turn our attention back to the visual artist as change agent.

Franke says, “As artists we can hold up a mirror that reflects back society’s values — even if that sometimes makes people uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable? Perhaps. But unique, beautiful and thought-provoking along the way.