Chronically Creative: Painting Thru Depression with David Sandum
This week Behind the Mic features part four of Chronically Creative; a series about working with chronic illness. Today we meet David Sandum, a fine art painter and depression survivor. David speaks with us about finding art while institutionalized; the use of color while working through depression; and finding healing through art. David, step right up.
My Strange New Looking Bed and Nailed to the Wall Picture
David Sandum, 2001. Used by permission of the artist.
It was there I started to draw - in my room, alone and confused. Many therapists at the time asked if I took drugs, had an alcohol problem or any other addictions, saying that people with such strong anxiety and depression most often had them. They were always surprised to hear me answer no, but I just drew and painted, even if I didn’t see it clearly then. Yet now I realize I did something constructive with the depressive. Instead of a needle or a bottle, I picked up a pen and eventually the brush. So I am completely self-taught. Art has consumed me since this time, not just because I love art, but as I’ve literally have painted to stay alive, and in it, have found empathy. It’s as simple as that. People could never tell me in words what I went through. But I could see and understand it through Van Gogh’s and Munch’s expressive paintings. It was as if they said: “I know everything around you is chaos. But look at this, I felt the same way.” I have written about this extensively in my memoir (in English). It took me ten years to complete and I hope to get it published someday.
Q: As a colorist, do you notice a shift in tones and color as your depression ebbs or intensifies? Are there particular works of yours that you think illustrate that for us?
I think it’s a myth that depressed artists always paint black or in earth tones, though that can certainly be the case. Just look at Van Gogh’s vibrant yellow and stars, Degas inspiring ballerinas, or Matisse’s decorative color schemes. They were all depressed major portions of their life, but I see their work mainly as uplifting, even though Van Gogh’s early period for example was dark and his portrayals and subject matters often conveyed troubled times. But their colors and subject matters were vibrant. They focused on the energy inside. This is my main philosophy in art, like Matisse said: “I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.”
Depression Prayer
David Sandum, 2000 Used by permission.
I have certainly painted darker though, and my first few years I painted so dark people often said they wouldn’t be able to have my art on their wall. But now I wonder if that wasn’t just mental: that I just didn’t quite know how to paint yet and to keep my brush clean. Any true artist will know what I mean. But two of my very first paintings were expressive and colorful, and they will always be key to me.
The Law of the Jungle
David Sandum, 2000.
This vibrant and expressive painting was created late one winter’s night in the year 2000. One of my very first paintings, I painted by impulse. I had no idea what would evolve. But soon Darwin’s theory of natural selection came to mind: How the strong survive and the weak eventually become extinct–contemplating that the world is run by people who pressure others to destruction for their own gain (displayed by the evil man in profile to the left, about to crush and grab me with his claw). The “claw man” is trying to stab me; and in many aspects he represented the world as a whole.
Ironically, this painting now hangs in a law office. The lawyer who purchased it has told me it’s his dream to see it in a courtroom.
Q: You recently spent some time in the deserts of the American southwest. People have long gone to the deserts for a cure – for asthma, rheumatism, etc. Did you experiencing a healing energy in the desert — in regards to depression, or in more general terms? How did this change in atmosphere effect your moods and your work?
I don’t think I have found the answer to this just yet (I returned home from the US last night), as I’m not the kind of artist who works entirely on site. Things need to linger in my mind, sometimes for months, and suddenly one day in my studio things will come together. But the strong impressions were definitely there throughout my trip to the deserts of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico: the peace, the silence, the beauty of the landscape. No cell phones or computers, just me and the earth. Navajo country, Bryce Canyon in Utah, Sedona in Arizona, and Ghost Ranch New Mexico, were all places of healing. I locked my door to my studio two months ago tired and weak, but have returned filled with thoughts, places, and colors etched in my head. I love the desert and I always will.
To read all the posts in this series click here. Stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative. Thanks for being here.
Copenhagen to Seattle. Omer and Onward.
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Today we get on plane and leave Copenhagen, our ex-pat home for the last 2 1/2 years. We left our community in Seattle for adventure. To learn to live in new and wider ways. To watch our children become world citizens. And to take in countries on a continent that was not our own.
Little did we know it would be such a challenge.
Copenhagen has become to me what my Jewish ancestors call and Omer, an in-between time. In my internal narrative it has become a long pause between our “old” life in The Densmore House and our “next” life in The DensmoreHouse, seen now with new eyes. Our life here has been a long metaphysical Winter followed of late by an extended emotional Spring. I recently said to my fellow ex-pat friends, Katie and Kate, “Life in Denmark has certainty had it’s gooey caramel center, but it was surround by a big ball of steamed spinach.” Perhaps not the most appetizing of metaphors, but accurate nonetheless.
Here, in the middle of a physically and culturally chilly climate we have undergone a metamorphosis. Old ways of living – too rushed, to0 obligated, too angsty– have ebbed. And a new pace of family and community life has emerged. Along with this, I have come to find that I am no longer afraid of my work. And above all, the pain that plagued me for so many years has decreased in volume. Through struggle, through waiting, through the taking of the next step these things have come to pass in Copenhagen. Sometimes because of the place, and sometimes in spite of it. No matter. The point is, we have shed our illness. We are ready to emerge. To bloom. To blossom.
We are ready to ripen and pluck. To live a slower and more creative life. To be close to few, rather than available to many. To grow sugar-snap peas and to raise chickens. To move only as fast as our bodies can take us. To live in our dream house without the obligations that do not belong to us. To make a life with David and Barbi, with Jen and Paul — mashing all our children together into a happy clan. To sit at the table with Jenn. To meet people in real life, who before have only lived on our glowing screens. To let some people live a bit further away, but to keep others close.
We are ready to relish in the food we eat. To dress like ourselves. To have the secret of mysterious language, but to speak our most native tongue.
We are returning, but we are not going back. We are getting born.
*8Things: Honoring Places
Today is our last day in Copenhagen, our ex-pat home for the past 2 1/2 years. (more here and here) I wouldn’t say it’s been a great fit for us, culturally. Families who like to invite strangers in and talk to people on the bus do not acclimate well to Danish culture. But the city itself is at is most charming right now, as though tempting us to stay. I often say that CPH is like an elderly Aunt who has kept herself well. I’d like to remember the good bits, now before I go.
*8Things: To Treasure about Copenhagen
1. Knowing it’s time to pick the kids up from school by the sound of the church bells.
2. Watching the swans nest in city lakes that were once castle moats.
3. Martin encouraging us with the linguistically unique inhaled Danish ”yes” enthusiastically while we tell him a story.
4. Listening to Cate’s friend Johanna speak English and Danish with an Estonian accent. (Like a mini Soviet agent with golden ringlets and a penchant for knock knock jokes.)
5. Riding my bike through the city with my basket full of herbs, flowers, and strawberries.
6. The yellow and rosy-brick buildings with their green-copper turrets.
7. Drinking too much and eating too much with the Neilsen’s in their garden. (Ah! The courtyards!)
8. Walking thru the University Haven with Cate and watching it unfold from snow covered cemetery-silence to ducklings and daffodils.
What’s your list of *8Things: Honoring Places? What do you want to remember about a significant place in your life — your home town, your family’s summer cabin, a room of your own? Grab a button and play along. If you put your list on your blog, give us the permalink in the Mr. Linky below. Thanks for playing!
Chronically Creative: Living with Art and Biopolar Disorder
This week at Behind the Mic we have part three of Chronically Creative, a series of posts about working with chronic illness. Today we meet Abby from Life at the Poles, an artful soul working with Bipolar Disorder. Abby writes, paints, spins and dyes yarns, and rescues people like me when stuck on knitting patterns. She’s a keeper! Abby, set right up…
Living with Art and Bipolar Disorder with Abby
Q: Not to be all “Suzie Sunshine,” but sometimes a chronic condition can drive us into new working patterns that end up being positive for us. I think of this as turning something typically seen as a weakness into a superpower. Is there any way in which having Bipolar Disorder has become a superpower for you creatively? Does it in anyway empower or enhance your creative self?
I’m (slowly for me) learning how to use my moods, emotions, energy levels, mind sets to allow me to get the most done. I know when I’m in the middle of the higher part of a cycle, I can accomplish a tremendous amount of creative work – most of my artwork and design is the result of me tapping into the energy of the high points. However, I’ve also learned that I can accomplish a lot of nothing too, which leaves me feeling uninspired and extra depressed when that up phase ends and the lower part of the cycle kicks in, because I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. (Which is kinda true.) Right now, I’m working on recognizing up and down phases and then getting to work on what I know I can best accomplish during each phase that I can’t during the other. For example, I can come up with one or two web site designs in a day when in the middle of an up phase, but if I even try and sit down to code basic CSS or XHTML when up, I will have to fight with myself to focus. However, during a down phase, I actually benefit from “getting lost” in the hundreds of little steps involved in taking an image to the web. Like making sure I spelled “background-image” correctly.
It’s feels a bit like I’m a firehose for creative energy – some days I’m on full blast and other days you shake the hose and wonder if there’s a kink in it somewhere. Knowing where I am in that cycle allows me to focus on getting what I CAN get done, done. So I guess in some ways, it’s as if I was given this superpower that I am just learning to tap into, but that tends to fire off on it’s own. I have to learn how to control it when it fires off on it’s own, and slowly learn how to tap into it the rest of the time. I figure with time and practice, it will be more at will and less at random. ;)
Q: What tips and tricks have your figured out for working with your creative + Bipolar cycles? Do you have things you say to yourself at different stages? What helps you survive and even thrive creatively with Bipolar challenges on your plate?
To pay attention to myself! I ask myself almost constantly “Why do I feel this way?” Am I just having a really good day? Did something happen that has me feeling down? Or is this less situational and more cycle related? I give myself permission over and over and over to feel whatever it is I’m feeling, as long as I’m going to work out WHY I feel that way sooner than later. It’s important to me to know and understand what is going on inside my head and heart so I know when there is a real issue to work through and when I just need to find my headphones and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. At least until this phase passes.
Knowing what is going on inside also gives me some measure of control over a disorder I don’t have much control over. I may not be able to control how my brain and nervous system reacts tothe day to day and to normal brain chemicals, but I can control how much I express those feelings. There is also a very real comfort in knowing that hey, I am NOT crazy, this just happens. It enables me to rise above it as much as I can, and keep going. So I guess I just ask WHY of myself a LOT, and then do my best to answer, as my primary way of surviving the constant changing of my emotional tides.
What enables me to thrive is being able to view this disorder as not just a challenge, but a gift and tool. I have learned so much from having it, and am a much stronger person because of it. It also augments my love of art and helps me break outside of the box – something many people with Bipolar Disorder (and many mental disorders, actually) have an easier time doing. I apply that to my art in all of it’s forms, and also with how I deal with others. (Or I TRY at least!) For whatever reason, years of not being able to figure out what I was feeling helped me strongly identify and empathize with others. THAT is a gift I’d not trade for the world.
Q: What would you say to someone who has just been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder? What little nugget of info might carry them through the initial stages of learning to live with this particular chronic sidekick?
Journal, write, and give yourself permission to really feel and express how you feel during that time. And no censoring! (That’s important!) If you are angry, BE angry. Write angry. If you are soaring among the stars, then feel it, and write it. No one else has to read it, so it doesn’t matter how it reads. The important part is just that you get down what you are going through at the time, and what made you feel that way, if anything. Over time, you’ll start to see patterns, triggers, cycles, timing. And THAT is the best tool you can have in dealing with this disorder, after your medications (whatever they may be) and a good counselor. Actually, knowing your cycles and patterns will help your counseling/therapy progress. Knowing your patterns and triggers helps you maintain control over your life, even if you can’t control your disorder, or your mind set, intially. You’ll know what signs to look for that signal mania or depression, and you’ll know what to avoid to keep stable and when you are going to need a little help from friends and family.
Don’t let the disorder own or control your life – it doesn’t have to. And it does get easier. Like GI Joe says… knowing is half the battle. The better you know yourself, the easier living with Bipolar Disorder gets. Use the tools at your disposal, because that is what they are – tools.
Bonus Question: What have you got going on right now and how can we find you?
Oh my gosh, what DON’T I have going on? I’m in the middle of a minor identity crisis, so I’m playing with almost anything that comes my way, while learning to live productively and positively with this disorder. Even though I can remember feeling these cycles as a child, when you begin treatment and take control of your disorder, everything changes, including your sense of self. It’s incredibly freeing, but is it ever terrifying to not know who you are! So, I’m just going one day at a time trying to figure out who on earth I really am! And taking my own advice, I write about it a LOT at Life at the Poles. . And tweet about it almost just as much; I’m OririDraco on twitter. (I talk a lot though, you’ve been warned! ;)
Behind the Mic: Are you working with a chronic condition? How are you managing to live creatively with both your work and your illness? Please add to our Giant Pool Of Wisdom by commenting below. To read all the posts in this series click here; and stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative.
Car-Free Living with Magpie Girl
…in which I lay out a plan to remain car free. with kids. in America. And not jut because it’ green. (It’s good soulcare!)
Neato Things Rachelle Mentions in this video.
- No one wears lycra in Copenhagen. Check out Cycle Chic , especially the category “cycling in furs.” Plus, they have a great tag line “Hold my bike while I kiss your girlfriend.”
- Zip Car : for the places the bus and bike can’t reach.
- Super Cool Cargo Bike by Madsen. If we make it thru our first year car-free in Seattle, we may get one of these with a StokeMonkey motor.
- The only step thru electric bike I’ve found. Not as cute as my beautiful Amsterdam classic from Electra with Queen Bee saddlebags. Vanity Jones here is hoping she can just add a motor to her baby.
Today’s Artisan: Ten Things
- Visit Danish artisan Julie K. from Moments of Perfect Clarity and shop for some Clarity Birds.
- Don’t forget — all my art is packed on a ship for two month. So send me present from your hand-made artisan products and I’ll chant your praises in an upcoming video post at at Magpie Girl.
Rachelle Mee-Chapman
2311 N 45th St, #203
Seattle, WA 98103
And the questions we need YOU to answer (pretty please!)
Give us a Q for any of these A’s and enter to win a Clarity Bird for your very own window sill.
- What about your transportation life style? Do you have aspirations to do it differently? How have you become less car dependent.
- Present draw: What are you doing to live greener. (Is that a word? Greener?)
Don’t miss your chance to Train with Magpie Girl. Catch all my training posts, watch the video posts, and sign-up on my mailing list for advance sign-up opportunities and special discounts. (Top of the column, stage right.) Thanks for being here!
A Year Without Clothes: Confessional Update
….in which I confess to buying pants; sum up what I’ve learned so far in 7ish months of not buying clothes; and blatantly ask you to send me your art.
Neato Things Rachelle Mentions in this video.
- National Buy Nothing Day. Mark your calendars!
- A Year Without Clothes: The Beginning
- A Year Without Clothes: All the posts — from guest posts from other participants, and updates.
Today’s Artisan: Ten Things
- Ten Things: Gorgeous hand-made jewlery with a delicate, artful touch.
- Don’t forget — all my art is packed up. So send me gifty-samples of your hand-made artisan products and I’ll chant your praises in an upcoming video post at at Magpie Girl.
Rachelle Mee-Chapman
2311 N 45th St, #203
Seattle, WA 98103
And the questions we need YOU to answer (pretty please!)
- Have you been going A Year Without Clothes? What have you discovered so far?
- What are your thoughts in general about clothes and how you present yourself as a creative person thru dress?
- What’s the best thing you’ve ever done to get a right-fit wardrobe for you? (Tips please!)
- And a random question….Are you ordained on line? Who did you use?
See you on Monday with a video post on Car-Free Living. Thanks for being here!
*8Things: On Vacation
*8Things is on vacation. Check back next week, or tame your monkey mind with one of our historic oldies but goodies.
Cheers!
-Your Magpie Girl
3 Online Communities: Find Your Right Fit
Jen Louden, Ronna Detrick and I each specialize in soulcare, and each of us have on-line membership communities. Rather than be competitors, we chose to see each other as collaborative colleagues. As a testimony to abundance, and in commitment to helping our readers find the right fit, we decided to introduce our fans to all three flavors of communal goodness.
Jen posted part one of this interview with we three sister coaches. Learn about our hearts for our members at The Comfort Cafe, Flock, and A Conversational Space. Which one is the right fit for your soulcare needs? Find your place of support and inspiration.
Today, a sneak peek inside our ultimate dreams for our communities; our big motivators; and the Trio Collection of Proverbs Cards, our gift from us to you. Thanks for being here!
Q: If money or time were no object, what do you wish you could offer your community members?
Rachelle: I would hop around from region to region for intimate local Flock meet-ups. I’d be able to do monthly group video chats. And every member would get an exclusive piece of Flock jewelry when they joined. (Maybe a charm bracelet with inspirational Flock mottos.)
Ronna: I would fly them all to my home and spend a long, luxurious weekend with them in fabulous conversation. We’d eat fabulous food, drink glorious wine (and coffee), and soak up the beauty of each other’s presence and heart!
Jen:A quarterly live retreat at some fantastic eco resort staffed by cabana boys with warm coconut oil… The Cafers in person, oh my, that would be incredible. I’d adore showering them with beauty and rest and play, and each other’s holy presences. And really delish gift bags. And plenty of time to be seen and to connect our hearts and brains together. Four times a year!
Q: How much of what you’ve created and continue to offer speaks to your own questions, desires, thoughts, hopes, needs?
Rachelle: Everything I offer emerges out of the needs that I hear arising in the community and within myself. Right now there is a deep to get unstuck so dreams, passions, and visions can get themselves born; a desire to not feel alone in that journey; and a wish to be known and valued for your personal brand of wisdom. Flock was created so that we can meet those desires, together.
Ronna: I am not even remotely fooled by this reality. 100% of what I create and offer is because it speaks to the very things I most wonder about, most hope for, most fear, most desire. I am thinking about these things all the time for myself so the gift of being able to engage in conversation with others is total gift!
Jen: The stuff we explore is timeless. You keep visiting the same stuff over and over in your life, only from a different perspective. The Cafe is meant to help us remember more of what we know and be kinder to ourselves when we forget. So of course, I’m right there with everyone else. I pick monthly topics that are of interest to me, that are at my learning edge.
Are you picking up what we’re laying down? Join our mailing list to find out what else we are offering, and receive our exclusive Trio Collection of printable Proverbs Cards. (Shuffle for inspiration!) See you tomorrow at RENEGADE Conversations for part three of the interview series. Cheers!
Email Marketing You Can Trust
P.s. Already signed up for the cards yesterday at Jen’s? Then you’re done! The whole set should be in the welcome email you received yesterday. Any problems? Email me, I’m happy to help.
Chronically Creative: Art Practicalities with Sarah Marie Lacy
This week at Behind the Mic, part two of Chronically Creative, a series of posts about working with chronic illness. Today we have Sarah Marie Lacy, fine art painter and chronic fatigue survivor since age 12! I met Sarah when she was doing a stint of live painting on line at Watching Paint Dry. Her youth and her talent inspire me on a regular basis. Sarah, set right up…
Art Practicalities with Sarah Marie Lacy
Q: How does art serve you in times of poor health? Does it inspire? Comfort? Companion?
Art definitely inspires me when I’m relapsing or ill. If I’m in a bad relapse, I’m usually too sick to make any art, and of course that’s frustrating. But it gives me something to focus on. It acts as a lifeline, something to hold onto when the seas get rough. It gives me something to look forward to – “When I get better, I can do this and this and this!” I can paint in my head, I can plan paintings, or I can ponder new directions I want to take and new skills I want to learn.
When the pain or the exhaustion is really bad, it allows me to look forward, into a future that’s much more pleasant.
I think art is literally how I stay sane. It gives my life purpose, and it gives my pain expression. I think that’s why my art isn’t necessarily about rainbows and sunshine. It’s about pain and hope, at the same time. For me, it’s about expressing the hurt, but it’s also about finding the light. What can I say? I’m a paradox.
Q: How do you manage the ebb and flow of productive times, and rest/healing-up periods? How do you talk to yourself about success during these periods? [Read more →]
Reality TV and Standing in Your Own Power
Neato Things Rachelle mentions in this video:
- Flock is now Open! Come join us and see my video post, Tips and Techniques for Dealing with Transitions.
- Missed last week’s related video post? It’s here: Reality TV and the Myth of the Big Break.
- Ida Saki’s performance. Here with better film of the detailed movements. Here without the annoying commentary.
- Are you a Scanner or a Specialist? This book is great for helping Scanners manage the crazy: Refuse to Choose!: A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love
.
- My Life Coach, Jena Strong is tops!
- Get your free gift! Proverbs Cards, the Creative Truths Collection.
- Join the notification list for our late Summer class:
Power Stories: tips and tales for standing in your own power.
Email Marketing You Can Trust
Today’s Artisan: Neil Sittler of stickflower design.
And the questions we need YOU to answer (pretty please):
- Has there been a time when you stood in your own power and made what seemed to be an “illogical” choice to others? How did that turn out? How did you know to make that choice? Do tell in the comments below, or post about it and give us the link. We need your power stories. (Testify!)
- Got a question for Magpie Girl? Pop it in the comments below and see it anwered in a future Ask Magpie video.
Don’t miss your chance to Train with Magpie Girl. Catch all my training posts, watch the video posts, and sign-up on my mailing list for advance sign-up opportunities and special discounts. (Top of the column, stage right.) Thanks for being here!
