Are you feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or battling depression?
You’re not alone. Creativity has a powerful ability to serve as a therapeutic outlet, offering relief and a deeper understanding of oneself. In this blog post, we explore how artist, author, and philanthropist David Sandum sheds light on this transformative process — sharing his journey of turning pain into art, the symbolic language behind his work, and practical tips to reconnect with your creative side. Whether you’re an artist or simply someone searching for a new way to cope, you’ll discover actionable insights to help you harness the healing potential of creativity, inspired by David’s inspiring story.
The Power of Creativity as a Therapeutic Outlet
David Sandum’s journey begins with a profound personal challenge: a battle with depression. Around 2000-2001, after being hospitalized for mental health reasons, he found refuge in art—drawing became a vital form of self-expression and healing. As David recalls, “I began to draw in my room and became absorbed in art. I never looked back since then.” His work not only served as a cathartic outlet but also helped him regain a sense of control during difficult times.
Why does creativity help in depression?
Creating art allows for an emotional release—giving you a way to express feelings that might be hard to put into words. It acts as a safe space where you can process pain, anxiety, or even moments of joy. David mentions spending hours working on his paintings during panic attacks, which helped him regain a sense of balance.
Practical Tip: Use Art to Process Emotions. Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, set aside a dedicated space and time to create. Doodle, paint, or write—don’t worry about the result. Focus on the act of creating as a means of self-care.
Symbolism and Connection in Artistic Expression
David’s work is rich in symbolism, often depicting roots, branches, neural pathways, and interconnected webs. These motifs reflect themes of grounding, spiritual connection, and the web of human relationships. As David shares, “Symbolism is important to me,” and he draws inspiration from artists like Chagall, who used symbolic language to tell stories.
Is this symbolism a conscious choice?
David explains that many of his recurring motifs, such as roots and trees, emerged over years of exploring themes of interconnectedness. During an artist residency in Scotland, he was inspired by Celtic patterns and Viking carvings, blending ancient symbols to explore identity and heritage. This process showcases how intuitive and exploratory art can reveal deeper layers of meaning.
Actionable Strategy: Incorporate Personal Symbols. Reflect on symbols that hold personal meaning—roots for grounding, trees for growth, waves for emotion. Use these motifs in your art to explore your own identity and the interconnectedness of life.
Creativity as a Tool to Overcome Life’s Challenges
For David, art is not just a form of self-expression—it’s a lifeline. “Having a cathartic outlet helps me during life’s challenges,” he states. In moments of despair, working in his studio gives him a sense of momentum and control. Starting with simple lines or doodles often leads to breakthroughs.
How can you move past creative blocks?
David suggests creating in an environment where you feel comfortable. He emphasizes that sometimes, just starting is the hardest part—whether doodling or taking photographs. He shares, “You gotta start. Sometimes the inspiration comes when we start working,” highlighting how action often sparks motivation.
Practical Tip: Establish a Consistent Creative Routine. Designate a space and time for your creativity. Keep your supplies organized, and allow yourself to experiment without judgment. Remember, even a few minutes of doodling or a short walk with your camera can ignite inspiration.
Transforming Trauma and Advocacy Through Art
David’s impactful series on his grandmother’s experience during the Holocaust demonstrates how art can serve as a form of remembrance and activism. When he learned about Holocaust denial, he was moved to create a series of paintings sharing his family’s story, some of which are displayed at the Mizel Museum in Denver. This project encapsulates how art preserves memory and raises awareness.
Using art for social impact
David’s dedication to charity is exemplified by the Twitter Art Exhibit (Now Postcard Art Exhibit), which has grown over the years to include thousands of artists from dozens of countries. These collaborative projects not only raise funds but also foster a global community of creative activism.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to Creativity and Challenges
00:45 David Sandum’s Journey with Creativity
07:26 Creativity as a Tool for Overcoming Depression
13:03 Art as a Medium for Awareness and Philanthropy
17:31 The Artistic Process: Painting vs. Writing
22:50 The Impact of Writing on Self-Understanding
27:46 Creative Practices for Dark Times
29:56 Conclusion and Inspiration
TAKEAWAYS
- Creative breakthroughs often stem from chaos and mistakes, not structured planning.
- The act of starting is often the hardest step, but it’s where true momentum originates.
- The symbolic language of art opens a non-verbal dialogue about connection and grounding.
- Art-making in different mediums shares principles of risk-taking and acceptance of failure.
- Writing and visual art deepen self-awareness but require different levels of vulnerability.
- Moving through a creative or emotional impasse often involves externalizing or physically engaging with the environment.
ABOUT DAVID
Born and raised in Sweden, David Sandum moved to the United States in the early 1990s and settled in Salt Lake City. He attended the University of Utah and graduated in 1999 with a BA in speech communication.
Soon after, he returned to Scandinavia and ultimately secured a position in IT sales. The demands of his new job, on the heels of many years of stress, took a toll on his health, and he fell into a severe depression. It was during this difficult time that he began to draw and paint, inspired by Edvard Munch’s philosophy that we should all write or paint our life story.
In 2002, David had his first exhibit in his new hometown of Moss, Norway. Over the years, he has pursued a career in art, participating in many group exhibits and annual solo gallery shows. He was also awarded several public art commissions in Hvaler, Norway, and Skagen, Denmark. In 2007, David completed a series of Auschwitz-Birkenau paintings in honor of his grandmother, who was a survivor. One of the pieces was acquired by the Mizel Museum in Denver, Colorado.
More recently, David has embarked on several study trips to New York City, Prague, and Amsterdam. In October 2014, he was accepted to work at the prestigious printmaking studio Estudi de Gravat Ignasi Aguirre Ruiz in Barcelona under master printer Ignacio, who has worked with a number of renowned artists, including Dali, Tapies, and Miro. For his etchings, David primarily uses aquatint, drypoint, or carborundum.
When painting, he uses either oil on canvas or gouache on paper. He loves the difference between these techniques. “Working with oils is like taking a long mountain expedition,” he says, “while working with etchings is like climbing without a rope. One mistake and you’re dead!”
Influences include Scandinavian artists Munch, Karsten, and Sparre, continental masters Gauguin, Van Gogh, Bonnard, and Matisse, and the German Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) movement (1911–1914) spearheaded by Kandinsky.
In 2010, David earned international acclaim by founding Twitter Art Exhibit, now known as Postcard Art Exhibit, a social media initiative whereby artists from around the world send hand-painted postcards that are exhibited for local charities in need of funding. This annual event has gone global, taking place in such cities as Los Angeles, Orlando, and New York City. The 2017 exhibit in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, attracted more than 1,000 artists from 65 countries.
An author as well as an artist, David wrote a memoir about his challenges with mental illness: I’ll Run Till the Sun Goes Down: A Memoir about Depression and Discovering Art. Published by Sandra Jonas Publishing in Boulder, Colorado, the book was released in September 2015.
David currently lives in Moss, Norway.
CONNECT WITH DAVID
Website https://www.davidsandum.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/david_sandum/
Twitter https://x.com/DavidSandum
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DavidSandumCreative
BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/davidsandum.bsky.social
BONUS! Check out this episode on BYUTV:
GET DAVID’S BOOK!
I’ll Run Till the Sun Goes Down: A Memoir About Depression and Discovering Art
Note: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission from qualified purchases.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Shannon Grissom (00:00)
Welcome to Made to Make. Here we talk about creativity, the challenges that come with it, and why we keep showing up anyway. Because hey, we are all Made to Make.
Welcome to the Made to Make podcast. I’m your host Shannon Grissom. Today I’m talking with artist, author, and philanthropist David Sandum whose journey through depression led him to discover the life-changing power of creativity. And boy has he. Welcome, David. So you’ve lived and worked in different countries. You’ve been all over the place.
David Sandum (00:38)
Thank you.
Shannon Grissom (00:45)
How did your journey with creativity start?
David Sandum (00:49)
Well, it started around the year 2000, 2001. So it’s been 25 years. ⁓ I was actually educated in college with business or organizational communication and I was going to be a consultant. ⁓ But my life took quite a different turn when I fell really ill with depression and was hospitalized back then. And I began to draw.
in my room and just became absorbed into art. And I never looked back since then. So I had my first exhibit in 2002 and pretty much exhibited every year since then.
Shannon Grissom (01:33)
Wow, now was there somebody that suggested that you would start drawing or did it just come to you? How did that spark ignite?
David Sandum (01:43)
I’ve always liked to draw since I was a child and I just needed some way to process it was instinctively from my part. So I just asked for a pad and a pen and started drawing my room and symbolic things that I saw like even the trash can because I felt I should just be thrown in the trash so was things like that.
Shannon Grissom (02:11)
Well, you’ve spoken about being inspired by Edvard Munch’s, the idea of painting your life story. So did that start at that time? Were you consciously aware of that or did you just start creating?
David Sandum (02:27)
started reading a lot. I read Van Gogh’s book, his brother, Dear Theo, ⁓ made a huge impact on me. But Munch’s ⁓ story very early on touched me. And so what you’re referring to is something ⁓ I read, which was that Munch came back from Paris. He was studying Impressionism at the time, felt kind of lost. And he met
Bohemian author in ⁓ Christiania, it was called, which is now Oslo. And Jäger said that a true artist should write or paint his life story. Munch said something to the effect that I’ll never again ⁓ paint women who knit and men who read books. I will paint people who suffer and bleed and love. And you you transmit your emotions and your life story into your work.
And so that’s what I felt I needed to do too.
Shannon Grissom (03:31)
It’s great that you were able to just let yourself out. found myself in the beginning. I was painting. I was learning. So I was trying to make something representational. And I had a teacher tell me, you’re overblending. You’re getting rid of your personality. And ⁓ so it’s great that you are able to just let it all out. ⁓
So, and speaking of that, I was noticing a pattern in your work.
you have a lot of connections in the physical world and you know a lot of people, you work with a lot of people and I thought it was really cool. I see a lot of neural pathways in your art. So you have connections. There are lines and webs and…
Is that on a conscious level or is that just happening or am I out there and seeing it that way?
David Sandum (04:41)
I’ve
never thought of it, so I find it kind of fascinating. Do you mean like roots blending together? Yes!
Shannon Grissom (04:48)
Yes, it was like when I was looking at your work, I was looking at common denominators and besides the fact that the work is aesthetically beautiful and powerful, I noticed a lot of roots, a lot of grounding. And at the same time, it’s almost like if you see neurons and their connections, it was like that as well. So I felt like you were covering it on all bases from a
from a grounding perspective to a spiritual site. mean, just whoosh.
David Sandum (05:24)
That’s so cool. I love that. Well, symbolism is important to me. Another artist that really inspired me early on was Chagall. know, symbolism is so interesting. So the symbolism of roots and branches, of course, ⁓ you know, if you have you do two trees, you know, and they’re close together, that says something if they’re drifting away from each other says something.
one’s leaning over the other, it says something else. So I think about those things a lot, but the work that you’re referring to, I really started to do around 2019. And I had an artist in residency in Scotland up in the Northwest Highlands. And it was actually a grant or scholarship or stipend or whatever you call it in English ⁓ given by the Scottish state. And my assignment was to interpret
⁓ Scottish landscape with Scandinavian eyes and there, ⁓ I had no idea what to do really. But then I thought of Celtic patterns and also Viking carvings, how similar they are. A lot of striking similarities between Scotland and Norway where I live. And, ⁓ I thought of combining those. So the idea with the roots and the branches, if you look at it, it sort of has patterns that started there.
with that. But I do think about it, like the roots, for instance, how do I create those? Do they interconnect with the trees or do they go on each side or do the branches connect or I mean, is it summer or winter where there’s barren trees? I mean, there’s so many directions I can go with that. And I’ve explored that theme for seven years now and I’m not tired of it.
I find it fascinating. I love it.
Shannon Grissom (07:26)
That’s great. It shows up in your work. So how has your creativity helped you work with depression and life’s challenges?
David Sandum (07:40)
I think it’s just to have a cathartic outlet, ⁓ to get your feelings out. I’ve had many times where I entered my studio near a panic attack and just felt overwhelmed and worked five, six hours and regained a sense of control. You instinctively just poured out whatever feeling you have onto the canvas. So that is very important to me. I almost don’t think about it.
But I never know exactly what I’m going to do. As you just start with a line, like Paul Klee said, drawing is a dot that went for a walk. Because that’s how I work. I just start with a canvas or a piece of paper and see where it takes me.
Shannon Grissom (08:30)
Well, I noticed that one of your latest Facebook posts you were talking about, that the work was basically an intuitive piece. ⁓ But it sounds like they’re all intuitive, that you don’t start out with a structure, you just…
David Sandum (08:48)
Let’s say I’ve just returned from New York. I was there many years. And of course, what I was filled with was a cityscape. And so I might have an idea, I’m going to do a cityscape of some sort. That’s where my heart is at the time. Or I’ve been in the Highlands and there’s mountains. So I kind of have a general idea what I want to start out with. Having said that, I’ve started a lot of mountains that turned into cities.
What happens?
Shannon Grissom (09:20)
There
are lot of similarities between the skyscrapers and the mountains really.
David Sandum (09:26)
I don’t know, it can be, it’s just what it turns into. But these tree, tree pastel drawings that I’m working on a lot, I usually have an idea that I’m gonna do something with trees when I start. But then how the symbolism turns out, I have no idea. This kind of happens instinctively.
Shannon Grissom (09:48)
What would you say to somebody who feels like they’re creatively blocked, how to get them back in the saddle?
David Sandum (09:59)
Well, for me, my studio is really important. I need to be in an environment where I feel comfortable creating. I can create outdoors or, you know, too, but to be in a space where you feel comfortable, where you can be artistic, I think is important. I need structure around me. I need to have a clean and organized. I don’t like to messy But I mean, we’re all different. ⁓
a picture of Francis Bacon’s studio and I just about passed out. ⁓ Yeah, talk about messy, but you know, he functioned well in that, whatever you’re comfortable with. But then to start, mean, just to start, ⁓ drawing is a great way to start, just doodle, just whatever. But I need to be in a creative space. And when I enter my studio, it’s like, okay.
Shannon Grissom (10:32)
Yeah.
David Sandum (10:56)
This is my art, I surround myself with artworks from other artists or little pieces that inspire me. And ⁓ sometimes I don’t even draw or create. I just sit there and I feel creative or walk in nature. I don’t know, that’s a tough question, but you gotta start. Sometimes the inspiration comes when we start working.
And I think a lot of artists are waiting for the apple to fall from the tree and hit them in the head. But it seldom works. It just got to start. Sometimes you fail, but once you start, things start to happen.
Shannon Grissom (11:39)
Yeah, I agree. So I know you had a deeply moving Auschwitz series surrounding your grandmother’s experience. Could you speak about that?
David Sandum (11:56)
Okay, that was quite a while ago, think. 2009 maybe, I did that series. I remember hearing someone, I think it was a politician from Iran or something who stood in UN, we say FN in Norway, it’s UN in English. But he said the Holocaust never happened. That really angered me or upset me.
Anger isn’t the right word, it upset me. And there’s been a lot of talk about that. There people who believe that that never happened for some reason. So I wanted to stay in a piece, in a few pieces, what happened to my family. And so I made that series. And one of them ended up at the Jewish Museum in Denver, the Mizel Museum. So it was a short…
kind of project. think I worked on it six months to a year maybe. Did three, four large paintings and then I was kind of done with it. But it was important for me to do.
Shannon Grissom (13:03)
It’s good to get it out and raise awareness. Well, I know that I first came in contact with you, I believe it was the first year of your Twitter Art Exhibit and to benefit and over the years you’ve helped countless charities. So please tell everybody about that.
David Sandum (13:06)
Yeah.
Okay, so it started in 2010 and so this one will be number 15. It’s in The Hague. We’ve been all over the world, know, Australia, US, Scotland, England, know, many, many places. But it started in my home city of Moss where my local library needed ⁓ money for children’s books. And so I got this idea.
You remember how Twitter was back then. We were such a close knit community, supporting each other. Here we’ve been working our own little corners and all of a sudden you’re talking to artists from India and Japan and all over the world and you were one of them. So that group is kind of special. But I remember just pitching the idea, you know, let’s have us, let’s do something together. You know, we talked about that for a long time. How can we do that?
So I got the idea to send hand-painted postcards to my library and then I had an exhibit, sold them and raised funds for these children’s books. And so then it just grew from there. It was called Twitter Art Exhibit. Now it’s called Postcard Art Exhibit, or PA. So yeah, I think my first show there, we had maybe 265 artists from 23 countries and I thought that was incredible.
And ⁓ this year in the Bay, we have over thousand artists from 54 countries. So yeah, it’s grown a lot.
Shannon Grissom (15:04)
So what surprised you about the whole thing? Or have you had any surprises?
David Sandum (15:11)
I didn’t have any surprises. No, I I knew, I knew it would work and I was so excited to see my artists friends that, you know, we were just communicating. mean, it’d be online. It became so real to hold their little pieces of art in my hands and put it up on the wall. on the wall, there’s a label that says the artist’s name, their city and their country and their social media handle. And to see my people in mosque.
come and buy cards for my art friends and communicate with them and say, hey, I just bought your car. I mean, that was a wonderful experience. was tons of work though, I have to say. It wasn’t an easy project.
Shannon Grissom (15:54)
So it’s really grown, you have help now.
David Sandum (15:57)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I need help. I don’t really see it as my project anymore because we’re a team doing this together. And that’s important to emphasize. I’m the founder and, you know, I’m deeply involved in everything, but we have a strong group of people that are sacrificing so much to make this happen. So I see it as a big team effort these days.
Shannon Grissom (16:26)
It’s a great project. So now we’re going to take a quick break. Is Made to Make podcast brightening your day like finding unexpected money in your coat pocket? Then help keep the episodes coming. Head on over to WeAreMadeToMake.com. There you can share the show, contribute financially, or simply help spread the word. Every bit of support keeps these conversations going and your inspiration flowing.
That’s wearemadetomake.com. Now let’s get back to the show. And we’re back. You’ve compared ⁓ painting, oil painting and printmaking. I love your comparisons to the two mediums. Could you speak to that? How one’s, I mean, it’s an element of risk.
David Sandum (17:03)
Alright.
Yeah, I believe I said that printmaking is like climbing without ropes. You fall, you die. What I’m referring to there are intaglio etchings where you carve with a needle into the copper plate because once it’s scratched, it’s permanent. So you can’t really make a mistake. You can try to cover it up, but it’s not the same as painting where you make a mistake.
Shannon Grissom (17:31)
But.
David Sandum (17:52)
You know, fix it. It’s a lot harder on a plate. Yeah. So yeah, you’ve got to get it right.
Shannon Grissom (18:00)
So.
When things happen in that process, because it’s not always going to work out the way you planned, just like life, how do you shift?
David Sandum (18:14)
You mean shifting between…
Shannon Grissom (18:16)
Yeah, no, not between painting. Like, let’s say you’re etching and you’ve got this mark and it’s like, I didn’t want that. Do you start embellishing and create a diversion or do you allow it to continue to be part of the process or do you let go and try?
David Sandum (18:32)
I have done a lot of freehand etchings where I just, I mean, just like I draw instinctively, I’ve done a lot of that. And so if I’m, ⁓ whoops, that line, you know, shouldn’t happen, but you know, you have to let go of perfectionism too with making, first of all, it’s not going to turn out exactly. I mean, you don’t really know until you do the first test print exactly. But I mean, Aquatint etchings are different.
I you have to do several plates per color. You have to transfer the lines over to several plates and then print them on one sheet of paper. So there you have more time to prepare and be more exact with the lines. Intaglio ⁓ yeah, I mean, my master printer that I work with, his name’s Ignasi in Barcelona. That’s where I do my etchings. ⁓ He was really frustrated with me the first few years. ⁓
We had sort of, we’re, things blew up and he was really stressed, you know, and he said, you’re the hardest artist I’ve ever worked with because you’re so perfectionistic. And he’s worked with Dali and Miro and Tapings and even Picasso when he was young. And he’s calling me the toughest artist he’s ever worked with. And he said, accidents are good. You’re going to have to learn that accidents are good.
You can’t fix things, not everything. Just let it be, go with it. You drip something on the plate. Let’s see how that turns out, you know? And so I’ve learned that to sort of just go with that and see what happens. See how the print turns out. And a lot of times it’s good, like Ignasi said, yeah?
Shannon Grissom (20:21)
Couldn’t have planned it better.
David Sandum (20:24)
I
it’s good. I think it was a lot. Yeah.
Shannon Grissom (20:28)
That’s a good life lesson as well, know, not just physically creativity. It is a good thing to keep in mind. So I was thinking also, I just started reading your memoir. Can you talk about how your book came about?
David Sandum (20:47)
You know, it’s interesting. was preparing, let’s see, I printed something out. I was going through my old journal notes to figure stuff out for my next book that I’m working on, just looking over journal notes. And I found something from 24th October, 2017. And ⁓ it says, I started to paint and write for this reason I’d written. And I have a quote.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you, as Maya Angelou who said that. And I think that’s true. mean, sometimes you just feel like you gotta say something, you know. I wanted people to know, I guess, ⁓ and to create empathy. You know, I wanted people to understand what really happens and how it feels for loved ones, for my…
for my own children, you know, to record what you’re going through. And it just felt important. And I had this incredible need to express myself, to get stuff out of my system and just tell it the way it is. And so you may see that in my book. It was really hard to write certain sections because it hurt and it was painful. But I decided that if I’m going to really tell
what depression and anxiety feels like, I have to also include every conversation that was important to me, even though it was hard to share. yeah, there were several chapters writing that took months because I could only write half a page and I nearly freaked out thinking about those things. And some passages just flowed, you know, I could write a chapter and it just there.
It took me 15 years to write it and publish that memoir.
Shannon Grissom (22:50)
I was thinking about the difference between painting and writing. With painting, it’s just this raw, for me, it’s just this raw release of whatever. When I start writing about it, I have to go deeper. I have to put names on it. I…
David Sandum (22:54)
.
Shannon Grissom (23:15)
they like journaling about something is actually gonna let it out. It’s another level of release that if I’m not doing that, or even with music, even with the songwriting, if I’m not doing that, it’s not all coming out. So ⁓ I call it being creatipated.
David Sandum (23:36)
I mean, the difference between writing and painting is with writing you have words and you have to find the right words. And especially me writing in English, which is in my first language, first language Swedish and Swedish would live in Norway. So, you know, I would think of a word in my own language and then trying to find the right word in English could be kind of hard because in English you have so many more words to translate to with different.
versions of the same feeling. So I actually wrote the book kind of with a Scandinavian translation, which makes it kind of easy to read. I don’t have a lot of difficult words, you know. So I’ve had some people in Norway tell me this is actually easy to read for them in English. ⁓
Shannon Grissom (24:29)
found so far I found it easy to read even though the subject’s deep so that’s that’s good it’s
David Sandum (24:35)
Yeah. And sometimes I’m really proud of myself. Like I’ll think of the word important. I could say important. And then I think I should maybe write salient. I felt so, so skilled. Like I a fancy word, you know, so I have a lot of fun with words. And, know, my friends tell me you make up strange words too. I don’t even know how I can write in English at times.
But I think it’s easier to express yourself in English because it’s got a lot more words.
Shannon Grissom (25:07)
More pigments.
David Sandum (25:13)
How many words Norwegian has and how many words English has? You’ll see it’s got 40,000 more words.
Shannon Grissom (25:21)
I had no idea. has writing this memoir, putting it into words, has that changed how you’ve viewed your past, your experience? Has that opened things up?
David Sandum (25:36)
I mean, I’m writing about what happened to me. It doesn’t change my experience. Like I said, the biggest difficulty is being 100 % honest when you’re writing a memoir, not tight. Because I think the readers can feel when you’re sort of sugarcoating something or not telling the whole truth. Yeah. You know? So yeah, I don’t know. What was your question? I’m trying to…
Shannon Grissom (26:02)
I thinking
more, as far as changing what happened, but your understanding of what has transpired through your life. Do you have a deeper knowledge of yourself or your situation?
David Sandum (26:17)
Of course, I I mean, now I look back, you you gain wisdom. At the time, I mean, I was writing as things were happening, and you can see the journal entries ahead of each chapter. And there was a lot of confusion, you know, not understanding a lot of things. That’s part of the interesting thing about the book is because I’m writing about things that I’m confused over that’s overwhelming. You know, now…
10 years later, understand a lot of those things better. I was in therapy discussing these things when I didn’t understand. And part of the book is reaching conclusions or trying to figure stuff out.
Shannon Grissom (26:59)
cathartic. So do you or can you talk about the next book that’s coming?
David Sandum (27:05)
Well, so ⁓ the first book I think is from 1999 to 2000 and I can’t remember exactly where it ends. But the next book is a continuation. So the first book is about finding art, discovering art. And the second book is where I become an artist. It’s my travels. I went to Barcelona and doing prints. I went to New York to get prints there.
in Central Park or wherever. And so it’s about being an artist and how to evolve there and also my life in that time period.
Shannon Grissom (27:46)
I was thinking for someone who is in the middle of a dark place, what’s one creative thing they can do to help them shift?
David Sandum (27:56)
think the most important thing is to move. You know, not to sit still and isolate yourself. Walk in nature. I mean, we do a lot of creating when we’re not creating. You know, just walking by the sea, you know, can inspire something. Just register things, observe things, breathe. But to move, to get up, not get stuck, I would say is really important for the creativity.
Bring a pad with you, sit by the sea and sketch a bit or just be there.
But in photography is an easy way to be creative. You see something beautiful and just snap it. But I love doing that. When I’m too tired to draw or paint, just to walk out in nature and taking photographs can be really creative. And it doesn’t take the same energy as painting.
Shannon Grissom (29:00)
Yeah, it is a different energy. Wow. So are you currently exploring anything right now that feels a little uncomfortable that you’re working through? Where are you creatively? What kind of space are you in?
David Sandum (29:23)
That’s a good question. I’m in the process of moving studios. I’ve been in my studio for 12 years and I got an offer to be somewhere else, which is really nice. But there’s a sadness in that. I love my studio. So my mind is kind of on that at this moment. And that’s something I’m going through. But ⁓ no, it’s pretty much the same thing.
just working with the stuff I’m working on.
Shannon Grissom (29:56)
people find out more about you.
David Sandum (29:59)
Well, they can go to my website, davidsandum.com. I use my Instagram account mostly to show what I’m doing currently. So Instagram is a good place to follow me and find me, see the work ID. That’s davidsandum on Instagram. I’m on all the other platforms too. You want to find me there?
Shannon Grissom (30:22)
I will put all that information in the show notes so that people can definitely find you. Well, thank you, David. You’ve been totally inspiring. Thank you. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in. Please be sure to like, subscribe and share so that I can bring more inspiring people to you. That’s a wrap. We’ll see you next time.
David Sandum (30:31)
⁓ great, you too.