Sandra Magsamen

"Creativity helps us solve problems. It helps us feel a sense of accomplishment, self-esteem, well-being."

phenomeNEWS: Sandra Magsamen is the author of several books, including her latest, Living Artfully: Create the Life You Imagine. She is a natural gift of love. We are very excited to talk with her and hope you enjoy our conversation.

Hi, Sandra.

Sandra Magsamen: Hi.

Your book, Living Artfully, is just wonderful! It has a great subtitle: Create the Life You Imagine. If we can imagine it, it can be. You have written about all these people, their stories and interactions. Can you tell us how you got started on this book? You’ve already written a children’s book: When I Grow Up, I Want To Be Me.

I wrote that book, when my daughter was 12-years-old. It was published by Scholastic Publishing. The reason I wrote it is because my daughter said to me, “Mommy, I don’t know how to grow up. What do I do? I don’t think I can do it?” And said, “Oh, darling, you have everything you need to be everything you are. You just have to take all that with you when you grow up.”

In many ways, that was one of the things that started me to think about living artfully, because, many years before, when she was a baby, I started making these ceramic plaques.

I was an art therapist, working in hospitals with children who were deaf and folks who had Alzheimer’s Disease and even criminally insane men who were schizophrenic. What I came to learn very early on was that we all wanted to connect, to belong, to love, and to be loved. We got into trouble when we weren’t able to find the way in which we could communicate, whether it was through words or through movement, we couldn’t find a way to tell someone what we were thinking and what we were feeling.

As an art therapist, my job was to help people find lots of ways to access, not only what they wanted to say, but ways in which they could say it. So I started making these ceramic plaques for my daughter, sharing the things that I wanted to say with her, filling her nursery and putting them in her home. One day my sisters came over, I have four sisters, including a twin sister, Susan. We love each other and we’re very close. They saw the plaques and stole them right off the wall! They gave them to their friends and their friends started calling and they said, “I love this. I want to say something to my Mom. Could you write, ‘Mom, because you believed in me, I believed in me.’?” Or, “My daughter’s getting married next week. Could you write, ‘Never forget to kiss each other good night?’ I want them to know that piece of advice that my Grandma gave me.”

So I started writing these universal messages, messages from the heart and my business was born, right then and there. I was working all night long making pottery and working as a therapist during the day. I did that for many years until the business really grew and blossomed. I had 15 employees, I was working seven days a week and making more pottery than I ever imagined. That’s when I started writing some of these ideas down for books, because people started to share with me, not only how they shared messages that I made, but they started telling me about the ways that people were expressing themselves in their own unique and wonderful ways. Those were the stories that I started documenting and seeing, that people were writing little notes to each other. They were baking, scrapbooking, knitting, singing. They were writing poetry when somebody left work. They were putting vintage buttons on sweaters that they bought at Wal-Mart, just to make it their own.

I identified a creative movement in this country. I believe that there is a creative movement in this country. Millions of people are scrapbooking. They’re knitting. They’re crocheting. We’ve seen it all over but nobody’s given it a name. What I hope that I’ve recognized and validated for all these millions of people – both men and women – is that what they’re doing matters. And I call it living artfully. Living because we’re all engaged in making a life. Artfully because we can do that and bring ourselves to it with individuality, authenticity, uniqueness and with heart. I think that is what Living Artfully speaks to, it’s how we connect with the people in our lives in our own unique way. I think that accounts for all the sweaters that are knitted and all of the scrapbooks that are made. People are documenting what matters to them.

Vincent Van Gogh said, well over 100 years ago, my favorite quote, at least for today, “The more I think, the more I feel, there’s nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” The most artistic thing that Vincent Van Gogh could think of, one of the greatest painters of all time – granted he wasn’t thought of that way in this lifetime – the most artistic thing, he believed, is to love people. So how do we do that? How do we say what we think and we feel? And what do we do to say that? Even someone like Henry David Thoreau, years later at Walden Pond, he said, “What we can bring to the day, that is the highest quality of art.”

How do you make every day a day that’s a work of art? Every moment? A relationship? Objects? When I say living artfully, what I think it is, is expressing who you are through the objects, the moments and the relationships that you create. It’s a simple, yet very powerful concept.

In the book you mention that by creating, listening, hearing, smelling, sensing, wherever you’re at, take it all in.

Yes. We summarize the book and at the end I give 10…I call them the heart of living artfully, the principles. One of my favorites is one you’re describing and I call it “come to your senses.” And I don’t mean get serious. I mean taste life, smell it, hear it, participate in it, in its full glory. So often we run through the kitchen and we grab dinner like we are in a race. We don’t sit down and taste the flavors of the food that grows abundantly, thank goodness, in this land. We don’t smell it. We don’t enjoy the company of the people around us. When it rains we say it’s gray and dampening our spirits. But rain nourishes everything. We need the water to live. Water is a huge part of our lives.

I love Dolly Parton. She’s my favorite philosopher, the philosopher of our time. Dolly said this wonderful thing, “You’ve got to put up with a little rain to get a rainbow.”

Good one!

Sometimes goodness comes out of things you think are not so good, but when you look at them as good, you can expand that definition. We so narrowly define things and ourselves. We label ourselves as creative or not creative or good or bad. Creativity for so many of us has become something that we think you have to be an artist, only someone with special talent or skill to work in galleries. I say no, that’s not true. Creativity should be expanded to include all things. When you look at the roots of the word, it comes from the Latin “creare,” which simply means “to grow.” So when we look at creativity as to grow, you know how to grow something, don’t you?

Right! Vegetables, lots of things.

We’re all still growing. And to grow something, what do you have to do?

Nurture it.

Right! Care for it. So as we nurture our own creative spirit, we can’t help but grow our own creative self. Creativity is something we’re born with. We’re born with this innate gift. It’s right up there with hope and compassion and love. We come to this planet with it. And we lose it as we grow up, because we’re told, “Grow up. Follow the rules and knock it off.”

“Be an adult.”

Right. “Be an adult.” Well, researchers, psychologists and doctors, they’ve all documented that play is good for us, that we need it in our lives. Laughter is medicine. It’s really important. Creativity helps us solve problems. It helps us feel a sense of accomplishment, self-esteem, well-being. So when you begin to look at those tools, those things we’ve set aside in childhood, when you bring them forward to your adulthood, you can reclaim a sense of happiness and well-being that is your innate life as a human being on this planet, and you also honor yourself as an individual. When you honor yourself as an individual, the next step is honoring your neighbor as an individual, and his neighbor and so on. There begins to be this wonderful ripple effect of positive energy, happiness and well-being as a result of simply celebrating who you are.

Right. That is so important, finding out who you are through all these creative outlets.

Yes. And you give yourself permission. We’re told, “Oh, you’re not artistic.” You’re not this or that. And you tell yourself, “Oh, I’m not that.” You buy into it. But when begin to give yourself permission, when you begin to see yourself as the artist in your life, that small shift has enormous impact on your life and on the lives of your friends and your family and the community. It’s a big deal.

Years ago I took an art class and the teacher made a comment about my drawing that diminished me. My sister loved that picture and wanted it. I shouldn’t have listened to that teacher.

Yes. So often we hear what other people say to us and we take it as an insult when…how do people know who you are on the inside? I think you have to give yourself permission to be you and love yourself and don’t take it so personally. Often when people hail insults at us it’s more about how they’re feeling than who we really are. I let that go and give myself permission and share with people.

We have to get to a place where we stop criticizing ourselves. We’re so frightened. We’re paralyzed about being ourselves. We think someone is going to think something about us or they’re going to judge us, they’re going to think this or that, when we’re thinking that in our heads! They’re not really thinking that. We’re thinking they’re thinking that. So we’re putting out this energy that is not really loving and creative, but stifling and fearful.

I was listening to Arianna Huffington, whose new book is called On Becoming Fearless, and she said fearless is not about not having any fear in your life, but is getting past this idea of fear that we put into our lives. We manufacture it, often. Now there can be fear when we’re physically threatened. But often we’re frightened of something that doesn’t exist. We make it up that something is going to happen. So trying to take out fear, self-doubt and judgment – all of those kinds of thinking patterns that we can easily get into – allows us to grow and nurture that part of ourselves.

I’ve shared the story about this art therapist in London who put a brick on the table and said to these kids, “Write 100 things that this brick could become.” A lot of kids couldn’t do it. They didn’t know what this brick could become. When they closed their eyes, he said, “Now I want you to think of yourself as a world-renowned artist.” Somebody born with creative flair, who could create anything, anywhere, anytime. You invented cars. You’re a fashion designer. Everything. Got them to think about it. He said, “Open your eyes only when you can see yourself as that person.” When they opened their eyes, they then looked at that brick and they came up with a plethora of ideas. They were overflowing with ideas that brick could become. The difference was one simple thing. They now saw themselves as the artist and they could come up with all the ideas they wanted.

So if we see ourselves as someone who’s diminished or someone who can’t do it, we will be that person. We will become that person. The power of thought and intention, it begins there. We begin creating through our thoughts. That’s where it starts, the beauty of it, the “ah-ha” moment happens. So we choose and make decisions and thoughts that lead us to growth and to blossoming in relationship to ourselves and that sense of ourselves as who we want to be.

What do you think is a good way for us to jump start our imaginations and free up our dormant talents?

I think, number one, re-define what creativity is and what an artist is. Creativity simply means to grow. So expand your definition right away. Expand the word artist to not just mean an artist who hangs pictures in a gallery or a museum. You’re an artist. You’re the artist of your life. An artist simply expresses who they are. Broaden that definition. And then I ask you to take a few minutes and go back, maybe meditate or sit quietly, but go back into your mind, into your heart, and think about yourself as a child. Remember when you played all day long, effortlessly. Remember you made mud pies. You created things from nothing all the time. You ran out of day before you ran out of ideas! My Mom used to kick us out of the house in the morning and said, “See you at dinner,” and we played and came up with things and ideas, we rode our bikes and we decorated our bikes, and we did everything all day long.

A physician came out and said, “Let’s not schedule our kids so much. Let’s give them free time to play.” Play rejuvenates us. It reinforces our ability to test things out, make mistakes and keep going, without any consequences. Play is a vitally important tool for living our lives. So I say go back and look at your childhood. Just take a walk down memory lane and enjoy it. Think about the things that you did. Then come back to today and say, “What am I doing today that gives me the same kind of joy, the same kind of pleasure, the same sense of well-being?” If you liked to hike as a kid, are you hiking and camping as an adult? If you like to play ball, are you playing ball on a team on the weekends? If you liked to ride your bike, are you riding a bike? If you liked crafts, what are you doing today? And begin to see how you can put those things into your life, not because they’re frivolous pastimes, but because they matter.

One of the main things I want this book to do is to validate that these creative hobbies that people are calling them, like scrapbooking and digital photography. They’re not pastimes, they are the times of our lives. They are creating moments that matter. What these people are doing is vitally important. We are living in really troubled times. This creative movement is in response to that. We are trying to put order and meaning and purpose – yes, joy – into a very chaotic and very stressful time. We are doing it quietly, one at a time. That’s why it’s taking some time to coalesce into a movement, but I hope Living Artfully clearly and emphatically states that this is a creative movement and it will change the world. It is changing the world, one heart at a time.

That’s what you say, one heart at a time. We love it!

It’s a bridge. On my book tour, I’m inviting people to write a message from their heart on a paper heart and we’re going to string them on a garland and we’re going to spread them as far across this land as we can. I want people to see and I want to make something beautiful that shows what is in the hearts of all these folks I’m meeting. What’s in our hearts is really beautiful and we need to celebrate that and celebrate each other, and share it, from sea to shining sea.

I’ve collected a thousand hearts so far and everywhere I go, I think, “Please, cut out a heart from a piece of paper, send it to me. We’ll put holes in it and we’ll string it on a garland.” It could be something that you want to put in the universe. It could be something that someone said to you has meaning.

Could you give us an example?

People write all sorts of things. Someone wrote, “All you need is love,” quoting John Lennon. That’s what they put on their heart.

Anything that matters to you.

Someone said, “Believe in yourself.” Someone else said, “I put a prayer in the world for you.” It doesn’t matter what it is. It matters that it’s your message. Something you want to put in the world, a message from your heart.

One of your plaques has the best message, “The best thing to spend on your child is time.” You bring the importance of that with everything you are about. You are so much from the heart.

There’s a wonderful story that I think speaks to the heart of living artfully and I’d love to share it with you. There was a young couple, a man and a woman, who lived in Vermont. They were in love and they got married. He loved to write on little sticky notes. He would write little silly things, like “You’re the cutest girl I ever met” or “I can’t wait to get home from work” or “I just love you.” And he would hide them all over the house, in places where he knew she’d find them throughout her day, like in the laundry, the dog food, her underwear drawer, her coffee mug. She delighted in finding them as much as he adored writing them. He was a reservist and he was called to Iraq very early on in the war, where he lost his life. The way she tells the story is that, on the day of his funeral, she went into the hall closet and put on her winter coat. She put her hands in the pockets to look for her gloves and there she found the last two remaining messages, notes that he’d written for her. One said, “I will always love you.” And the other said, “We will always be together.” This story reminds us how, when we connect and when we communicate with people we love, we will always touch another heart. We don’t know when. We don’t know where. We don’t know how. But you always, always do. And that, at its very heart, is what living artfully is about.

If you had one pearl of wisdom to leave with us, what would that be?

I would say, take one minute in your day and realize that you are a work of heart, that you are a unique, wonderful individual, and honor yourself and know that there is great dignity and integrity in sharing that beautiful spirit and that soul with the world, because when you do, the world becomes a better place. Let people know how much you love them by being uniquely and authentically you.

Oh! That’s so beautiful, so real!

That’s what I feel. It’s a very simple philosophy for living but it’s very powerful. You see it over and over again. I was talking with someone the other day and we talked about being a survivor. And I think that if you pare everything down – and other people have talked and written about this, too – if you had one day to live, how would you live? If you do pare that down, that each heartbeat is a gift, each moment is all you’ve got, who are you, and how do you tell people that you love them? That’s it. If you live your life that simply, it’s all about love.

Thank you so much!

My pleasure!

Please send your hearts to: Sandra Magsamen, PO Box 5013, Glen Arm MD 21057.

Living Artfully with Sandra Magsamen, will premiere on PBS stations nationwide in December 2006.

To see Sandra Magsamen's
10 principles:
The Heart of Living Artfully
Click here