Strategy & Content Services with Sandra Lee Schubert

Spring to me is the perfect time to make plans and set goals. The air vibrates as everything wakes up. The birds are perkier, and lunchtime is for walking outside and not just for huddling in warm offices. The ground has thawed enough for planting to begin. What we plant now will blossom and bear fruit in the summer and the fall. It is also the time to seed our creative gardens. My grandmother’s garden took two forms. Her front lawn was manicured and beautiful. A wayward dandelion knew not to rest in her grass. Flowers lined her house, leading to the backyard. At first glance, it mirrored the front lawn with well-placed bushes and trimmed grass. But toward the back, there was a line of demarcation. Behind the careful planning, she gave her garden over to its natural desires. The garden was a riot of color and textures, a cornucopia of sensory pleasure. Wildflowers grew with abandon, trees linking with shrubs. Bees had their choice of nectar. My grandmother loved her perfect garden ...

Creativity comes to us in many forms. We are born with talent, or we earn it through study and diligence. But most artists know that training alone will not give you inspiration. It comes from many places. Senses help us navigate the world and provide us with enough stimulation and inspiration to make a lifetime habit of our art. What wakes you up in the middle of the night with a burst of an idea? Have you ever had a feeling so deep that it compelled you to your computer or canvas? One advantage of being an artist is being in touch with our intuitive nature. We have developed our senses so we can be fine-tuned to the inspiration that is all around us. You can’t escape the need to follow a creative urge. The impulses that drive creativity can come in many shapes. Trusting the promptings that intuition gives you can lead to unexpected creative surprises. I know some of my best writing comes when I trust my gut and write with my heart. Consider that each sense has an intuitive aspect. Th...

Food, glorious food, we can’t escape it. The taste, the texture, the way sugar dissolves on the tongue. How salt brings out the flavor in our meals. Food thrills us. It can torment us with desire. I don’t know many of us who successfully live without food. Without it, we die. Food represents who we are. Taste. A good meal shared with friends is a sublime pleasure. We live in the best of times because we can taste so many things. A neighborhood is a feast of tactile delights. The Korean store is next to the Turkish market and across the boulevard from a string of Restaurants that include Thai, Dominican, Mexican, Romanian, and a McDonald’s just across from a Subway franchise. There is a taste of delight for everyone. I am happy to live in a place where I can sample a variety of foods and all the intricacies of taste. Gourmet magazine used to publish an anthology of food-related stories. Food was the central character. Taste is paramount in each story. The driving forces are the sensuali...

Sniff, sniff. Sniff. Do you smell that? Is that the scent of creativity filling the air? Of all the senses, this one can really affect you in multiple ways. According to the now-defunct Sense of Smell Institute, the average human being can recognize approximately 10,000 different odors. They said, “And a connection between artists and scent can be traced back at least as far as Leonardo da Vinci, who had such an abiding interest in fragrances that he listed among his many duties for Ludovico il Moro in Milan the practice of court perfumer.” Typing at your computer limits you to the screen in front of you. Using a journal can give you more sensual opportunities. Choose a journal not just for its visual pleasure but for the smell of the new leather and paper in the journal. Have you ever walked into a room and sniffed the air? Your mood can shift completely by its smell. We have a long memory regarding scents. Our childhood is full of scent experiences. Discovering our own body odors is ...

As artists, it is important to engage in all our senses as fully as possible. Think of a potter out of touch with her clay. She might create technically correct pieces, yet they lack a certain feeling to them. There is a potter whose work I love. I like to hold her pieces. They vibrate. Each piece seems to have a special energy. Each item in her collection has a feeling of love in it. Wouldn’t each of us want our work to elicit that kind of energy? Do you   remember the first thing you ever touched? Most likely you don’t. When you were young your senses were on fire. Every touch was a fresh experience. Watch a baby and how they react to new textures. It surprises them. You can see the baby trying to figure out what it is they are feeling. Even when touching something they don’t like they are still willing to keep exploring. How can that happen? First, remember what it’s like to feel. Explore the world as if you were a child again. Don’t take for granted the ordinary things. As you ...

Artists use their senses. Everything is a playground for the muse. The way the light hits water can lead to a brilliant piece of art or an interesting story.  A friend and I discussed the insanity of our senses. How we can be over-stimulated, fractured by the sounds, the shapes, and the colors surrounding us. We are in a state of wonder about this heightened awareness and where we take it. As I write I am listenig to Irish music on a public radio station. Outside my closed door, I can hear the fan as it oscillates in my living room. Out of this mass of sound, one thing can catch my ear. It could be the sound of a baby crying or the distant wail of a fire truck. As a child, I could hear fog horns of the East River. I knew from stories my mother told me that the river was a dangerous place. The sound made me think of a lone ship lost on the water searching for its way out of the darkness. Many years later that sound still haunts me. What do we hear? Angels singing while listening to ...