40 | AUGUST 12 • 2021 

I

f you’ve never heard of Zentangle — 
the relatively new art movement of 
purposeful doodling until one reach-
es a Zen-like state — you’re not alone. 
But Oak Park’s Samm Wunderlich is an 
expert on it.
She discovered it by chance. 
Wunderlich grew up in Pleasant Ridge, 
attended Ferndale Public Schools and 
graduated from Central Michigan with an 
undergrad in psychology and recreation 
therapy, something, Wunderlich said, 
most people haven’t even heard of. She 
belongs to Young Israel of Oak Park.
As a recreation therapist, Wunderlich 
worked with people who’ve had traumatic 
brain injuries, helping them reintegrate 
into the community through their per-
sonal interests. 
“I specialize in cognitive skill retrain-
ing, such as social skills. I’d take clients to 
community settings where they needed 
to interact with the world, and I’d coach 
them through the steps needed for the 
interaction,” Wunderlich explained.
In 2011, Wunderlich was working at 
Havenwyck Hospital in Auburn Hills. 
One of the tools the staff informally 
used was a how-to book on Zentangle. 
Wunderlich found the concept fascinat-
ing and often flipped through the book 
herself. Intrigued, she looked up more 

information and found there were class-
es for anyone who wanted to become a 
Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT).
Wunderlich immediately signed up. She 
discovered Zentangle had been invented in 
2008 by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts, a 
husband-and-wife team in Massachusetts. 
Roberts noticed that when Thomas, a cal-
ligraphy artist, inked her patterns or embel-
lishments, it was hard to get her attention. 
Thomas was able to break down what she 
was doing into easy-to-follow steps for 
Roberts. Soon some of their friends and 
neighbors got in on the meditative fun, and 
the Zentangle Method was born.

ANYONE CAN CREATE
According to Wunderlich, it’s simple; 
anyone can do it. She’d been prepared to 
adapt the Zentangle Method for people 
with lower cognitive abilities and motor 
skills but found she didn’t have to. 
“It’s just repetitive geometric abstract 
swirls and patterns. Really, anything 
repetitive and deliberate can be relaxing 
… It might look like doodling, but we 
don’t like that term, because there’s a 
negative connotation; it makes it sound 
absent-minded, which is the opposite of 
the Zentangle Method,” Wunderlich said. 
Wunderlich began using the Zentangle 
Method more pointedly with her clients 

and word quickly spread. She later had a 
following in a Ferndale art studio and has 
been giving private art classes out of her 
home, stopping periodically when she got 
married to her husband, David Faust, in 
2019 and during the pandemic. 
Supplies are portable so she’s also run 
Zentangle workshops at bat mitzvah par-
ties, birthday parties, in various dining 
rooms, and even corporate events, as well 
as classes at nursing homes and indepen-
dent living facilities. She’s had between one 
and 150 people doing Zentangle at once. 
In 2018, Wunderlich went back to col-
lege to get a research degree and ended 
up with a master’s in program evaluation. 
“I went from one field no one heard 
of to another!” Wunderlich laughed. She 
works with programs and organizations, 
usually nonprofits, many of which are 
funded by grants to help figure out if 
what they’re doing is working and how 

ARTS&LIFE
ART

Meet Samm, a certifi
 ed 
Zentangle teacher.

Creative 
 Therapy

RINA HENNES SABES

JESSICA BELICKA

Samm Wunderlich

ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

continued on page 42