The start of any creative project requires something called Beginner's Mind, or Don't-Know Mind, which is also an ideal state for meditation.  Since every meditation is different, using Don't-Know Mind is the best way to approach each one. 

Just as with wool work, holding expectations at bay until I find out how things actually look and what actually comes up in this moment always works best for me.  I learn this lesson repeatedly.  Next time you see rug photos, the work will look different.  Next time I meditate will be different as well.

Below is a new frame I was lucky enough to have delivered today.  It turns so easily.  As I said, I have two rugs underway right now.  The one above is traditionally hooked and the one below is punch hooked.

                                       Frame is available from Notforgotten Farm.

Yup, I'm starting another rug.  This (below) is the first throw-down of possible colors.  Who knows how many will be used?  The design is  a "challenge" my local rug hooking group is taking on--we are all hooking one particular pattern in our own way.  Some members are already done; I haven't even begun mine yet but hope to get it underway tomorrow or later this week.  I'm getting excited.

I actually introduced the pattern to the group in February and everyone wanted to try it.

The entire phase of beginning a rug reminds me of meditation practice.  Every single time one sits to meditate, it's a form of starting over.  You never know what will happen.  It may not be fun every single time, but it is always interesting.

It's the same with hooking rugs.  I always have a hazy mental picture of what I'll be producing, but the final result may or may not agree.  Getting to the finish line can be a series of daily, or even moment-to-moment, changes. 

My next unpredictable rug adventure is officially underway.

 
I am in love with the London Drawing Group, a trio of women dedicated to doing and teaching art.  When I saw this workshop on Matisse's cutouts--only £7 or about eleven bucks, and only 1 hour--I thought, what a great way to stimulate creativity.  So I signed up and had an absolute blast.  We made a number of cutouts in only 60 minutes, only a few of which I used for this photo.  Here's the black and white version from my phone before I ran it through the Painnt app posted above this paragraph:

But I wasn't alone in attending.  There were people from all over the globe.  Two of them were good friends from my rug hooking groups--I had contacted them to tip them off in advance to the workshop and they both signed up.  We all knew it would have immediate uses for rug design.  And it certainly did.

Here is the work of one of my buddies, Kathleen K., who also attended.  Rather than cutting paper, she cut her shapes directly from wool fabric.  I love her results.  She gave me permission to post this:

And below is the contribution from Lynda F, another rug hooking buddy who also gave me permission to use her photo:

"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish."
-Henri Matisse

This one surprised me.  I am traveling deeper into several areas in my life at the moment:  meditation, friendship, beginnings and endings, and even the chaos and fear in the United States.  Which means I'm working more deeply and consciously to cultivate equanimity.  I did this drawing over two days, last night and this morning, and it reflects my inner state.

I heard a quote this afternoon that really sums up what this deepening is revealing to me:

"One kind word can warm three winter months."
(Chinese saying)

Actually that's only the first part of the quote.  Here is the rest:

Indeed.

Many thanks to my dharma brother Ed Niembro, for his wisdom and for sharing this quote. 

It has never been more true.

I was able to spend more time practicing yesterday and working out the rust and kinks from not having tangled much in the past months.

And here on the right is my pre-practice Palrevo "Mini-Me" with instructions and information noted on it:

Palrevo is definitely a high focus tangle, but very rewarding.  I completely enjoyed myself.  I warmed up by doing the tangles I posted yesterday.  It is totally wonderful to be tangling again, now that I have a bit more time.

Every day I make time for meditation practice.  I realize I need to make time every day to draw.  It's not called "practice" for nothing.  It makes all the difference in meditation, and in everything else.

Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice reduces the imperfection.
--Toba Beta

I hope to fill up this page further, while still leaving enough white space.  Here are tangles from the first 11 days of Inktober 2020, using only a black Micron 01 and graphite.  I will likely need a second page to complete the 31 days without making things look horribly overcrowded.  This page is already far too busy but I don't care--the experience is such fun.

Most of these tangles are new to me, so this is really more in order of a "scratch sheet," for practice, rather than anything finished.  Inktober is a terrific way to get back in the game.  I've got a long way to go but I have to say that this kind of practice is a big help--and anyway, my primary motivation is always the relaxation that comes along with tangling, rather than the results.

This lovely lovely mirror (with a portion of mirror part papered over to minimize distraction) was designed and made by a much-adored and longtime friend of mine, Paula Garbarino.  The inscription, "Il faut fertiliser notre jardin," can be translated to mean, "We must pollinate our garden."  Thus the honeybees, a favorite of mine. 

That sentiment can be taken on so many levels.  The garden of friendship.  The garden of kindness.  The garden of interconnectedness with each other.  The garden of the Earth itself.  We all need to pollinate, to tend, and to care for each other and for the Earth. 

We all know how hardworking a honeybee is.  Indeed it often takes a lot of work to tend and care for each other, especially at a troubled, stressful time like the time we are in now.

Normally Paula designs and makes fine-art furniture, and marquetry--a form of "painting with wood," is one of her specialties.  She has been at it for decades and I hope you'll take time to go to her website and browse her luscious designs in the photo gallery there.  Her work has been displayed in museums and is owned and collected by numerous people.

She does not normally make small pieces like this, though she has made a few.  This mirror, about 17x10", showed up unannounced in my mail as a gift about two weeks ago and it took me a while to determine a place in my home to hang it so that I could see it frequently every day. 

I am one very lucky friend indeed.  Much gratitude to Paula.  You are yourself quite like a honeybee--incredibly hardworking, kind, and of course, always building something oh-so-sweet.

Finally my schedule is starting to clear, so get ready for some "bad tangling."  I'm amazingly out of practice but happy to be starting up again, and here are the so-so results. 

Why am I posting these?  Because they are true.  This is where I am now.

Just as in daily meditation, I am essentially beginning again.  We all do this hundreds of times every day, with many issues, without realizing it.  A meditation practice is cultivated over time, time each day.  And with Zentangle®, just like with meditation, lack of practice will show. 

But in essence, WHO CARES?  There are no meditation police, and there are no Zentangle police either.

Julia Child's motto (The French Chef on PBS for so many years) applies here:  "Who's going to know?" she chortles in her fabulous high-pitched voice, as she picks up the raw chicken she just dropped on the floor as she's being filmed and goes on preparing to cook it.  As she pointed out, the oven would take care of any germs.  I have always loved this moment of her show.  She was always beginning again, with humor and enthusiasm.**  Someone undoubtedly ate that cooked chicken, and no one got sick or died.

So FINALLY--yay!!!!--I am getting to begin again after months of not being able to tangle.  Here is what that looks like.

It's "Inktober" again, so tanglers are embarking on a daily draw.  This is an experiment with the tangle Flux, drawn on a tan tile.  No pen used, only General's Chalk Pencils in olive green, white, and a scoche of blue.

I was curious about what would happen without the hard line from a pen, using a lot of blending.  This is the result.  I nicknamed this one, "It's only a dream," and went to sleep shortly after finishing it.  Sure enough, I had vivid dreams all night long, and they were just as vague and ethereal as my tangling before bed.

Here's the Inktober link for tanglers (meaning, this is specific to tangling).  Inktober has a number of genres--sketching, writing, etc.  There is a prompt for every day during the month of October every year.  I'm following the one for tanglers, but you may want to google some of the other genres if it interests you.

** According to Snopes, that episode was slightly-but-not-very different from what I remember:
"She was cutting the poultry up (which, as I recall, was a chicken), and it slid off the table onto the floor. She picked it up and said either, 'We’ll pretend that didn’t happen,' or 'Just pretend you didn’t see that.”' She continued cutting the chicken up."

To continue:
Sure enough, the rust in my hand shows up even more here. 

Once I sat down this morning I couldn't stop tangling.  Although it's only the 2nd day of October, I have tangles from the prompts for Days 1-5 on this page so far.  If I keep on, the page could turn into a hot mess, but hey.  I'll keep on anyway. 

The ONLY tangle here that I knew before this morning was Flux (upper border).  Every other tangle was completely new for me. 

Oops, I take that back--I know and love Pepper (day 5).  But Anthem (day 3), Jackstripes (day 2) and Unbirthday (day 4) are all tangles I've never heard of before.  These are all first-attempts.

You can also see some pencil-drawn string lines on the page; we'll see if I do anything with those.

As my idol Julia would say, "Just pretend you didn't see that."

Just finished binding this rug (triple binding technique), a "pandemic rug" I designed and hooked in a 8-cut.  All scrap wool; no bought wool.  What fun.  Every loop pulled was enjoyable.  I'm delighted with how it came out.  However, the subtle colors just don't show in a photograph.  But that's ok--I know what it looks like.  I smile whenever I see it.

Sometimes we are dealing with circumstances that beg for a focus on equanimity or calm.  (And who doesn't need that these days?)

I've been taking a 3-session class with Alina Smolyansky of Vancouver called Neurographica for Artists.  Very, very interesting.  Today we did the final class, a Tree of Life with a theme, and my theme was "Calm" or "Equanimity."  We had just a small introduction to this method of art and healing, and it was fascinating.  While I'm probably not able to take a Basics for Users class right now--just too busy--I intend to at some point.  Another wonderful form of art to explore!  Eventually. 

Equanimity requires some practice, and practice requires time.  In order to achieve my own equanimity, I need to cut down on commitments for a while.  Otherwise I would have signed right up for her "Basics" class.  Thanks, Alina.

Another insomnia tile, drawn one night and added to a bit the following day,  then finished 2-3 days later.

Here is the tile as I finished drawing it, with no shading or color.

I think I do some of my best tangling when I can't sleep--and I rarely have consequences (tiredness) the following day.  If I can't sleep and don't tangle, I'm often exhausted the next day.  Hmmm.

My heart hurts tonight.  Thank you, Notorious RBG.
Body at rest, spirit free.
We will never forget.

I get a chuckle every time I go by this mailbox. 

One of the residents has a cousin who is convinced she collects rubber duckies--the sort you put in your bathtub.  She does not collect them.  She never has collected them.  But she is accumulating them because her cousin keeps giving them to her "for your collection."

And so she distributes them where she can.  I think she has about a hundred of them in her basement.  I find this hilarious.  I do love the look of the mailbox though.

It makes me wonder how often I may make assumptions about what people want or need, without checking them out.  In this case, her cousin is simply trying to be funny and kind.

Rubber duckies, and actual/real/live waterbirds, remind me of the practice of meditation and dipping into awareness...going beneath the surface of daily life, diving under surface appearances and the attention-grabbing distractions and simply allowing ourselves to  check in with ourselves for a few moments. 

Without this, we run the risk of bobbing along on the surface of it all, at the mercy of the waves and the current.

And speaking of meditation:

Here it comes.  Right on schedule, too.  I saw a few of these beauties on the path of my morning walk.  All the trees are still looking green and lush, but this is evidence of what will be here soon enough.

The weather has turned from horribly humid to dry and cool-ish, although that won't last.  Fine with me, as I prefer it.  I don't believe summer is quite done with us yet, however.

My latest meditation course (I'm teaching) appears to be off to a good start with absolutely wonderful students, all of them Certified Zentangle® Teachers (CZTs).  I am always reminded how CZTs are some of the kindest people anywhere.  It's a pleasure to get to know this group.

I'm also aware that today is the 19th anniversary of 9/11, a nightmarish day with a nightmarish aftereffect.  A good friend lost her brother on one of the hijacked planes that day.  His family will never be the same.  May all those connected with that event continue to heal as much as possible.

It's a bit early for the following poem, but I cannot resist.  I'm having autumn thoughts today.

Song for Autumn 
by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now

how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the fires that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow?

The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

The big:  I spotted this amazing old stove for sale in the window of a business downtown today.  Imagine having to polish this!  Holy cow.  But it's such a great example of what the workmanship of every day objects used to be like.

And the small:  I dyed ten grams of yarn this afternoon; that's hardly anything!  But I'm still working on binding my rug and don't want to end up with a large amount of yarn that I likely wouldn't use for other projects.

The thing I love about the Wooly Mason Jar Dyeing system is that it allows you to do this and reliably replicate a color.  No matter how large or small the amount.  The entire project today, start to finish, took me no more than 10 minutes, including heating in the microwave.  It's a Canadian small business and Lucy, who created and runs it, is a dyeing genius.  Thanks, Lucy!

Ooops, I forgot to include this great poetry I spotted on Facebook this morning.  I wish I could attribute this to the author but I don't know who wrote it. 

After such a long time with no time for tangling, I went back to basics again with this highly meditative and simple tile.  It allowed for the focus to be on the meditative aspects of tangling, not on the tangling itself.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Ran it through an iPhone app next and got this silly version:

The final photos from Deerfield's (MA) Memorial Hall Museum.  Enjoy.  See the previous 5 posts for the rest. 

This post has some additional textiles and some non-textile surprises.

More photos from the recent show which included pieces from their permanent collection, at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, MA.


See the previous four posts for more goodies.

I'm pretty sure this was called "The Last Rose of Summer," and is in their permanent collection.  Embroidered.

Beautiful textiles from Deerfield's Memorial Hall Museum continued.  This is the fourth installment--and there will be at least two, possibly three more.

And, here we go with more wonderful textiles and other goodies from Deerfield's Memorial Hall Museum.  Some are particular to this exhibit which I think is over by 8/31 but others (most of these today, I think) are part of their permanent collection.

If you want to see the first two posts I did on this, they are from yesterday and the day before.

Last--and very definitely least (by comparison), here is my own bedspread.  It's mass-produced and frankly, cheap.  But when I was making my bed this morning, in between working on this blog post, I suddenly "saw" it for what it is--a pale imitation of these blue and white Deerfield embroideries that I've admired for decades!  And I never even made the association before.  DUH! 

It gave me a huge laugh.

Stay tuned for more Deerfield treats over the next few days.  I look a LOT of photos.

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.
--Louis Armstrong

More from the Memorial Museum's current exhibit in Deerfield MA.  For the start of this series, see the previous post.

Last week I saw some truly lovely textiles at the Deerfield Memorial Museum.  Here's a small portion of what I saw.  I'll post more when I can.

I've been sitting in my house wearing a mask for the last three hours.  The HVAC guys are here, creating a separate heating/cooling zone for my second floor, which has been unbearably hot in the afternoons.  Since they are here and moving around, I've put on a mask.  I didn't notice it until about 15 minutes ago, but now it's increasingly uncomfortable.  But if that is what it takes to keep me and them safe, that's what I'll do.

The Mandala Star Rug is getting bound at last, after a lengthy hiatus from all textile work caused by my July meditation teaching schedule.  Both of the meditation courses I taught are done (hence the "Done" in today's post title) and all my paperwork around them has been turned in, so now I'm able to go back and finish this "pandemic rug" which has been waiting.  You can just see the purple yarn binding part of the lower edge in the above photo.  This may turn out to be my all-time favorite rug.  And I say that knowing that I designed, color planned, and hooked it, so it's really "all mine."  I just love it.  Too boastful?  I can't help it.

Thus, "Two Done" (the meditation courses) and "One Underway" (finishing the Mandala Star Rug is happening at last).

Hotter than Hades where I live this week; I'm lucky to have good air conditioning or I would be prostrate on my floor. 

Instead, I have been too busy to tangle or do any textile art.  It's all been great--I am engaged in teaching two meditation classes each week in July.  Both are practicums for my 2-year Teacher Training Program and the outcome will determine whether I get certified to teach mindfulness meditation or not.  When my in-person practicums fell apart due to the pandemic, my kind and generous fellow CZTs rescued me by signing up in droves for the two online courses I hastily put together. 

CZTs are incredibly nice people.  I was amazed by the level of interest in learning mindfulness meditation and will probably teach a couple of additional courses to try to accommodate those on the waiting list--and the global time zones of the would-be participants.  They came to my rescue from all over the globe!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, my friends.

This has meant that I haven't done any art in weeks.  So about 4 nights ago, not having the energy to think, I decided to just draw lines on a tile that I had begun years ago; I had used a leftover "snowflake" paper cut-out I'd made years back and then it just sat there for a few years.  I found it the other night and my first three nights were spent just drawing random relaxing lines inside the string.  I did not use any tangles except Tipple.  And perhaps a case could be made for Pokeleaf but I wasn't even aware of or intending to draw that.

Here is the initial finished black and white tile:

It's possible I should have just left it plain like that, with some shading.  But today I did add color and shading and ended up with this.

I'm not sure what I think, or even if it matters; I am only sure that I enjoyed every line I put into this, so whatever the outcome, the process was very relaxing.

I've been so busy teaching mindfulness meditation that I haven't had time to tangle (except for that last post) in weeks.  Oh boy, do I miss it.  Today I took a class called Renaissance Gold with Stefanie van Leeuwen in Holland.  (I love Zoom!  It has opened up a globe-full of teachers.)  This was the tile I produced in class.

She's a gifted teacher.  You can find her by clicking on her name above.  This has been a wildly popular class for her and you can see why.  The class was packed with Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZTs), always a good sign--sort of like going to dine in a new-to-you ethnic restaurant and noticing that many of the patrons are of that particular ethnicity:  You immediately know you are in good hands and that your meal will be the Real Deal.  We all had a relaxing time.

Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their hearts as well as their eyes.
--Nikki Giovanni