 A glorious glorious patch of Squill. What??? How can there be such a thing as "too much color?" That's not possible, right? I mean, look at that spectacular Squill. The bees certainly weren't of the opinion it was "too much color." So what the heck...? Read on. In the same fabulous patch as the Squill I found these perfect Crocus:  If these do not brighten your heart, I don't know what will. I think they are luscious.  While you cannot really see the lush carpet of flowers--partially in shade--in this house's wonderful front garden, you can see the closeups above. When I got home and looked at the photo I was so focused on the way the light was bringing out the spring yellow in the bush that it took me several moments to see the light shaft with a big rainbow in it hitting that same bush. As if this little garden was being nourished by light and color. That was my morning. Color, there's never enough. Beautiful. So what am I talking about, "too much color?" Keep reading.  Ok, so I was prepping these tiles today with my new watercolor inks. As far as I'm concerned, the more color the better. Just as with yesterday's post, these tiles will be tangled eventually. So far so good, right? But then: Spoiler alert: Art Catastrophe below.  Oh yeah. The entire bottle of blue rolled off my desk, hit my legs, and made its merry way onto the floor. You think my jeans look bad? I wish I'd thought to take a photo of the floor but I was too busy racing to mop up the mess which spread EVERYWHERE. I'm still finding traces around the room. Thank goodness this was watercolor and wiped up easily but I used a zillion paper towels (and I don't like to waste those, but they were right there and I was desperate) After which I took off the pants, laughed at my blue legs and my turquoise-y hands from cleaning up the floor, and spent quite a bit of time rinsing the pants in the sink. The amount of blue ink that came out was unbelievable. Fortunately I had just put a dark-colored wash into the washer, ready to run. A happy coincidence. So I threw the pants in and they've come out looking as though nothing ever went wrong. So yes. A bit too much color in that moment. After that, I did another tile with another set of colors (the one on the right above). Because seriously, there really is no such thing as too much color, and my entire day reflected that. Accident is design  Prepping a tile--watercolor inks and then I threw some gold acrylic on top of them. This will eventually get tangled on top of the color.
I prepped that tile above** (wet on the left, after drying on the right) after midnight last night, waiting for sleep that really never came. Such intense color. I woke up after far too little sleep, thinking about the tile and how I might tangle on it. An idea floated by--oooo, more experimentation! And now, back to rug hooking. I gotta get this rug done.
**Thanks to Annie Taylor, CZT (of ArtyZen) for terrific how-to-prep the tile instructions!  Done as of today. (the insomnia is not related--have had that 3 nights in a row already)  My 2nd shot sticker lying on top of a really old chairpad I designed & hand-punched decades ago. I hope you'll help stop/slow this plague by getting vaccinated as well.
Let's face it: I just don't have the photographic skills to do justice to the spring colors outside right now. The crystalline sunlight. The intensely clear blue sky. And the spring flowers! Oh my--absolutely no way to capture those colors. Crocuses everywhere, and squill all around them. I'm no gardener, alas, but I walk by this lovely garden every day:   Ugh, sorry this is blurred. It makes my heart smile to see these small flowery gifts rising from the soil after such a very, very grim winter. Indeed, after this winter, I feel lucky to be alive to see these gifts from the earth coming back to us. Yesterday I did some wool dyeing in order to finish the rug I've been working on for months. Because I'm doing a major revision on this rug, I've been pulling out one color and substituting another--a color I hadn't planned on and so I ran out of it. Thus it was back to the dyepots. I surprised myself by getting an exact match. It reminds me of the purple crocuses, even though it needed to be grayed down for the rug.  A VERY grayed-down lavender. But, it'll work! Onward to finishing the rug.
And WELCOME SPRING.  Multiple tangles here! Paradox, Peec, Marasu, Beadlines, Fife, and Caro. Micron 01, graphite. All my time at the moment is devoted to finishing up a rug.
I'm so committed to getting the darned rug done that I haven't allowed myself any time for tangling. Last night I sneaked an hour of tangling at the Sunday evening hour that Amy Kam CZT offers free. It felt so good. I'm quite surprised by how much I miss tangling when I don't indulge it for a while. Hmmmm. Addiction?  Tangles: Waybop, Moonpie, Shattuck, Orbs/Tipple, Fescue. On a White Zendala with a Maptangled background, additional graphite and colored chalk pencils. This fell out of my pen over the last 3-4 days. But somehow I don't feel that it's quite finished. Hmmm. The more I study this, the more I want to add a bit. I think there is more tinkering to be done. How does one ever know that it's time to stop? "When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit." --Wm. K. Zinsser -Later the same day- Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Indeed, I wasn't finished. Here is the finished version.  Yep, it's done. Here's the side-by-side comparison:
The whole process was interesting. For one thing, I loved the background until I started tangling on it, and then suddenly I started disliking every line I drew. Too shaky. Too uneven. I'm doing it wrong.
But what the heck...I stayed with it until I thought I was done, and surprised myself by liking it much more than expected. ...which lasted 5 minutes. Something felt off still. So I went back to the drawing board and added just a bit more color in the center and voila, now it feels done, and I've gone from disliking to quite liking it. There's a big lesson in here for me. I keep learning this same lesson--but this time I noticed I'm trusting the lesson more. After SEVEN long years, my Universe Tarot Card rug is finally home. It was delivered this morning in perfect condition. I cannot believe that all of those tiny laminated cards I stitched onto the pathways of this Tree haven't fallen off by now; it must have been unpacked, hung up, taken down, and packed up again a zillion times since it left my hands in 2014. This rug has been more places in the United States and world than I will ever see.  2014. Tarot Card XXI, The World. A rug created for a traveling exhibition of tarot card rugs (Major Arcana only) which toured nationally and internationally for a few years, called "23 Artists Hook the Major Arcana." This rug is traditionally punch-hooked using an Oxford Punch Needle and rug yarn hand-dyed by me. I embroidered the Universal Waite Tiny Tarot cards (after laminating them first, and punching holes through which I could stitch). The cards are placed where they traditionally go on the Tree of Life. "Universal Waite Tiny Tarot Cards," ©1977 U.S. Games, Inc., used by permission. 41.5x24" Twenty-three rugs were designed and hooked for this Project, by a wide variety of well-known AND unknown rug artists. I was flattered to be asked. My rug was the only punched rug in the entire exhibit, as I recall. All the others were traditionally hooked with wool strips, which is the type of hooking I've also tended to do more frequently (but oh how I love rug punching too). To see the history of the exhibit and view the other rugs, go HERE. Most of the rug creators knew next to nothing about tarot. Some who were invited to contribute turned it down because they believe tarot is the work of the devil. I was so sorry to hear that. I simply view tarot--which I've studied for 40+ years--as a way of speaking with our subconscious selves, which cannot use words but can use images. And I do not fortune-tell, since no one can know the future. I see it as a lovely psychological tool and a creative spark. It has been a wise and compassionate assistant in my life for decades. I use it seldom but when I do, it always helps me to express some inner wisdom or insight I might not otherwise have reached. “It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.”
― Charles Williams “When you drop the idea of predicting the future, you start to experience the cards as a mirror of the psyche. That`s when playing with the tarot becomes a path to wisdom.” ― Philippe St Genoux  A real shot in the arm for me. So grateful. Second dose later this month. Phew.  A piece taught by Amy Kam CZT and drawn by me. Micron 01 and PN in black, graphite. Flux, Indyrella, and Printemps are about the only regular tangles used, with lots of ad hoc line drawing otherwise. Amy Kam CZT of The Peaceful Pen on IG and Facebook does a great one hour Zentangle® meditation, free, every Sunday evening at 7 pm EST. I attended my first one last night and this was the result. Well, I started last night but shortly after I joined realized I was ill, and as a result completely lost focus on her excellent directions and my entire piece went badly off the rails.
NOTE TO SELF: Never tangle right after a dinner that is not agreeing with me! I was forced to stop and lie down until I improved, but I could watch the computer screen and see the results everyone had (over 100 tanglers). My own hot mess of a first try has scribbled notes all over it so that I could have a do-over later last night, and I had no trouble with it on a fresh tile after a couple of hours. Lesson learned. It's rare that a piece cannot be saved, but that first tile will be relegated to the trash. I was too ill to function. It's true there are "no mistakes" in Zentangle, but it's also true that at times in life things need to be faced squarely, evaluated, and then entirely redone. "What we call experience is often a dreadful list of ghastly mistakes." --J. Chalmers da Costa |
ABOUT ME I'm a textile artist (traditional rug hooking, punch needle rug hooking, and other textile arts), a long-time meditator, a certified meditation teacher and coach, and focused on learning about the interplay of art, creativity, and mindfulness every day. 
Certified, 2021
Certified Unified Mindfulness Coach
Certified Zentangle® Teacher, 2013
Certified by AmyOxford.com at The Oxford Rug Hooking School, 2016
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Insight Meditation Society Oxford Rug Hooking School Zentangle: The Official Site Green Mountain Rug Hooking Massachusetts Tarot Society 
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