My form of church, that is. 

I left very early today to meet a friend and fellow textile artist on a rural road 45 minutes from my home.  Each with rugs in tow.  Our goal was to drape the rugs we brought over the stone wall that looks over a meadow and then down, down, down into a huge reservoir (part of which is just barely visible over the tops of the trees and under the surrounding hills) and get a decent photo.  I ran the resulting picture thru an iPhone app and got this.  I'm pleased.  It's a mix of a few of my rugs and a few of her rugs. 

This picture describes my spiritual life--the natural world plus a meditative form of craft such as traditional rug hooking.  

The light, the earth, the stones, the colors, the sun, the clouds, the wind, the water, the trees, the hills. 

I can't think of a better place to be on a Sunday morning in the autumn.

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
― John Muir

Still in love with and working on learning to draw this tangle, which isn't coming easy for me.  Today, though, I think I got it.  Finally.  There are a million ways to draw a Triquetra Celtic Knot, but I've been wanting to learn it via the easy steps of Zentangle®.  Which turned out not to be so easy for me.  But in fact, with a bit of practice, it is both easy and obvious.  Other people got this one immediately, but I needed to ponder it a while.

Some things are like that.

Being overambitious and then frustrated when I couldn't get the painting to work taught me persistence.
(Marion Boddy-Evans)

This was my first attempt with this tangle.  I actually finished this over 2 weeks ago but am just posting it now.  I found the instructions (the stepouts) so hard to follow that I tried it out on a 2" square tile in pencil first, using an eraser.  Normally, with Zentangle®, we do not "sketch out" tiles in pencil first, and we don't use erasers.  The general idea is that there are no do-overs; if we screw up in life, we don't get to do whatever-it-was over.  Instead, we have to figure out what to do about it and we often learn the most through dealing with our mistakes.  And so it is in art as well.

However, sometimes if we can't even envision how to approach something, a draft (ie, using pencil to try to sketch something out) is helpful as we try to map the thing in our minds.  That was my approach here.  And occasionally in life, too, if I'm finding a life task overwhelming.

Speaking of overwhelm, I have hopelessly over-committed myself and am not pleased that I barely have time to turn around in my schedule.  At my age, I should know better.  This is a mistake I make frequently in life, and I have learned a lot from it...but apparently I still haven't learned how to avoid doing it.

Consequently I have done no tangling since my last post--too busy with textile work which I'm not ready to show yet.  And with several other projects, including creating a new website for a group.  I love everything I'm doing but I really miss tangling.

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes. (Mel Brooks)

Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? (George Carlin)

This image adorned the cover of my old 1979 calendar, one of the many I bought annually from rubber stamp artist Susan Riecken, who seems to have disappeared; I can't find any online presence for her and the last calendar I was able to get from her was in the early 1990s.  After that she closed her Cambridge studio and I couldn't find a trace of her.  Here is the actual cover of that calendar:

I completely adored her work.  Each calendar was a labor of love.  She carved the stamps from erasers and in the early years I *think* she hand-stamped each calendar, though I'm not sure.  Pretty soon she had the hand-stamped pages reproduced so that she could produce the calendars in bulk, but that never interfered with the delicious colors or the funky marvelous designs.  She was/is an art idol of mine.  Wishing her well wherever she is, and hoping she's well and happy and making more art, even if I cannot find her.

About my interpretation/copy of her sunflowers:  I knew when I ran across this calendar the other day that I wanted to try making a "stamp-like" design by scratching away on an Art Scratch tile.  Using a wooden stylus would, I thought give the same chunky effect as a carved stamp.  I think I was right.

This is a day traditionally held sacred to all women, honoring the sacred feminine and the Great Goddess in earlier times.  For an excellent article with good information on its celebratory aspects (as well as superstitions and misogyny that have accrued around it), click HERE. 

Art!
Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this Great Goddess?
--Ludwig van Beethoven

First try at the Trinity (the Celtic-Knot appearing tangle) and Balloya (the one with the multiple lines).  I enjoyed doing both, and could certainly get better at both with practice.  Why did I choose these two?  Because they both began with triangles.

But never mind that.  Look what just arrived from my kind and unbelievably talented friend AE.  She MADE this.  Since I can sew but only very badly, this boggles my mind.  She sews like a pro, weaves wonderful things, beads exquisite pieces, does punch needle rugs, dyes her own yarns, and I know I'm forgetting other talents.  And all of it beautifully.

I love this!  Am I lucky or what?

Woke up early today and used the extra time to do this tangle.  I had watched a Romi Marks (Tangled Yogi) video and used most but not all of her tangles for this. 

She uses colored pencils, as have I when I've used her paper tiles, made from cardstock so they are very smooth and handle colored pencils beautifully. 

I was using a regular Zentangle® tile today, though.  That's made from printmaking paper and has a lot of tooth.  So I went with General's Chalk Pencils for the color. 

Today all I knew when I sat down to draw was that I wanted to work on something blue, invoking the quiet calm of that color.  When more than a day passes with no drawing, I get tangle-deprivation syndrome.  So, waking early was a pleasure; meditation is easier for me at that time of day, and I've noticed that any drawing I do at dawn or after dusk tends to be less self-conscious than when I draw during the day. 

Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.
--John Ruskin

Slow but steady progress on the rug.  Lots of decisions to make.  There is more done but I'd rather save things for the Big Reveal later.   I've done a fair amount of trying things out and then "reverse hooking" (aka ripping out) and re-hooking.

It's one giant experiment. 

I rarely do things without at least a bit more planning, so this is fun.  Compare this version to the one in my last post.

When you're experimenting you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, and you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.
--Fred Astaire

No drawing happening because I've been doing this.

Yep, back to traditional rug hooking.  There is a lot more to this story, but I'll share that another time.  I'm really enjoying the process, as always.  I even have a space in my house reserved for this rug, assuming I like the way it turns out.

Ferocious thunder & heavy rain today while I was working on this.  Anything that clears out humidity is fine with me.  I'm concerned about those in the path of the Dorian hurricane however, and horrified about the Bahamas.  How will the Bahamas recover? 
(I am not in Dorian's path)