A woolly pot I made this morning. I'll use it to hold scrap yarns and wool that I trim off when I'm punching or rug hooking. It worked up fast and was hugely fun to make. I've got other uses for these cuties also so will make more for sure. Instructions and even a short video HERE. Wool, quarter-inch wooden beads, Valdani thread, fusible interfacing, and a charm. A chair pad I just punched. It's "in progress," because I'll be taking a class later this week to learn a special edge binding technique. Punching doesn't require a binding, but this technique is decorative and I'm curious to learn it. The pattern is an old one from the Oxford Rug Hooking School; it's not my style and I always thought I'd flip it over and draw my own design on the back to punch, but I needed to produce "something round" really fast for this class, so I opted for quickly completing this and have something with an edge to work on during class. It's on monks cloth, using a #9 Oxford Punch needle and an assortment of rug yarn scraps, some of which are from other rug projects and some of which (the dark brown) I dyed myself way back in 2016. Whoops, a little side-step (away from showing the junk-journal-related work I did last Saturday) into the wonderful world of maptangling. I got distracted by hearing about a new method of preparing the tiles for this, much easier and faster than my old methods, so took time out to do this one. You can see the original tile after I prepped it but before I drew on it, below. Every year I try to enroll in the online course called Sketchbook Revival. So this year it's called Sketchbook Revival 2024. It's run by Karen Abend and is lots of fun--unless you stress yourself out trying to keep up. This year I noticed that an amazing Zentangle® teacher named Anica Gabrovec, a CZT from Croatia who goes by the name of ZenLinea online, was teaching. The moment I saw her name I looked up her class and it was on one of my favorite drawing techniques, Maptangling. She had a much faster technique than I've seen before for creating the map, and that's what I'll be using from now on. Here's another page from the junk journal from last Saturday: Honestly, this page doesn't do much for me. It's just not that interesting. You can see some tissue-paper dyeing at the top edge and peeking out from the bottom; some of it is covered by torn wrapping paper I glued down in the center (and tangled on a bit), and the tangle around the edges is called Scrolz. My response to this page is "meh." And yet, anything that gets me drawing and/or creating is bound to result in some form of serious contentment, even if the result is mediocre. I'm always amazed at the way time spent on art improves my mood. From the same workshop I mentioned in yesterday's post. One of the things we did was to decorate a junk journal (defined as, "a handmade book filled with personal and recycled materials to store memories and ideas"). Our leader for this section of the workshop was Jill Dailey, a CZT from Connecticut. She had made each of us a plain vanilla journal in advance (because of time constraints) and therefore we had the fun of just decorating them, not having to make one first. (She sent each of us a video on how to make one for those of us who want to continue making them ourselves) I used a decorative paper and that black-and-gold washi tape on the front of mine, and we did some very fun "bleeding tissue paper" dyeing on the edges and added the coordinating button. I'll show some of the work we did in our journals in subsequent posts. Jill was unbelievably generous with the amount of materials she put in our kits and even had boxes of extras for us to play in and take home. Enormous fun. I was tempted to title this, "This is what happens when you haven't picked up a pen in FOUR-plus months." It's true, it's been that long for me. I did some work with knots back in March (not much) but basically I haven't had any time for tangling since 2023 and wow am I rusty. Combine that with poor lighting and you have a relatively hot mess but I know it will improve.
This is a new tangle introduced today for the International Day of Zentangle® (so the name of the tangle is "Idoz" Pronounced eye'-dozz). Rick and Maria, the founders of Zentangle, introduced it this morning in a webinar attended by several hundred tanglers from around the world. Today is the day they are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Zentangle's start. It was the perfect tangle for me to begin with after such a long layoff. Can't wait to experiment and get back to all this. The next day started off with this tile. Here's the thing--Molly had pre-drawn a very odd string (string = an optional guideline done in pencil) on every student's tile. Very odd. We were asked to tangle within the string, not outside of it. OKaaaaaaaay... Off we went. Once we were done, mine looked like this. Very strange. Lots of fun and very calming. But still, weird. I think we were all scratching our heads a bit, despite enjoying ourselves. But then, we did the mosaic of tiles. AHA! Now it all made so much sense: Hearts with a trick! I love it.
The workshop with Molly & Martha was designed to emphasize what's known as tangle "enhancers." This first one was the Tucker technique, where something appears to be almost hidden, tucked away under the paper. I was familiar with it but hadn't tried it much. If ever. This was fun to do. I think the grey pen section qualifies as another technique called "ghost tangles." Below you can see the class "mosaic" of tiles. Isn't it interesting how everyone draws their tangles differently, even with the same directions? Drawing is a lot like handwriting--the same, but very different. One of life's paradoxes. Next we did a mandala of border tangles using both brown and black Microns, graphite, and white and pink General's chalk pencils. We used ModPodge on top of the tile once it was done to seal it, but not over each of the borders, just some. Tangles included a portion of Marasu, Jonqal, Shattuck (with sparkles), Bales with enthatching), Well (with weighted lines), and weighted Printemps (there's a narrow beaded border thrown in there twice, plus dots). Lots of enhancers here! Again, here is the mosaic of tiles for the border mandala. So many differences, yet so much similarity.
In this incredibly troubled world, I was lucky enough to be able to take three days for travel and drawing.
Nearly every second of that time, I was acutely aware of the many tragedies currently unfolding on our fragile blue planet, and acutely aware of the great privilege to be able to have the peace that drawing can provide. Over all three days, I carried both worlds with me simultaneously. I think we all did. There were about 40 of us in attendance, with Martha Huggins and Molly Hollibaugh from Zentangle® as our teachers. I'll post a few of the results over the next couple of days.
This was the title of the workshop. (Yes, there was lots of Edith Piaf singing "La Vie En Rose" in the background) M&M discussed the importance of looking for the good in life, no matter what is happening. And we all know there is a LOT of misery, horror, and fear happening at this moment. The point is not to ignore any of that or pretend it is not happening, but to carefully look around for moments of rest , of peace, of something beautiful despite everything else going on. Without these, what hope do we have? Without these moments of rest, we cannot go on. With them, we can begin to see and think clearly and act effectively.
A "warm-up tile" from the first evening.
It can be nearly impossible to find a way to cope with life at times like this. So many people I know are exhausted, angry, disillusioned, terrified, and feeling helpless. I cannot and do not ignore that nor any of the existential threats we face at the moment. Yet who can function with any measure of wisdom or compassion in such a state? We must all try to take a moment whenever we can to recognize both the possibilities AND the limitations we face. And then find a scrap of inner peace and sit with that until we can un-clench. Any healthy thing that can give us that moment is precious. Drawing is one thing that does it for me. Music as well. Speaking with friends. Helping someone who needs help. In order to be functional, I need to do this in small moments throughout the day so that I won't get lost in discouragement. We all need some way of doing this--desperately. I am fortunate enough to be able to occasionally stop and just draw for a while. I know that others on the planet who are being bombed or shot at do not have that luxury right now. I do it both for myself and for the people who don't have that option, in the hope that calming myself will enable me to think and act more clearly to support them in their time of need. Kaira Jewel Lingo has just written a book called We Were Made for These Times, about how to survive and cope with the turmoil currently gripping the world. You can listen to her by clicking on the link below, as she's interviewed by former ABC News Anchor Dan Harris.
May we all find shelter and safety
May we all find peace within and without May we all be kind to ourselves and each other May we all become whole. This should clear up the mystery I posted about yesterday. In yesterday's post you can see the punched upper part of one of these shoes before I sewed it to the sole, a task I did today. This was such a fun project. Of course, espadrilles are totally and completely flat--no arch support. And I need that. So although they fit I'll probably give them away. But I did it. It was a challenge, and I did it.
And yes, they are resting on a chair cushion I punched (and designed) about 20 years ago. Also done with rug wool and a #10 Oxford Punch Needle. copyright to kirsti macleod (and the hundreds of women embroiderers around the globe, along with approximately 10-12 men and boys. also to the amazing women who constructed the pattern and sewed it together, and all those who've shared in the work of bringing it into reality. 2023). THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EMBROIDERERS FROM 51 COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD. 14 years of work to bring it to birth. Although I could be writing about this for days, I will refrain and restrict myself to some (not all!) photos I took of this amazing exhibit at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester Vermont this week. Alas, it leaves Vermont on Sunday. A friend asked me whether I'd seen it. I didn't even know what she was talking about, so she filled me in and I researched what it was/why it was made and knew I had to go to see it. I am so happy I did, and I urge you to as well. To better understand what it is about, go to https://reddressembroidery.com/ and prepare to be very, very moved by what you see and read. Meanwhile, here are more photos from the exhibit. I hope you are interested enough to click on the URL I gave above and read about the intent of this amazing project. Enjoy. Many children also added their embroidery to the piece, including some little boys. And as I mentioned above, around 7 to 9 of the 380 embroiderers were men. The Red Dress is gradually being brought back to the 51 countries, to the people who worked on it, so that all may enjoy the completed piece. Many of the women who've worked on it will get to try it on and be photgraphed in it. I've seen some of the photos and they are incredibly empowering.
Here's a page from my sketchbook showing some practice at drawing flowers. Kelly Barone of Whimsy by Kelly has a lovely free video series on FB on doing this. I think she began it last year but I'm just able to focus on it now. It was fun to try.
Below you can see all the stages, from line drawing to shading to this result directly below. Oh my gosh. The last time I got to draw was May 5th. Way, WAY too long for me. Last night I finally got back to it and it felt sooooo good. I am definitely rusty, rusty, rusty. This is overworked, and yet, I just loved every minute of doing it. I couldn't stop after such a long time of no tangling, and that resulted in the overwork (and the lack of sleep since I didn't start the coloring until after 10 pm). But it was worth every second for the pleasure it gave me. Just the same sort of sigh-of-relief as when you finally get to scratch a bothersome itch. The linework, before color was added, is on the right. So what caused this long, long drought? I'm teaching rug hooking in the midwest later this summer and I needed to produce multiple samples for the upcoming class. That has been taking up all my time. I will post the samples soon but now that they are done, I just want to get back to regular rug hooking, punching, and DRAWING. There will be another short delay while I finish prepping, traveling and teaching. By September I hope to be back to a regular schedule of drawing and blogging. In the meantime, meditation is keeping me sane and happy throughout this long summer. *** Meditation: Because some answers can only be found on the inner net. – Shira Tamir So here it is, with the colors added. This was great fun to do. The URL for the video is in yesterday's post, in case you want to try this yourself. I'm using colors here I do not normally use--not sure what happened there. I am not a "pink" person in normal circumstances but this is what came out. Contrast it to yesterday's black & white version. This is only the finished linework for a Zentangle®-inspired piece; I will be adding the color for it, hopefully later today or tomorrow. If you'd like to try this yourself, it's called "Circus Star" and is free on The Tangled Yogi's YouTube channel. She has an especially lovely meditation at the start of this one, using video footage from a morning walk she took near a lake in California. AND NOW, IN THE "BEGINNER'S MIND" CATEGORY: Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to take a digital design workshop with Lucy Richard from Wooly Soul Strings, called "Sketchbook for Hookers." (that would be RUG hookers, people, not the other kind.) I've been wanting to learn digital art for years now but haven't had time, and I could tell that Lucy's workshop on the Sketchbook app (simpler than Procreate) would teach me the basic concepts. This was a fabulous workshop and very much a lesson in Beginner's Mind. Talk about FLAILING AROUND. It was a humbling and hilarious experience. Fortunately Lucy is the soul of patience--I'm not kidding about this--and guided us through our bouts of flailing to success. Or, what constitutes "success" for an abject beginner. Here's what i was able to produce. Yes, it is indeed hideous. But it's my hideous, and I'm proud of it. I can only get better. Right? It helped to use a couple of mantras throughout: "It's ok, I've never done this before," or "I'm just learning." And so I'll practice. Begin again, begin again, begin again. Just like meditation. I loved this workshop. Thanks, Lucy! The design possibilities are endless. Indeed, it's been awhile. Another round of surgery for me (nothing life-threatening), much-needed but requiring a lengthy recovery. And I'm not done yet. What I mean to say is, I AM done with the surgery but not anywhere near done with the recovery. However, I've recovered enough to produce one tangle. Just one, but my first one in two months. That long a pause is almost unheard of for me. I had hoped to do a lot more drawing and tangling in recovery but it hasn't yet been possible. The good news: Everything is going along well, just as predicted. I may be slow but I'm beginning to be able to "art" again. I've also been doing some punch needle embroidery but that's not at a stage where I can show it. Soon, i hope! I think I have about another 6-8 weeks of recovery to go and then I hope to be back to myself. Really, I do have plenty of other jewelry than brooches, but there are indeed a lot of those. So here is the next one. I'm really enjoying these tiny drawings. Having said that, I actually never wore this brooch much--it wasn't a favorite and neither is my drawing of it (which takes liberties and includes the tangle Tipple) but that's ok since it is keeping me doing a little bit of drawing every day, which is the goal. And here's the sterling silver version from which I did the drawing. A good friend and I met in Vermont Tuesday afternoon for a textile tour (self-planned), the high point of which was a stop here. Oh my! I had not been back there in SIX YEARS. Awful, because I absolutely love the place. And there have been so many changes in the meantime. It was fabulous to hang out with Amy, Heidi, and the others I hadn't met previously because they've all been hired since i was last able to visit. Of course I bought some goodies for myself too, the last of which was this brightly colored hoodie. It's warm and comfortable and I may never take it off. Just an amazing class from Lynn Mead of The Tangled Mind today--a benefit for children in Ukraine. I loved every minute of the class. Lots of discussion about MC Escher (of course), but also excellent teaching and plenty of time to tangle. Done on gray cardstock with a black Micron 05 and graphite pencil with some white chalk pencil for highlights. This was very much in the "quick and dirty" mode. Fun! First 3 days of Inktober this year. I make a start but rarely finish. So far I'm not crazy about any of these tangles and so I changed 2 of them to such an extent that they are barely recognizable. (Tangles are: Rain, Delray, ISEA-U). In fact one of them isn't recognizable at all! We'll see if I continue through the month this year. A class I'm teaching and some textile projects might interfere. When I finished this tile I was really pleased with it--then I photographed it and blew up the photo and once I saw how incredibly shaky all the linework is (it doesn't show so much when it's this size), I was horrified. Yet another benefit of aging! But when I consider the alternative, aging is just fine with me. Being out of practice is also a likely cause. Certainly not perfect, but good enough. Perfection is not the goal.
I took a break today from the Lunar Phase Project (see the last few posts) and followed along on a video by Tanglewerks CZT. She has many videos; the one I watched had no words, just music (and I shut off the music). She did her mandala on a white tile. I put it mine a grey tile, made a few changes, and added white chalk to spice things up. It was a lovely way to spend the first few hours of a day--just quiet practice. A meditation indeed. I used to be able to draw any phase of the Moon easily from memory. This is the Moon in Waning Crescent mode, as I've positioned it above. (of course I could flip it around 180° so that the white "horns" point left and then it would represent exactly the opposite, but this is how I drew it--waning). I haven't been watching the Moon as much during the last couple of years, and sure enough, I'm beginning to forget what's what. Time to check back in with Her! In fact, I have a series of tiles prepped as the Moon in Her various phases and I noticed confusion as I tried to put them in order this morning. Could. Not. Do. It. Had to resort to googling the Moon's Phases (what DID we do before smartphones?) in order to turn things the right way. Yes, definitely time to check back in with Her daily changes. While trying to determine exactly how long those tiles have been sitting around waiting for me to finish them, I re-discovered this (below). If you asked me, "Have you ever drawn an elephant?" I would have said with 100% confidence, "Nope." But here it is. And I drew it. Memory is notoriously unreliable! I based the coloring and the stars on an amazing photo I saw of a man in India riding an elephant for a spiritual celebration of some sort (to Ganesh, perhaps?). His elephant had been covered with light blue blue dust and he or someone had painted stars all over it. It pretty much looked like this. I completely changed the blanket, though, and left off the man, and used a template for the outline of the elephant from Ben Kwok of Ornation Creation (he has tons of animal templates). So this is not a copy of the photograph, not even close. I rarely tangle anything representational but my friend Julie adores elephants so I framed and gave it to her. And I drew it exactly 7 years ago today. A lot has happened in that time--she got married and now has a lovely little boy. I'm betting the elephant picture is somewhere in her house, maybe even in his room. Finally, since I've been on a Moon kick, yesterday I had fun with a Zendala I'd prepped with a watercolor wash a long time ago. Just playing with the tangle Ibex. I started off like the photo on the left and then somehow ended up like the photo on the right. Not my best work but oh boy did I have fun playing. Really, it is the same tile, just taken on 2 different backgrounds under different light conditions and clearly I'd done more drawing in the version on the right. Still, when you look at the color differences, it's hard to believe it is the same tile. I think I prefer the one on the left, before I overdid the work on it. Live and learn.
Ah--I just heard that Queen Elizabeth has died. I know she was still working as recently as the day before yesterday, when she greeted the new PM. Talk about taking to a role in life with utter dedication--how serious she was about it! She wasn't perfect, but she was wonderful anyway. She was born to become an archetype, and perfectly lived the role. Go in peace, Lady. Well not really good enough to eat, unless you enjoy a mouthful of wool? This morning I went looking for some sock/fingering weight yarn for my next punch needle embroidery project and what should I happen upon but this hugely expensive, luscious-looking hand-dyed skein. I'll be building my next textile piece around the colors in this yarn. Plus a few other colors. Stay tuned. I hope to be back to full speed soon, with more rug hooking, rug punching, yarn dyeing, drawing, and who knows, perhaps even some beadwork. I don't own undyed yarn in this weight, so I can't dye any myself. This gives me a great excuse to stand in the yarn store and drool over what other people create, and then buy some. Hey, anything to buy more yarn, right? I will file this under the inspirational category, Other People's Work. Gorgeous! ...or am I just incredibly messy? Hard to tell. Both, I think. I'm at the beginning of a new rug (one reason I haven't been posting drawings much is that I've been so busy doing punchneedle embroidery, finishing off my last traditionally hooked rug, and now starting a new traditionally hooked rug). Here's what my studio floor looked like last night and still today. I guess I know myself well enough to know that I need to throw stuff all over the floor and leave it while I look at it for a few days. This mess with its stumble-inducing health hazards--you take your life in your hands trying to walk across the floor--will in fact result in much trial and error but eventually I'll be able to work out a color plan. Many rug makers I know can pull a few wools from their neat shelves, roll them together for testing purposes, decide on an initial plan, start working, tweak a bit and then boom! They are on their way. Not me. My mother would probably ask me if I was raised by wolves in Lower Slobbovia, but in fact, this is how I need to work. Yes, for me, it's all about creating chaos and allowing things to arise out of the mess. Pretty much like the way our minds work in meditation. Until we learn to let things to arise out of the mess and begin to sort through them, allowing them to pass on their way, we just have the mess on our hands. But eventually we're able to sort through it and clear the space. Or perhaps it's just that life unfolds as it will, and things get sorted on their own. I'm very moved by chaos theory, and that sense of energy. That quantum physics. We don't really, in Hindu tradition, have a father figure of a God. It's about cosmic energy, a little spark of which is inside every individual as the soul.
Bharati Mukherjee What happened to these people, the Mimbres, who created such dramatic and elegant pottery? Emerging from the Mongollon culture, they were a later version of that group which lived around the Mongollan Mountains in Arizona and New Mexico from about AD 200-1450. If I am correct, the Mimbres peoples lived toward the end of that period (1050-1200 or so). Eventually, it appears that they abandoned their homes and cultural centers for unknown reasons. Just walked away, probably dispersing into other groups or other areas of the country. Who were they and where did they go--and why? So far, we have no answers to these questions. They leave us their inspired, graphic, dramatic pottery, from which this tile is drawn. Here we have the fish, the deer, the turtle, and the caterpillar, all very precious and symbolic to them. We have the four directions, a stylized sun, some stylized feathers. While we can say something about what modern generations of Native/Indigenous Peoples would say about these symbols, we can only guess at the full extent of what they mean to people from this era. It's a definitely a mystery. Only their art speaks to us about who they were. To a Mimbres Woman by Marty Eberhardt I see your thousand-year-old thumb print On the plain brown potsherd. My own thumb fits perfectly In the curve you left. Other more elegant pottery bits Lie among rocks and junipers On this hill of dry grasses. Red-on-white interwoven geometry, A tasseled quail, Designs fine as any In the art galleries of the town. But it is this plain brown piece that draws me. My thumb seeks the curved place, again. I see you forming the pot From coils of clay, You look out over fields of corn and beans In the valley below. Then, as now, a red-tailed hawk dips, A horned lizard scurries under a stone That forms the village wall. Beyond the fields Green cottonwoods mark the river Between jagged hills. The wind shakes their leaves like a gourd rattle. In the quiet between gusts, The river rushes below, monsoon-strong. It is in these wild places, Where our thumbs Feel the curve of another’s hand, Places free from cement, neon, asphalt, smog, And deadened water, Across years, Across cultures and countries, Beyond all reason, We find each other. My first try at a new tangle called Kivka, from Jo Quincy, CZT (Zenjo). She just offered her second fundraising class for Ukraine. As a result, this time she'll be donating around $3000 to UNICEF for Ukranian aid and relief, based on participants' donations. In her first class she raised somewhere around $2500 I believe. What a lesson in how one person can make a difference. "Kivka" is named for Petrykivka, which is both a small village in Ukraine (southeast of Kiev) and also the home of a style of painting called Petrykivka, a folk art of great beauty. I plan to work more with this tangle and make further donations when I can for relief there. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always Light, if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it. --Amanda Gorman Here is another version of work I did in a class with Shie Naritomi, CZT. What a wonderful teacher. See my comments from yesterday on the background of this work.
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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 Unified Mindfulness Coach Level I, 2024
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