On an inner level, it's been quite a week for me. Many interior struggles. I will spare you the content; let's just say I was "at sixes and sevens" all week. In the midst of all this, I thought I would do the String Thing Challenge #114, and I did. The result: Not good! Without in any way meaning to demean myself, let me say that I am laughing at how bad this tile is and part of me can't believe I'm posting it. But you know what? I don't care how bad it is, because I learned from it, and also it's a visual representation of my tumultuous inner state. Here it is. Feel free to speculate about this as an expression of my inner state, and feel free to giggle. This is truly a Tile Gone Rogue. When I look at it, and think about what I was feeling as I tangled, I get a real chuckle at how it turned out. So what can I learn from this? Well, for one thing, I was trying out some new metallic pencils, and also trying out a new type of shading stump--not the traditional tortillion but something I saw in my travels and picked up to try. Here's a picture of the pencils and the strange new little shading stump: The pencils are from a kids' toy store. The odd tortillions...sorry, can't remember where I got them! Both were very cheap. The jury is out on the pencils so far. They are soft and creamy and go on easily, but are too large in my hands and don't seem to sharpen well or apply well. But perhaps I just need more practice? I used the gold metallic pencil and the rose/purple metallic pencil in this tile. And the shading stump? That's a puzzle as well. I will have to try this in other contexts. You can see where it nearly ripped up the paper around the "rays" on the tile, and I ended up with a kind of dirty ineffective smudge there rather than shading. But was that the stump, or my technique? Or maybe the stump isn't compatible with these pencils? I won't know until I try again with it. And I will try again. Ok, the question was, what did I learn from this? I learned that:
This entire process reminded me of meditation. I frequently feel, in meditation, that I "should" be experiencing something I'm not, or that "I'm doing it wrong," or that if my brain would just shut up for once, I'd be in bliss. The truth is, meditation, like life, can be very messy. In meditation, I need to be listening to my Self. In meditation, I do not need to feel there is "one right way" to proceed (or that I don't know the "one right way"). In meditation, if I am having a ping-pong experience obsessing about something stressful, I can get rigid about what I'm doing if I'm not aware of what is happening. In meditation, I don't have to change everything...in fact, I don't have to change ANYTHING. Just observe what's going on. In meditation, after I contemplate whatever is going on, I'm usually a lot more ready to find the humor i it. And in meditation, I have daily failures and daily successes; but no matter what happens, I am committed to it, and I continue to practice. That is what it's all about: PRACTICE. (This was also my word for 2015) Practice in art, practice in meditation, and practice in life. I'll end with a tangle I did in my Tangle-a-day calendar when I was preparing to do the String Challenge. I didn't have much experience with the Ta-Da tangle, so I tried it out here: I did this in one of my few relaxed moments this week, prior to attempting the String Challenge. I used a Rainbow Lead Pencil. I think you can see the difference between this and the artificial, contrived-looking, and unsuccessful String Challenge Tile. I was relaxed and centered here; I used familiar tools, and I was willing to just practice for fun, no matter how well or poorly it turned out. I was just experimenting.
Coincidentally, Ta-Da was also the featured monotangle in the #83 Joey Challenge this week, so I just sent this experimental version in as my entry for that. Big lessons for me here. "Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen." --Carl Sandburg You know, sometimes you have one thing in mind when you start drawing and you end up with another. In my experience it's the same in meditation...I sit down with one intention and end up going somewhere else entirely. It's all good, even the really hard bits. Today was one of those days. I sat down to do Diva Challenge #238, planning on doing Tri-Bee, a new tangle by CZT Beata Winkler. So far so good. I see a strong connection between Trie-Bee and Zenith, the tangle introduced recently by Zentangle® Headquarters (don't ask me why I see a strong connection, I just do). So the plan was to put Zenith around the edges and put Tri-Bee in the middle. Instead, this is what happened. Or to put it another way, what the heck did happen??? Ok so you can kinda recognize Zenith around the edges, but Tri-Bee just flashed up from the bottom of the tile without ever showing its "TRI" part (it starts with a TRIangular center, if you look at the stepouts on the Diva's page, but somehow that center didn't want to show itself here).
I used a 4B pencil for the shading, which is a bit darker on the actual tile than it looks here. It was kind of one surprise after the other when I was doing the tile. I had drafted a tentative plan for it yesterday in my tangle-a-day calendar. I knew it wouldn't look exactly like that, but I didn't expect this. (go here to see--scroll down to the bottom of that post). I like it, though! That's the thing. Now that it's done, I get to go to the Diva Challenge webpage and see what others did with this (I don't let myself look before I do my own tile; otherwise I'd be endlessly copying, or intimidated out of ever trying). The same thing happened in meditation this morning. I started going one place and ended up going somewhere else totally. Generally, I don't think of myself as someone who likes surprises. But maybe, just maybe, Zentangle and meditation are teaching me to learn to roll with them...and even enjoy them. Although it's a week past the Equinox, the weather here has been dramatically tropical with high humidity. Today we've had constant heavy rains; the temperature is now slowly dropping, and overnight I think the wind will come in and sweep out the humid air. By the time the storm is past, I think we will finally be in fall weather. A murky, watery light today signals autumn to me (autumn on its dark days), and I've been in an autumn mood all day. Since we do not have fall colors on the trees yet, I thought I would do a fall mandala. Here was my original black and white drawing. I constructed this using my trusty Safe-T Compass. It's inexpensive, very light weight, and while hardly engineering-standard accurate, it's "good enough" for basic mandala work. It's a cheap instrument and you get what you pay for--the reviews on it are all over the map. Once I learned what it could and could not do well, I've been very happy with it. Tangles used: the center is "ad-libbed," then I used Fandance, then, moving out from the center, Beadlines. The next layer started off as Flux but got morphed somehow; the outer layer is Finery. Next I added some autumnal colors. Honestly...I feel sort of "eh" about this mandala, although I did learn a lot from it. For example, I realized almost immediately that I had made the center too small and fussy; it was hard to color in an effective way. That was a useful lesson. The colors--which aren't true in this photo but are not too far off--are not what I normally would choose. But after all, I did say in an autumnal mood. In fact I noticed some sadness while I was working on this, along with the usual intense concentration. I don't have anything to be sad about--but doesn't this type of moving meditation sometimes bring things up for all of us? And when things come up, do we have to have a reason for them? So I just noticed the sadness and kept working, and it was fine. Peace and tranquility were restored by the time I was done. Working on this brought up questions for me. I'd be interested to hear from other tanglers and especially from CZTs with responses.
The Morns Are Meeker Than They Were -
A Poem by Emily Dickinson The morns are meeker than they were-- The nuts are getting brown-- The berry's cheek is plumper-- The Rose is out of town. The Maple wears a gayer scarf-- The field a scarlet gown-- Lest I should be old fashioned I'll put a trinket on. My back continues to recover slowly and today I walked 6000 steps. Hurrah! Not all were comfortable steps, but I did it, and am very encouraged. Part of the walk was to see a much-loved old friend for lunch, and on the way home, I passed the labyrinth at the Harvard Divinity School and decided I could manage to walk it today. And I did. Here is a photo of the labyrinth: It was deserted on this cool, sunny day. Just the way I like it. I haven't walked it in quite a while, and today I was reminded how narrow the pathway is in this particular labyrinth. It's almost not wide enough for two feet, and negotiating the turns while maintaining balance can be a challenge. Also, it seemed that I just got going in one direction when another turn would come up. As I was walking it/working it, I was thinking about the twists and turns in life, how hard some of them can be, and what a perfect symbol of this is captured in this labyrinth. I had to greatly slow down in order to make any of the turns, another striking metaphor. Even when two labyrinths are laid out in the same pattern, the spacing of each is different and so walking each one is different. Similar to the way our lives work. "A labyrinth has one entrance -- one way in and one way out. When we walk the path, we go around short curves and long curves; sometimes we are out on the edge, sometimes we circle around the center. We are never really lost, but we can never quite see where we are going." --Alex Pattakos in this Huffington Post piece. Finally, here's a scribbled Tangled Labyrinth I did at one of Sadelle Wiltshire's wonderful Tangled Labyrinth workshops. Clearly this was in the nature of a quick scribble rather than a thoughtful tangle, and yet...I like it because it reminds me so much of the human brain. Check out Sadelle's fabulous tangled labyrinth works here. She is a CZT and a Veriditas-trained Labyrinth Facilitator, and a gifted artist and teacher. You'll enjoy studying her examples. Her teaching schedule is here at The Tangled Labyrinth. And don't miss reading the interesting comment she made (in the comments section)--feel free to add your own reaction to this post if you have one, or have experience with labyrinths. Labyrinths...Zentangle®...both a form of moving meditation. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Today is one of those days when everything feels surprising. The gorgeous weather. What occurred in my meditation this morning. The fact that I'm still having some serious back issues, which haven't taken this long to resolve before. Hearing that Yogi Berra just died (I was a big fan of his Yogi-isms, such as, "You can observe a lot just by watching," and "I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four"). Loved that guy, and I am happy that he had such a long life and appeared to enjoy it. The next surprise came when I did the It's a String Thing #111 challenge today. Tangles are Hamail and Flux. I got almost nothing else done but at least I did this. And wow--it went nowhere I thought it was going to go and turned out totally differently than I expected. I thought it would be black and white...no. I had planned to use a different tangle than Flux...no. Nothing turned out as I thought! But the real surprise comes AFTER this picture: As usual, I was playing with my iPhone Mirror app after taking the photo, and tried out some new capabilities, and the app came up with this, which I really like a lot (I'm still not sure how I like the original): Surprised that the app even changed the colors...and I like them better. Such an interesting app, with many more features that I look forward to explore. More surprises in store.
The Diva Challenge this week (Diva Challenge # 236) is to "Tangle Unexpected"--in other words, to tangle on something you wouldn't ordinarily tangle on. My life is "unexpected" at the moment for sure. If you choose to read more about that, see the text at the end of the post; otherwise, I hope you just enjoy the pictures. Here is the original untangled photo that I chose for this challenge. I took this picture of the kitchen door at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, a place I love to go for long meditation retreats. I don't think I even noticed the door until the second time I went there (not very mindful of me!) and when I saw it I was transfixed by how lovely it is. As you can see, the lotuses are transparent and the rest of the background is frosted glass. At the moment I took the picture, something turquoise-y was behind the lower lotus, while the one on the upper right showed kitchen equipment the reads gray-brown. I love this image and it almost seemed sacrilegious to tangle it, so that was the challenge. Here is what I ended up doing. Tangles are Printemps and Scrawlz, along with some random work. Using Sigma Uniball White Pen, and a tiny bit of Derwent Colored Pencil.
Not sure what I think about this. Part of the challenge was to keep it simple. THE "UNEXPECTED" CHALLENGE FOR THE REST OF ME: I wanted to work on this image because, as I said in my last post, I need some zen! And looking at this picture reminds me of the work I do every day in meditation, and every time I go to IMS. Just stay in the now. Without going into detail, this is the worst episode of back pain I've had in 30 years. I am confident that I can work it out and get back to my usual sturdy self, but the last two weeks have been totally unexpected and a big challenge to my remaining mindful. I want to do anything BUT stay in the moment when I'm in pain! Which of course makes it even worse. Thankfully I found a new chiropractor (and I think she's very good) and I'm slowly recovering. I was without a chiropractor when this started and that's what allowed things to get so out of control. Glad to be on the upswing again! It's been a real test of my willingness to be mindful. Not to mention civil. Auntie Acid says: "It's bad news when you get to the age when your back goes out more than you do." Stay healthy, everyone! Hello, all...we are the fourteen year old Wooly Bullies. Yes, the WOOLY Bullies...do not trust any of us around your 100% wool jackets, skirts, coats, or blankets. If, that is, you even own 100% wool anything anymore. But I'll get to that later. Today we met at Elizabeth's lovely, gracious, and comfortable home--her own hand-hooked rugs all over the house, all of them unique and beautiful--and we celebrated the start of our 14th year together as a creative and supportive group. Actually, the topic of our anniversary never came up today! Instead, we spent the time talking about everything else: our summer journeys, our relationships, meditation and Buddhism, technology, what to do if a bat gets in your house, health (all good for once!), and other general updates since most of us haven't seen each other since our last meeting in May or June. [We take summers off because seriously, would you want to work on a hooked rug if it meant having wool next to your skin in 90 degree humid weather?] Some glimpses of today's projects are below. They all have captions--to see the captions, just hover over a photo with your mouse. You should also be able to biggify a photo by double-clicking it to see it better. Kathleen, I realized when putting up the photos that I did not see you hooking anything! I know you had to leave early so maybe you just came for our fabulous company?
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 UNTIL NOW... Elizabeth, myself, Cynthia, Cheryl, Kathleen and Maria all made it today. Of today's attendees, Elizabeth, myself, and Maria were at the original meeting of our group at my house on September 20, 2001. Lenore was also there at the start. Nine days after the tragedy, we were all still dazed and shocked. I remember thinking that hooking together that evening, telling our creative, art-related histories to each other, and sharing our work, was such a comfort and temporary rest from the news coverage in which we had all been immersed non-stop. We acknowledged the attack and the horror, but we then made an effort to create a little space for respite and for beauty for the next two hours, and we all went home feeling a tiny bit better that night. In the years that followed, we outgrew my house pretty quickly and have met in a variety of venues--from community rooms in a now-defunct organic market, to the Somerville Arts at the Armory space, to each others' larger homes--we always meet in each others' homes now. The conversation continues to be a comfort to me, and more than that, we share a group that gets our creative juices flowing. I love it when one of us throws a partially-completed rug down on the floor for advice and each woman there just lets her true opinions fly: "Too dark, not enough contrast..." or, "I want to learn how you dyed that orange," or, "Take out the front part of that and re-do it--it's standing out too much," or whatever else we think. The recipient of the advice never has to take any of it, but we all know each other well enough to say exactly what we think, and no one takes offense. It's great. I've been helped numerous times by these critiques. I've also noticed the continuing decline in the availability of 100% wool, which started farther back than fourteen years ago, but I wonder how many of us would have begun hooking now, if wool had been as hard to get back then as it is to find now. It has gone from a frugal and affordable art to a fairly expensive art. Sad. But remember, everyone: There is always ANN'S ATTIC! Since we are The Wooly Bullies, we can go down to CT and bully our way into that attic whenever we need a huge stash of wool. Having seen it, we all know Ann could supply all of us for our next 6 lifetimes. To Ann: Be afraid, be very afraid. SUMMER TRAVELS: Discussions today: oh my! Maria went to Tehran (yes, Iran) in August. What a tale! She had to wear a hijab while out of doors there. She was in Iran for two weeks and glad to come home, although she clearly had a fascinating time. She went to visit her daughter-in-law's family and really enjoyed them. A genuine travel adventure. Wow. Cynthia was gone ten weeks, to a large number of countries & cities--Turkey for quite a while, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Paris, London, Budapest and I think a couple of others. Wow again... Some of the rest of us went to Maine, the Cape, or to a silent retreat in central Massachusetts (that last would be me). HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO MY WONDERFUL RUG HOOKING FRIENDS. I am honored to have been working with you for the last 14 years. How does it feel to be 14 years old again? NEXT MEETING: Will be at Cheryl's in October; she'll email us with dates & info. Elizabeth, thank you for hosting and thank you for that fabulous fabulous soup. I know I wanted to lick my bowl, but managed to restrain myself. Barely. Recently I've found myself struggling to get to sleep at night. A lot of people have this experience, and I've occasionally had it in the past. But now it's stretching into weeks. Not every night, but most nights. So unusual. I've checked my food/caffeine intake, and my screen time, as well as my stress level, but there's nothing I can tag as a cause. All is well...yet I often cannot get to sleep. When this happens, I get up and leave the bedroom entirely and read or tangle. Or meditate, which I also enjoy doing late at night. Here's a blog post on the connection between meditation and insomnia--bottom line: it may help, it may not. But (for me, anyway), it feels good while I'm doing it, so I usually will give it a try if reading or tangling aren't helping me get sleepy. WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON DURING MY INSOMNIAC SPURT: Alas, I can't post the main thing I have been working on in the last week because it's a gift for someone and until it's given, I will have to hold off. Check back in the next week or two for the full picture. It's a piece of Zentangle® inspired art, and I can only post enough of it that it won't be recognizable, so here is that bit. That has taken much of my time (it's much larger than what you see above), but then the Zendala Dare #108 came along and I decided to participate in that. It's been a while since I have done one of these challenges. The Rainbow Lead pencils I ordered from Oriental Trading Company arrived at the end of last week; it was time to try one out and see if I liked it as well as my other Rainbow Lead pencils. If you want to know what I'm talking about, see my long post on using these pencils here, including information on where to find them and how to identify that you are really getting a Rainbow Lead, not an ordinary lead. (Actually, every post since then has related to that topic, at least in part) Here was the template for this week's challenge: So far so good--I decided to do two tiles, one white and one black, and use the new pencil on each, and see how it worked. Here was what I did with the black tile at 3 a.m. today: I was pretty happy with this except that it looked...well...DULLER than I thought my other older pencil does. But maybe not? I mean, who knows, at 3 a.m. in the pitch dark? I took a photo (several, actually, but more about that later) and did some additional meditation, and finally went to bed. I say "additional meditation" because I find that Zentangle is a form of moving meditation. Like yoga. This morning I got up and had another look. Yes, it seemed duller. So let me try it on a white tile and see if maybe I'm imagining that. I had a chance to sit down and re-do this zendala template with different patterns this afternoon and here it is: You know, I like this too. But the colors of this Rainbow Lead pencil are dull, dull, dull! At least so far. They just do not have the p-zazz of my earlier, older RL pencils. (I am sorry I cannot distinguish them by name--unfortunately none of the styles have any identifiable names. Darn! Makes them hard to discuss. I used a variety of tangles on this: Marasu (center), Scarabou, Enyshou (oo oo oo, do we have a sound pattern developing?), Paradox variation, Indy-Rella, and Perfs. So here is a picture of both types of RL pencils I'm comparing The pencil on the top left is by far my favorite. You can get it at ????? (Good luck finding these--I know Oriental Trading had them years ago but they don't anymore. See my previous post, referenced at the top of this post, to see more about finding these.) Frankly, every time I see them I buy up every one I can get. On the lower right is the pencil I just got from Oriental Trading. In fact, Rainbow Lead pencils are cheap, so I got 2 dozen of them. Now look at the leads...you can see the way the colors are distributed. Also, see how much brighter the lead on the upper left pencil is? So it truly is not my imagination; these new and readily available RL pencils are definitely more dull. Darn! My overall assessment of them so far: MEH. Good if you like subtle dull colors. I have a lifetime supply--anyone want to buy a couple? (Kidding--I may use these in classes) Here is what these new and currently available pencils look like, in case you want to get a pack from Oriental Trading: AND NOW FOR THE OBLIGATORY PICTURES WITH MY IPHONE MIRROR APP: Ok, if you got this far, you didn't think I could resist playing with my iPhone mirror app and these zendalas, did you? Of course not. Here are two pictures of the black one, mirrored a couple of ways: Yes, I cannot resist; I admit I am addicted! The last one is from the white tile. Perhaps it's not so bad to have occasional insomnia. I had four lovely meditations today: two regular ones, and two moving meditations with Zentangle.
Wow, hard to believe August is coming to a close. Summer is rushing by. This week's Diva Challenge is all about meditation. It's from Holly Atwater, a CZT who has been experimenting with recording Zentangle® meditations like the one Molly created so successfully. I enjoy doing these and I thought I would give it a try, so here are the three pieces I created as a result. They were supposed to be done with regular black and white techniques, but I couldn't help using a multicolored pencil for shading. The only multicolored pencil I can now get makes shading MUCH more difficult to do; the lead is not at all soft the way good monochromatic colored pencils are. It's very hard and can't be smudged with a tortillion at all, so once you put it down on the page, it's immovable. I did the best I could--I just had to have some color... About meditation three: If you also participated in this challenge and you wonder why this looks different from yours, it's because I added Paradox in both corners. I just could not resist breaking rules for this Diva Challenge. Sorry!
There is a second challenge which I haven't yet had time to do; will post that later or tomorrow, if I can get to it. Meanwhile, look what just arrived in the mail from Shutterfly--my heart mirror-tile cards from the mirror-tile I made the other day (see my original in the August 19th post). I love them! Cannot wait to inflict one on somebody. Still working on this zendala. Here on the right is what I did today. I xeroxed the original tile and shaded the xerox. I made two copies of the original, so next I'll try coloring it rather than shading. The unshaded original is on the left (for the story of this, see yesterday's blog entry). I am still mulling this over. Do I like it the same, better, or less? Not sure. Feel free to register your opinion if you wish. On another front, I'm knitting this scarf: ...and really enjoying it. It's a metallic rayon yarn in a color called Flax, from Blue Heron Yarns. Unfortunately the color is so light that you cannot see the metallic glints, which are very obvious in person.
On the lower left of the photo you can just make out a portion of a hooked pillow that I have on my couch. And the striped brown-and-cream textile in the upper part of the photo is part of my knitting bag. I was completely focused on shading the zendala this afternoon, and quite "in the zone." I love art for its meditative qualities as well as the results. I've been away for five days at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS), taking a workshop from Jason Siff, based on his two books and his decades of work with Recollective Awareness Meditation. It was wonderful, startling, even revolutionary. Not to mention that I lucked out because I was there during the four full days in July when the temperature was cool, even chilly at times. BCBS has no air conditioning; the day I arrived and the day I left were stultifying, but the days of the retreat were gorgeous, comfortable, and lovely. And oh, my, the flowers everywhere! And the sound of the wind in the trees. Incredibly peaceful. I feel like the luckiest person on earth to be able to do these things. On the way home Sunday (well, not really, it was 2 hours out of my way in southern CT) I took a workshop on Meditation and Mandalas with Ann Grasso, using her 4-n-1 stencil for creating mandala strings. It was fabulous. And I got to see so many other CZTs, people I hadn't seen in months! Fun. I left feeling confident on how to use the tool, which is incredibly versatile. But I needed to get home after 5 days away, and didn't have time to actually tangle at the workshop. Finally, at midnight last night, I set to work. And worked on it more today. Here is the current mandala-in-progress, which still needs either shading or coloring. I'm letting it sit while I decide what to do with it next. Ann was a phenomenally organized and helpful teacher, assisted ably by Cari Camarra (who had done many of the amazing samples). Have a look at their work if you want to see inspiring tangles! I'm looking forward to thinking about what to do next to finish this piece, and then I have the other 3 pieces that I started at the workshop. Oh boy oh boy! I needed all that zen, because on the way home from Cromwell, south of Hartford, I ran into the all-time worst traffic jam I've ever been in. A trip that would normally have taken about 2 hours took nearly twice as long. Surprisingly, I was ok with it, though I wished it wasn't happening as I'd gotten up at 5 a.m., left Barre for Cromwell (2 hour drive) in the late morning, and had to drive home in the horrific traffic jam between 4 and 7.15 p.m. A very, v-e-r-y long day. But it was so worth it. Big thanks to Ann and Cari, and shout-outs to Meredith, Terry, Jackie, Meredith's friend who was kind enough to introduce herself (I promptly forgot her name), Cheryl, and many others I am delighted to know. I lucked out by being able to sit with Cheryl during the whole mandala workshop. Looking forward to seeing what you all do. Finished: the interior of the rug! I'm pretty chuffed...I began working on this somewhere around March 20th, so it took just a little over 3 months to get this part done, working on it an average of about 4 hours a day, usually 4-5 days a week. Doing the math: 3 months = about 12 weeks. Twelve 5-day weeks = approximately 60 days, 4 hours a day = 240 hours plus a bit more. So far. There are still two borders to complete; one of them has been started as you see above, and the other is very small. I'm not at all certain I will use that smaller border. And people wonder why hand-hooked rugs cost what they do...add in the cost of the wool and the planning--you couldn't charge what it's worth to make this. But that's really beside the point, as my motivation is the sheer enjoyment of the process. The lovely repetitive meditative motion that frees the mind. The tactile sense of it. The colors passing through my fingers. The visual effect as areas slowly begin to fill in. And I'm always surprised by the outcome. In many ways, rug hooking is a lot like the Zentangle® process: With Zentangle, the emphasis is on each individual line, not on the outcome. And thus, the outcome is always a surprise, a very pleasant one. In rug hooking, it's common to have a lot of planning go into the rug, and a particular outcome is planned for. A pattern of some kind, whether original or someone else's, is used, and colors are usually carefully plotted in advance. Zentangle uses patterns. But classic "tangling" is done in black and white, and the emphasis is never on the outcome, but rather "in-the-moment" with the focus on the line your hand is drawing right NOW. Yet they have similar effects. Both are absorbing and relaxing. And at least for me, even rug hooking, while much more planned, always has a surprising outcome. Sure, it does look like the design I created or selected, but the interaction of the colors of the wool is always a revelation, and the way the loops lie on the backing create an overall effect I can never fully predict. And with Zentangle, I never plan, I focus on one line at a time, and I am often amazed at the way things turn out. For me, it is the same with meditation. I sit down to follow the breath (or some other object of attention) and find the process of wandering off, coming back to the breath, wandering off, coming back to the breath, wandering off, coming back to the breath is very surprising no matter how much time I spend on it. The word I selected for 2015 was "Practice." I keep coming back to it. Everything improves with practice. In the case of rug hooking, even the largest rugs get finished with enough practice. As the I Ching reminds us, "Perseverance furthers." I plan to be as mindful as possible with every loop that I pull between now and when I finish this rug. When I finished the interior motifs and background yesterday, and stood back and looked at it, I was surprised at how quickly it has come together. I look forward to working on the outer borders, and I'm beginning to percolate about how I am going to approach the next rug. Here is the design for that one: And here is a shot of it with a bag of as-yet-undyed yarn that I will be dyeing and using in this rug. It will be my largest rug yet. I am leaving it on the studio floor for a few days to allow my subconscious to take it in and begin working with the image. Every day I go to the studio, I am grateful for the freedom to do this work.
Want to see the full flowering of perseverance? Check out this woman's work (you don't need English translation to appreciate this). This week I lost two people from my life. One at the start of the week, a very kind man in his early 60s who had been waiting for a heart transplant and was simply too ill to go on. He had been dying for weeks. It was agonizing. When death came, it was peaceful and he was in the presence of loving family. Given his medical situation, I am happy for him. But I will miss him. I spent considerable time in meditation practice allowing memories of him to arise, allowing feelings to arise, and sitting with my feelings. Then, this morning, I got news that a Facebook friend whom I had never actually met but whom I'd grown to love, died in her sleep yesterday morning. She was only in her 40s. She was diabetic, and mentioned that occasionally in her postings, but I never realized how brittle her condition really was. She worked and was in a long-term relationship with a guy she absolutely adored; she loved her furry companions; she designed and wore a bright red t-shirt that read "Ask me for a tarot reading!" - and people did ask her. And she read for everyone who asked. She was a believer in living out loud, sharing her thoughts with anyone who read her blog. She was truly fearless in the way she lived her life. And although I never met her, I broke down and cried this morning. What a sweetie, and what a hilarious woman. I will miss her so much... So, it was back into practice--the hard practice of life after loss. I had already done my formal meditation when this news came, so instead I went to the studio and worked on my rug, while once again allowing memories and feelings to arise. I just tried to be present, to honor the memory of two great people who left the world this week. Am still sitting with all this, and holding them in my heart. Tonight I engaged in a different kind of practice, on a much lighter note. I worked on the same tangles tonight that I had done for the first time earlier this week. Here was my first attempt (posted here on a previous date, and pictured first below): Just above are the same tangles repeated tonight for practice. And yes, you are correct--I didn't repeat them "in order." They still aren't great beauties, but they are coming along slowly but surely. They were very soothing to do after a hard day.
Meditation is all about practice. Drawing, and Zentangle®, are all about practice. For that matter, life is all about practice, isn't it? An Irish headstone tells us: "Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal." I send my love and dedication to Ted and Nadine. I will miss you both very much. I will practice remembering your kindness, humor, and courage. I will practice being glad I knew you. Last night's class at the Arlington ArtLounge included a cohort from Boston College and their professor--twelve people. Another nine people not affiliated with that group also attended, so it was a very large class. None of them had ever done Zentangle® before. All 21 participants were very attentive. Here was the class mosaic. [Oh, and does this group look like a bunch of beginners to you? I wouldn't think so.] The 11 Boston College students were all from a program called Capstone, a comprehensive series of courses for juniors and seniors designed to help them prepare for post-college life. This particular group was taking a Capstone course called "Mindful Storytelling." I hope you'll take a moment to read the class description HERE. It's so inspiring! Below is a photograph of the Mindful Storytelling students with their professor (Paula Mathieu, 3rd from the left), all holding up their tangles. Next to Paula, one student is holding a tangled picture frame I made several years ago. Wouldn't you love to have had a chance to take something like this during your senior year in college? I know I would have. Kudos to to Professor Paula for creating this particular course and for thinking to make my class a part of it. I enjoyed meeting all of them, as well as the other nine students who came, and I really hope they all had a great time learning the mindful process of Zentangle.
Just before the class, one of the co-owners of the ArtLounge showed me a photo of a very large tangle done by a student from my original class there. I was astonished. He has been tangling like a (very talented) fiend since taking his first class. If I can get permission from him to share it here, I will; his work is phenomenally well-done. It's so exciting to see students take off on their own with this art. A scrap of aural heaven to calm the day. (Treat yourself.) With gratitude to teachers Christina Feldman, Maddy Klyne, and Narayan Liebenson. If you are a practitioner of mindfulness meditation, check out this helpful post which contains three wonderful infographics. It takes only a moment and is well worth it.
What is it about hand-hooked rugs that feels so warm and luxurious to me, and always has? Since childhood I've felt this way about hand-made rugs of any kind: woven, hooked, punched, tufted, even knitted or crocheted. They've always been attractive to me. I've tried all of the above techniques, but hooked & punched rugs are my favorite. So comforting when you sink your toes into them. Even when you aren't standing on one, they are just so lovely to look at. Another plus is that the rhythm of rug hooking is completely mesmerizing and meditative. Whenever I'm working on a rug, I'm in the Zone. There's only one motion or technique to hooking (and punched rugs as well), only one thing to learn. Then it's just repeat, repeat, repeat. Which is very similar to tangling...just one line at a time...repeat, repeat, repeat. Add in a bit of focus, and you have a highly meditative art form underway. From the Our Tangled Lives Journal Project: This week's prompt was about tangling and journaling on the subject of whatever form of art we truly love to do, not necessarily tangling...so I produced this page: Yes, I know...the Shel Silverstein ditty is a bit over the top, but as a relatively conflict-avoidant person (who am I kidding? HIGHLY conflict-avoidant), I'm more on the Silverstein side of the spectrum than the let's-fight-this-out side. And anyway, do you know how hard it is to come up with quotes about hooked rugs???
For the journal page, I started off transferring a photo of a rug I finished a couple of years ago. (Have I mentioned I love making rugs? Oh, I have? LOL) The pattern was actually adapted from a display of German Silver Urns in a museum, and the urn that it was adapted from was dated 1910. Hence the title on the right side of the rug, "1910 Silver Rug." Susan Feller of Ruckman Mill Farm, a wonderful artist, rug designer, fraktur specialist, and blogger, had the sense to copy it down while viewing the display of silver on her visit to a museum, and she eventually designed the rug from her sketch. When I bought the pattern, no one had hooked it yet. I made the transfer of my photo using Sheer Heaven, a transfer medium that I know a lot of tanglers are familiar with (and oh yes indeedy, it is expensive!). I also transferred the poem by Silverstein the same way. This is my first experience using Sheer Heaven, and it was ridiculously easy. I'm looking forward to investigating its uses more. After transferring the images, I used some of the rug pattern to make a colored tangle on the journal page, and then I finished off with the tangle to its left, which I spotted on the net last night but I haven't been able to trace down a title or creator. My printer, though, is running out of colored ink, so to be fair, I don't think what I printed onto the transfer sheet was particularly well-colored. Is this rug pattern not a perfect example of the types of patterns we use in our tangles? By a 1910 German metal artist who never heard of the term, which just speaks to the fact that tangles themselves have all been used for centuries--it's the process of Zentangle® that we teach; the patterns can be found everywhere. ...at the Insight Meditation Society, at a seven-day retreat. The statue above is in the foyer, and greets you as you enter. Here were the teachers for this retreat: You are seeing Guiding Teacher Christina Feldman (second from right), Guiding Teacher John Peacock (second from left), and Guiding Teacher Chris Cullen (far right), along with assistance from Yuka Nakamura from Switzerland.
Although I've been to several retreats at IMS, this was by far the one with the most profound effect for me. Each teacher was so gifted and brought something unique to the days as they passed by. A truly gifted crew. While I was there, between two and three FEET of snow fell just a few miles away (Barre, where we were, had only about 12-18" which is not an unusual amount for them). IMS handled it all perfectly and we were warm and safe and able to focus on being mindful. I'm left with deep gratitude for this experience. |
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. Categories
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March 2024
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