...and yup!  Here it comes.  I'm closing in on the end of this piece.  Today I spent time doing some re-punching (quite a bit, actually) and then trimming the edges, folding them over, and clipping them before doing the final hemming.  Then it's a quick steaming and being sure to sign & label the piece, and I'm done.

This is a punchneedle embroidery version of what will be--in an entirely different color scheme--a larger hand-hooked rug.  I wanted to punch a smaller version first to get to know the pattern.  I began hooking the rug in early May, but all hooking has had to wait for 3 months until I'm recovered from my medical adventure.  I am pleased with this mini-punch version, and as soon as I get it done, all shall be revealed.

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!

While I'd love to be moving full speed ahead into my former art activities, I can't.  I can only do what I can do (isn't this always true?), so today I surprised myself by getting back into the old punch needle embroidery piece I was forced to abandon a bit over three months ago.  And:  YAY, I am well enough to do this.  Finally.  So I've been working on the border.

What you see above is unfinished.  It'll need a lot of poking and trimming and filling in spaces before it's done, as well as a final hemming and steaming.  It will never be perfect, as nothing hand-made can be perfect.  But it will have "the perfection of imperfection," the irregularities all handwork has.  There are so many parallels to our human lives--I don't even have to say them here; you already know what I'm saying.

The steady rhythmic punching is the ultimate in meditative motion.  I find the work incredibly soothing and have missed it during my enforced rest.

It feels absolutely wonderful to be working on this again even though I'm nowhere near done.  Perhaps within the next two weeks I can begin more frequent drawing and even rug hooking.  A routine, non-serious medical issue forced me to give up all art projects.  What a relief to be able to pick them up again.

Forced rest.  What a concept!

This falls into the "you never know what you are going to get" category.

Except.

When your ScratchArt tiles are all ten years old or older, you can be pretty sure that over time the black coating will have adhered itself like super glue to the surface of the paper and scratching will be about 40 times harder than it should be.

Such was the case here.

Using an extremely dull piece of wood was also a factor.

As was lack of practice.

Result:  a vibrant candidate for the Museum of Bad Art.  (Which is one of my all-time favorite places to go when I need a mood booster. Do check out that link--it's a real place.)

And I am still laughing.

It's similar to meditation:  the process can dig up some very stuck stuff and the results aren't pretty at times (even when run thru an iPhone filter, which, alas, no meditation app can do). 

A sense of humor really helps.

Yup, I'm gonna keep on practicing.  Stick with me, ok?

PS, if you'd like to try your own hand at ScratchArt, click that link to get the cheap stuff at amazon.  Note that my set is so old it doesn't even look like this anymore but it's by the same people.  If you prefer to work with better quality materials, just google "scratch art paper" and you'll find some high-quality options that will make a huge difference in the quality of your finished product.  Tools really do make all the difference.  Search the web and you'll see some stunning art made this way, using better tools (and more consistent practice).

Ok, that title is WAY more dramatic than what is actually happening.  In fact, I'm doing well in real life but am just barely beginning to think about doing anything other than reading. My little "medical adventure" took 2.5 MONTHS away from normal life, and the single thing I could do was read.  50+ books in 8 weeks.  But as I heal, I hope to be back on track. 

I have been extremely eager to tangle or do some textile work over the past month, but have been unable to get comfortable enough.  Only in the last few days did I think I might be able to draw soon, and today I sat down and gave it a try.

This is what happens when you are unable to practice for a long time:

Wonky wonky wonky! 

After nearly 3 months, it's just wonderful to be tangling ANYTHING, even if I've lost a lot of aptitude.  As I said in the header to this post, you gotta start somewhere.

Very similar to meditation--after a time with little to no practice, you gotta start somewhere.  The big lesson of meditation is "Begin Again.  And keep going."  It's the same with Zentangle®.  Just start again, and keep going. 

Practice will never make perfect, so give up that idea.  But practice will prove itself to be worthwhile over and over.  Practice makes for noticeable improvement.

I'm on it!

Hmmm, it's been awhile.

Consider me on a temporary hiatus while I attend to a few life changes and a medical issue.  All is well, just distracting.  Hopefully I will begin again some time in June.

...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.

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.

Practice will never make perfect, but it can certainly make things better--both visually and also with my internal weather system.  If I don't practice, I can tell the difference the next time I try to draw.  This is one reason I take classes frequently.  And if I don't practice I start to feel a build-up emotionally too.  Drawing repetitive lines is incredibly soothing, calming and meditative.

Speaking of which, meditation  is the same for me.  If I don't practice, I begin to see the effects almost immediately in daily life. 

I'm just better when I practice, whether with drawing or with meditation.

Yes, I'm now officially addicted to this tangle with its deeply graphic qualities.  I added some blue and gold rings in chalk pencil when I was finished, the colors of Ukraine, since the tangle is derived from Ukranian folk art (see yesterday's post).

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.

As one person, I cannot bring peace to Ukraine.  I cannot restore what they have lost:  lives, livelihoods, homes, family, and peace of mind.  No one person can do this alone.

But I can join with others to protest, to support.  And I can take the time to sit quietly and calm myself, so that I make wiser decisions when I protest or when I support. 

Drawing and meditation both do that for me.  So does drawing AS meditation.  The more peace and compassion I can develop within myself, the more peace and compassion I can bring into the world.  Perhaps only in small ways, but if each of us were able to do this, it would be powerful.

So I have taken the time to draw this afternoon, breathing deeply and working line by line, one line at a time.  It is calming.  It gives me courage to watch the news tonight.  Again.  To witness the inhumanity.  Again.  It gives me courage to keep protesting, to keep supporting, to keep loving, despite it all. 

While working on a different project (punch needle embroidery) I had a minor textile collapse when the foundation fabric shredded all the way through.  Eeeeek!  Although I knew what I had to do--patch it--I have been putting it off for days.  I've never had to patch anything before and it was intimidating.

This morning, after a bit of tangling and a lot of meditation, I took on the task and as with many intimidating things, in actual practice it was easier than I thought.  And I learned a lot.

Things I Learned:
No need to draw on the patch first, or to pin it in place.  It can be done by "feel."  I did lengthen the loop length by 1 (went up from a 2 to a 3).  Go slowly, be prepared to back up a bit if needed.  Check how it looks on the other side frequently.  Afterwards, be ready to clean up well, and trim off the extra.  Here are the steps (sorry I didn't take a "before" picture).  Imagine a blank spot with no punching and holes in the fabric where the patch now sits:

Well of course as I was patching this up I was thinking of all the times I've screwed up in other life issues and had to try to make repairs.  Oftentimes it's been quite successful.  Occasionally, not. 

Don't we all have to patch things up in relationships from time to time?  Seems like the guidelines are the same:  You cannot plan everything perfectly in advance, although you have to think things through.  Then, you have to do it by "feel," going slowly and being prepared to back up occasionally.  Checking frequently with the other person to see how it's going, and if it's successful (not always or immediately guaranteed), cleaning up afterwards by following through.  Finally, it really helps to learn from our mistakes by analyzing what worked well and what we could have done differently.

If only we as humans could get better at patching things up.  Especially in this very messy scary world right now.  Someone once said, "Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."  And yet--even with no eraser--it is often possible to keep going and turn a mess into an eventual triumph.  Let us hope we can do that in the current situation.  May we all treat each other with respect, compassion, and generosity.

How gorgeous is this?  I'm so proud to say I know the woman who designed and made it.
pgarbarino.com/
Paula Garbarino, Fine Furniture Maker

Two views of the same luscious hearth-rug designed, dyed, and hand-punched by my buddy AE. 

You haven't lived until you've sunk your toes into a hand-punched rug.  So luxurious.

I would love to say "I taught her," but it just ain't true.  I spent about half a minute several years back showing her how to punch and ditto showing her how to dye wool (yarn).  She already had killer textile instincts in other media, and with basically no instruction developed her own style and vision.  Now I feel like I'd recognize her work anywhere, and she's far surpassed me in her dyeing skills.  Really beautiful work here.  She also weaves, sews, embroiders, beads, and draws.  Some folks just have the gift!

Since I am on another map tangling kick, I am thinking about borders and boundaries and what happens when they are disrespected.  My heart is with all the people of Ukraine, and extends to all the other wars going on all over the planet at this moment.

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Albert Einstein

A quick leftover tile from yesterday's session.

“Light is a thing that cannot be reproduced, but must be represented by something else – by color.”  --Cezanne

Watercolors:  Sooooo tricky to use.  But I love them.

How odd to be map tangling on a day when the world is experiencing one country violently overrunning another country's borders and attempting to re-write the global map by obliterating a democracy.  I had prepped the tiles for this several days ago but it wasn't until today that I realized the irony of drawing this piece at this time.

Same tile, same room, same time, different lighting.  Amazing difference.

I can never quite believe what a difference lighting makes in a photograph.

Did this today as part of a fundraiser to send aid to Ukraine.  There is so little we can do as individuals, but together we raised a considerable sum to help those under siege.  The phenomenal Jo Quincy from Wales in the UK organized this (Zenjo).  Thanks, Jo.

                                                                I had a problem.
                                                      With sewing machines. 

Other than my ancient old Singer treadle, which I somehow managed to "misplace" during one of my Year of Seven Relocations (don't ask: an unhappy time many decades ago) I have always found sewing machines super-challenging. 

Oh how I loved that treadle; it was just my speed, even when I was young.  It was reliable.  It never snarled up or gave trouble.  Photo of a similar machine at the end of this post.

After the Year of Seven Relocations, I bought a small, inexpensive Sears Kenmore that had some basic bells and whistles and looked portable.  I used it a few times, had the usual issues (snarled up threads causing endless cursing), buried it at the back of a closet and forgot it. 

Fast-forward forty-five+ years to 2017.  Having relocated yet again, I finally brought the Kenmore in for a complete tune-up--cleaning, oiling, and a bit of general loving.  It was sorely needed.  (Ya think?)  I had not used it once in over 40 years.

Since 2017 I've only pulled it out a couple of times but now it positively hums and performs flawlessly.  It's a joy to use.  I used it this afternoon to zig-zag around the edge of my latest rug, and enjoyed the entire experience.  It sews like a dream.  It's a trooper, after 5 decades.

What a far cry from 50 years ago.  I'm sure its tune-up helped, but I know that I'm actually the one who's had the major tune-up since then.  I realize now the trouble was never with the machine, which in fact is extremely well-made.  The "fault"--though I wouldn't use that term now--lay with my own inner unhappiness at the time.  The impatience.  The self-doubt.  The insecurity.  The determination to blame something or someone else, never taking responsibility myself. 

A little meditation (OK, a lot of meditation) and an education in the School of Life have tuned me up quite a bit!  It turns out I have always been the owner of a very well-made sewing machine, and only needed to grow up enough to use it.

Yesterday and today I have been experimenting with using a 9-pointed star as a string for tangling.  Below is my first attempt, done with Tomomi Galliano, CZT of the Pebbles and Drops website..  And underneath that is today's try.  I like this 9-pointed mandala a lot.  Nevertheless, first tries are just that:  first tries.  I can only get better with practice, eh? 

Once again I've been immersed in a large textile project so it was fun to break away today and work on this small drawing.

It's based on a free video by Romi Marks, CZT which you can view for yourself if you would like to try it.  Romi (a prolific artist) recently spent time in Hawaii and was inspired by the beauty there to create this.  And she was kind enough to share her inspiration with others for free.

Short, easy, and relaxing.  Give it a try!

If you're a runner, you'll certainly recognize what this refers to. 

(The dime is just there to indicate the size of the piece)

I punched this with Valdani thread as a prototype for a friend who wants to learn to punch.  This teeny piece is relevant to a project she is creating.  Before I teach her, though, I needed to figure out the right tools to loan her.  She will be punching many small pieces for her project and I wanted to make it as easy on her hands as possible.  After a few hours of testing various threads and needles, I think I've got it worked out.  A little textile mystery that was a very fun experiment.

I posted my first try at this tile two days ago here.  Today I was wanting to make a card to accompany a gift certificate for a friend and decided to use the same tile design.  I'm pleased with this and hope the recipient likes it.  I made some minor changes in the design.

See an earlier stage of this project below:

Just getting started on the coloring, after creating most but not all of the linework.

"Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America."
(Amy Chua)

That's one reason I don't mind doing the same thing several times over.  I know I learn best that way.