Perfectionism, sofas and Zentangle

July 11, 2011 in art, drawing, Perfectionism, Tranquility, Zentangle | 2 comments

‎”Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection demoralizes you.” Harriet Beryl Braiker

While paging through a new book of inspirational quotes, this one seemed to jump off the page for me today.  Ironically, Rick and Maria addressed this same subject in their blog recently.  Perfectionism was something I worked hard to attain in my younger days.  It sounded so important: “I am a perfectionist.”  As I get older, and hopefully wiser, this doesn’t seem so good after all.  That road is loaded with potholes, big and small.  I’m getting tired of dodging them.   Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

Most of us love those perfectionists we encounter professionally.  They are always on top of every little detail and seem to accomplish super-human levels of productivity.  My family can tell you, living with a perfectionist is not always wine and roses.  My husband will never let me forget the “sofa incident.”  We were moving into a new house and buying our first new sofa in over fifteen years.  We started looking when we broke ground for the house and were still looking when we moved in – with lawn chairs.  I finally settled on one that had to be ordered and there was much rejoicing when it arrived.  By everyone but me.  There were some “lines” in the upholstery that did not match up.  I would stare at the thing for hours and refused to sit on it.  After about a week, he loaded it up and returned it.  On the way home, he stopped at a furniture store and demanded I choose one.  I was not allowed to look at anything with a pattern.  We came home with a blue sofa that I never really liked very much.  Over the years, I have tried to break this cycle.  The problem lies with many years of perfecting the habit of perfectionism.  I have made progress and now I mostly procrastinate.  One more pothole on that road.

Last week, I got my shipment of the new black Zentangle tiles.  I DO love black and white, so these tiles just called to me.  What a quandary I was in, I had never worked on black and haven’t had much luck with the white pen when I tried it.  Maybe I should wait a bit, think it over.  After all, I would hate to mess up one of those lovely black tiles.  By the weekend, I was pretty fed up with myself and decided to just dive in and see what happened.  It wasn’t so bad, only one total reject in the batch.  Riding the ripple in my puddle of success, I pulled out my markers and colored pens.  Sue Jacobs shared her process for adding color and I had been thinking about using color for a few months.  The first one is a real dud, but the others are not so bad.  Just in case the universe is watching, the “learning tiles” are here too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aunt Sue and the Diva’s Challenge

July 8, 2011 in art, Diva Challenge, drawing, Tranquility, Zentangle | 4 comments

Everyone should have an Aunt Sue in their life.  I have so many wonderful memories of my Aunt Sue.   She has a big heart and generous spirit that welcomes everyone she meets.  My brother and I spent many childhood summers at her house, getting into mischief with our cousins.   These were lazy times for us.  I’ll forever associate her with endless hours of Yahtzee!, Canasta and a coffee pot that never seemed to empty.  Squabbles with my cousins over dishwashing duties and who was on which team for chores and for games.  While all of these things are treasured memories associated with my favorite aunt, those that seem to capture her best for me are the times I got to watch her do the “wedding ring” trick.  This was something of a rite of passage for the females in our family, though I have no idea how it works or why only Aunt Sue could do it.  Whenever one of the girls would get pregnant, Aunt Sue would get a visit.  She would take the girl’s wedding ring and run a thread through the ring.  Then, while the girl was lying down, she would hold the ring, suspended from the thread, over her usually very pregnant belly.  The motion of the ring – either back and forth or spinning – would determine the sex of the baby.  I was so fascinated by this whole ritual though I can’t remember which means boy or girl.  I would watch so carefully to see if she did anything to influence the outcome, but she never did anything to move the ring.  In fact, she made sure it was not moving in any way when she started.  I was so excited when my turn came and remember everything about it – except what she predicted and if she was right.  Oh well, it was magic to me just the same.

This weeks Diva Challenge, and the first I have finished on schedule, brought my Aunt Sue to mind.  Interestingly, this week’s challenge was issued by Sue Jacobs, CZT – coincidence?  I think not.  Sue’s challenge was to thread a string through a round object and allow it to drop onto the tile to form a random string.  Oh my!  Just like a wedding ring and a thread. I ended up doing three of these – one of which was created using my wedding ring in honor of my Aunt Sue.  It should come as no surprise that this one turned out to be my favorite of the trio.  I just might have to name it Sue – fitting, don’t you agree?

4th of July and Bending the Rules

July 4, 2011 in 4th of July, art, drawing, rules, Zentangle | Leave a comment

For the past few years, my husband and I have been fortunate to visit some incredible places across America.  Our vacations are usually a little off the beaten path and at odd times during the year.  We visited Williamsburg, VA on the same day as Queen Elizabeth, experienced a snow storm at the Grand Canyon in May and enjoyed a free concert by Kool and the Gang in Mobile – all unplanned and utterly unique.  More deliberate were visits to the homes of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Wisconsin in the fall, Jamestown, the town of Hershey (home of Hershey chocolate), the Jack Daniels distillery, the Smokey Mountains, Biltmore  and several homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, including Fallingwater (a long-held goal for this interior designer.) On this 235th anniversary of our country’s independence, I reflect on all the places we’ve visited, the diversity of people and place and the abiding presence of the American spirit. We are fortunate to live in this country founded to protect the liberty of each citizen.   I also remember the many places we visited where our forefathers fought and died protecting that liberty and the freedoms we enjoy.  Thank you to those who came before and those who serve today – we must never forget that freedom is not free.

These are the things that wandered through my mind as I began my Zentangle this morning.  While I wanted the final result to represent this 4th of July holiday, as is the case with Zentangle, the result is a bit of a surprise.  With Zentangle, it is important to know the “rules”  and my intent was to follow them.  But then I realized that America is a bit unique and we are often known to bend the rules a bit.  My blue and red pens called for use today.  Since I’m bending the rules, why not use a star for a string?  Now that I have red, blue and a star, I need some stripes.  You can’t have a 4th of July without the flag and fireworks.  In true Zentangle fashion, as I reflected on the final result and viewed it from every side – it was better at an angle different from the one I used while drawing.  Zentangles are much like America, ever-changing depending on your view, but always the same at their core.

Happy Birthday, America!

Math, Geometry, and Zentangle

July 1, 2011 in art, drawing, Tranquility, Zentangle | 5 comments

I don’t like math very much – it’s like bad tasting medicine.  I need it to get through life, but I don’t have to like it.  It wasn’t always that way.

I loved school from the very beginning.  In fact, I couldn’t wait to go to “real” school where I could get homework.  On the first day of first grade, my mom arrived at school just as I was coming out of the cafeteria from lunch.  “Mom, you need to come back later, I have a whole half a day left! Please don’t make me go home now.”  You see, I was supposed to walk home for lunch and never arrived.  She must have been so worried and then crushed that I would want to stay at school instead of coming home to eat with her. I was the oldest, so I am sure she was struggling with her baby growing up.

Reading and writing were my very favorites – and that has never changed.  Math wasn’t my best friend, but I liked learning it.  It was an easy companion and useful to know.  Then came Mrs Dunbar and multiplication.  Seriously, my brain just didn’t work that way.  Suddenly, math was the class I dreaded.  It took a year, but we made peace and I was once again ambivalent about math with the occasional times table nightmare.  The big fracture came a few years later – in the form of algebra.  I just thought multiplication was bad.  Suddenly I was looking at a+b=x.  WHAT!  Even worse, they added an element of multiplication, 3a+6b=x.  I hated algebra and dreaded the rest of high school if this was what I had to look forward to for the next four years.  And then came geometry.  I didn’t have much hope for my new math class called geometry – after all, algebra was supposed to be a new, fun way to do math.  Algebra had  betrayed me, but geometry quickly became a trusted friend.  I loved the theorems and formulas, the lines and shapes, the simple logic of it all.  I think it spoke to the artist in me that wouldn’t be uncovered for almost 20 years when I took my first art class in college.

Zentangle reminds me of my old friend  geometry.  I especially love tangles with straight lines, pure geometric shapes, and optical illusions made up of only simple shapes.  While I love the very organic tangles, and work hard to perfect them, it’s those grids and lines that allow me to lose myself while tangling.  Imagine my excitement when I found templates for geometric solids on the web.  How cool is that?  Perfect triangles begging to be tangled and then turned into a solid object.  Zentangle and geometry in one tidy little package, a perfect pair.  I love them both.  How about you?

And so I begin

June 29, 2011 in art, drawing, Tranquility, Uncategorized, Zentangle | 2 comments

Tranquility.  The World English Dictionary defines it as “a state of calm or quietude.”  Most of us search for those islands of tranquility in our busy lives.  For some it is achieved through meditation, music, physical activity, journaling or hobbies.   I was always a bit envious of those people.  My mind never stops so meditation and music don’t do it for me.  Those who know me can testify that I hate to sweat (in the South we call it glistening) so physical activity is a big NO.  My perfectionism and tendency toward boredom once I master something ruled out most of the other options.  At the ripe old age of 49, I figured this just wasn’t in the cards for me.  But life has a way of turning things upside down leaving you scrambling to assemble the pieces of your identity into a new reality.

In September of 2010, on a perfectly ordinary Monday afternoon, my family was turned upside down.  We came within a whisper of losing our oldest daughter and her two children in a horrific auto accident.  As mothers are wont to do, I was the one who kept it all together.  It is who I am – the one my family can always count on.  All three of them recovered through the grace of God, prayers from friends and strangers around the world, and amazing medical professionals.  However, our family was forever changed by the experience – mostly for the better.  While we were always a strong family, this gave each of us a much deeper appreciation for each other and an awareness how quickly things change.  In many ways, it was a loss of innocence for us as well.

So how does this relate to my quest for tranquility?  About two months after the accident, the emotions I had switched off to deal with the crisis decided it was time to make an appearance – all at once.  I struggled to find a way to deal with the maelstrom roiling in my brain.  Then, in mid-November, a friend posted a link on Facebook.  It was a video demonstrating Zentangle- how to draw the tangle “Betweed” by Zentangle founders Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. There was an effortless magic to the drawing.  I had to try it – something about it called to my soul.  As I explored the world of Zentangle and began to actively create my own works of art, I discovered something amazing.  When I was tangling, my mind would quiet and begin to calm.  Blessed Tranquility.

And so I begin…sharing my Tangled Tranquility with others and trying to pay it forward in my corner of the world.  Thank you for joining me.