Tangle U 2014

Tangle U 2014 is scheduled for April 35 - 27 in Portland Maine. More information is on the website www.elainehuffman.com
  

Jenny is Here and Cool stuff to buy!

I got Jenny from the train station and we headed straight for the Dr. Suess sculpture park in Springfield! My daughter was there to both pose for pictures and take pictures of grown women acting silly! That's Jenny with her "flat grandchildren" - they like to pose for pictures too!




There was the cool structure installation - it was a maze inside!

We just had to check it out and peek out the window...with the grandchildren!




Those are some suspicious looking characters...one resembles my daughter!

Making friends!

Look out for Horton!

Hanging out with the Dr.

Then onto Northampton - I had to show you some of the goodies at Guild Art Store!

 envelopes and paper in a rainbow of colors!

Let the fun begin!

Zentangle and Spirit

Zentangle and Spirit, Ann Coakley and Sadelle Wiltshire 

Sadelle and I are looking forward to talking with other CZts next Saturday evening at TangleU about their spiritual approaches and practices with Zentangle: personally, as teachers, and within spiritual community.  It is one thing teach this wonderful drawing method that can enrich our student lives, but what about the Zen thing?  Or even mediation, or more challenging the spiritual/religion part? We are not ministers, nor are we theologians.  We do have spirits that need tending to, as is the human condition. We have embraced Zentangle for a variety of reasons, one importantly being the care for our spirits, creative and otherwise.

It is funny that we "discovered" Zentangle via a minister while staying at her home to attend a conference on unrelated matter.  She had a collection of small and seemingly miraculous drawings (Zentangle tiles!) laid about her dining room table. She said anyone could make this! We scoffed, yet were intrigued.  The rest is history. We, like so many, find the art, both process and the product so engaging, enjoyable and personally rewarding.  Apparently, almost anything can be tangled if it presents with a blank space.  And yes, coming full circle to our first encounter with Zentangle, we have had moments of people being in disbelief that anyone can make Zentangle art, after seeing our tangled art. The celebration of this magical art has an unintentional way obscuring the underlying spiritual process.

It is easy to push back away from the "Zen" part. It may not be easy to find, even with a spiritual or religious community, an opportunity to talk and share about the "spirit" aspect of Zentangle.  It could even be daunting to discuss Zentangle within one's spiritual or religious tradition, particularly if Zen, or Buddhism, are unfamiliar or raise the concern of being in conflict with ones spiritual experience or traditions.  In the more secular world, there is the notion that spiritual matters are not fitting to ordinary everyday conversation, but belongs to the more private.  The outcome is a very small space, if any, to talk about Zentangle as practice for our spirits. 

So we have an opportunity next week at Tangle U to start the conversation among CZTs about Zentangle, in conjunction with our spiritual lives and faith backgrounds.  The line between spirituality and religion can be fuzzy and somehow a moving target.  Yet Zentangle is a practice that nurtures us spiritually. Though it is not in itself religious, it can be used in different religious settings. Some of us have already done this and some wonder how they could. As CZTs together, we can grow the place to share how Zentangle and art more generally, can and does enrich us and perhaps also our spiritual communities.   We invite you sign up and join us next Saturday evening as Sadelle and I facilitate this opportunity share our personal stories, discoveries and questions, and grow space for CZTs to share about spirit in our art practice. Here are a few questions warm you up:

Is there a connection between your artwork/practice and your sense of the Divine?

Do you have personal art and faith story to share?

To learn more about Ann and Sadelle go to www.tanglevermont.com

Tangled Fashionista

A Northampton Outing

Tangle U is only 21 days away! Yea! I promised to do more selfless research in Northampton and today my daughter and her friend were kind enough to help me. 

First we checked out LOCAL a burger place. 

It's on Main Street - it's order at the counter and they bring it out to you type of place. We got there just before a long line formed - phew!

The girls are (not so) patiently waiting for their burgers. Yes those girls look like sisters and they act like it too. My daughter is the one on the right with the green hat and red glasses. She wears the glasses for style not function - she's one hip kid.

We all had cheeseburgers and shared a large order of fries. The burgers were delicious with thick slices of tomato and pickles, lettuce and onion! The hand-cut fries were so abundant that even the three of us couldn't finish them!

LOCAL advertises that they use meats, produce and products from local area farms and merchants whenever possible! I have to say it was all very fresh and delicious and you can eat for about $10 so it's a deal. In addition to angus burgers they have grass fed beef, turkey burgers, veggie burgers, portobello burgers and some other items including Capt'n Crunch crusted chicken...! I'll have to work up my courage to try that!

Next stop was shopping - 13 yr old girl style. First Newberry Comics....where they drooled over all of the Dr Who stuff, slightly inappropriate bumper stickers, buttons and etc. Next stop FACES. The girls love this store and I have to say that I enjoy it too. When I was in college it was more of a "head shop" with indian tapestries, dorm room nicknacks, incense  and what not. Now it's full of scarves, hats, sunglasses, junior clothing, cards, cute household items - all very contemporary. 

But they also have the this section:

Look what they found in the  slightly  "inappropriate" section.... Emma also looked at  a book on how to swear in sign language and now she waving her hands at me saying god only knows what! Okay, okay,  ... they posed for those pictures!

Then we went to Thornes Marketplace. Thornes is a small hip mall in the middle of town. It has so many things to offer - you can see them all on the link but I will point out a couple of good choices for eating.

First Paul and Elizabeths - they are known for fabulous vegetarian, fish, and tempura. I have to confess that I have never eaten there but Mimi, Sadelle, Ann, and Bette all have and it's one of their favorites! Their website shows dinner entree prices in the $12 - $19 range - with salad etc. al-la-carte.

But our next stop was Herrells Ice Cream. Located on the lower level of Thornes. What can I say other than my favorite is malted vanilla! The hot fudge is homemade too and the chocolate sprinkles are homemade and real chocolate! (I should tell you that we call sprinkles "jimmies" in Massachusetts...i don't know why!)

Yummie!

And what's a trip to Northampton without some street entertainment! It was cold today but that didn't stop this gal. She was making a marionette in the suitcase dance by tapping her foot while playing the accordion and singing! You don't see that every day!

See you at Tangle U... Only 21 days away!

The Right-Brain Biz Plan

Here's a guest blog by Sandy Bartholomew one of our Tangle U faculty members. You can catch more of Sandy here!

The Right-Brain Biz Plan

Two years ago, I stumbled across the book The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success by Jennifer Lee. I loved the concept - that there was a way for someone who thought in images, to survive - and thrive- in the left-brain business world.

My kids will tell you that I only read books with pictures. And as far as business books go - this one is loaded. Even so, I find it hard to get motivated simply by reading a book. But when something is really important, the Universe moves in and starts poking, shoving, or using the ole whack to the side of the head to get our attention. While procrastinating on my own plan, I went to the Squam Art camp (NH) and ended up taking a mini-workshop with Jennifer Lee. I was swept up in her contagious enthusiasm and immediately signed up for her RBBP workshop online.

And ordered her accordian book kit. And then signed up for licensed facilitator training. But I'm getting ahead of myself! The kit had stickers! And the class had fun videos and worksheets and colorful teeny post-it notes and I found myself making trading cards depicting my values and collages of my ideal customers, and vision boards filled with all the ads and brands that I admire. I found myself yelling "I LOVE money! I DESERVE money! I'm NOT afraid of money!" And because this was an online class, I didn't humiliate myself no matter what I yelled. Although I did frighten the cat...

A few people have told me that they haven't gotten themselves to crack open the book, even with all the pictures. A few people have taken the video class with Jen and still haven't actually done the work. Because cutting and pasting magazine pictures is scary. I get it. And we all learn in different ways. I need the book, the video AND hands-on attention. Maybe you are like that too? So far-right-brained that you tilt when you walk? Nothing to be ashamed of. But I have finally started to understand WHY the whole "planning it out" is so terrifying to us. Well, one reason anyway! It's because - even if we have a pretty good idea WHAT we want to do (like teach or open a store or blog...) we aren't clear on the WHY.

One of the projects in the Right-Brain Business Plan Book that I most enjoyed was making a deck of Values Trading Cards. Make a list of individual values that are important to you. Then find pictures that express those concepts and glue 'em onto a piece of cardstock. Then, whenever you need to evaluate a new opportunity or idea or purchase, you flip through your deck and see if it is in line with your values. Genius. Here's what I learned about myself: 

 1. Creativity.    No-brainer, right? (Hmmm... how about a No-Brainer Biz Plan?) If something doesn't have some aspect of creativity involved... I could care less. This includes problem solving in general. If there is nothing to be solved, no challenge to overcome, no mystery to reveal - let someone else deal with it.

2. AWE.    Magic, mystery, spiritual stuff, super-powers! Whatever you call it, I need a sense of "Wowwwww....." 

3. ENERGY.   Inspiration, passion and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I'd put good health in here too.

4. FAIRNESS. Oh yeah. Maybe it's the middle-child in me, but I do spend a lot of time kicking things and yelling "That's not FAIR!!" But it's also the part that pushes me to try and make things right with others no matter what. Sometimes this one really sucks.

5. KNOWLEDGE.   I just really need to know how stuff works. How it's made. Did you know that polar bears don't have white fur? It's actually transparent to let the sun through to their skin... which is actually black to retain the heat. Don't worry, the Universe had it's little joke by sending me a son who is even MORE like... that. [Alex at around 6 years old, early, early one Saturday morning...."Mom, wake up! I wrote you a paper about Angkar Watt because you really need to know this. Don't worry, there are pictures."] He was right. I really DID need to know. Angkar Watt is like Atlantis. It was a lost, mythical city/temple. Except... it's real.

6. RESPONSIBILITY. A bit like fairness, but I see it as - everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves. You broke it, you fix it. (or - I broke it, I have to fix it). I don't mind helping, but everyone needs to fess up and then cooperate.

7. OPTIMISM.  I'm actually more of an Optimistic-pessimist. Or maybe it's a pessimistic-optimist? "Cheer up," she said, "things could always be worse." So I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse. Or maybe you prefer "When going through Hell, keep going."

8. RESOURCEFULNESS. Yes, we can figure this out! There must be a solution. If I just keep trying things, something is sure to be successful...

9. SATISFACTION. Well, does it make you feel good? :-) Doesn't that cat just say it all?

I think it's time to redo my RBBPlan, but these cards will always be my values. I encourage you to make a set too.

I'll be doing a Right-Brain Business Plan workshop at TangleU in Massachusetts next month. If you are attending, you'll get a copy of the RBBP book and we'll do lots of cutting and pasting (bring scissors, gluesticks and some magazines). If you have done any RBBP projects or vision boards or such things, please bring them along too.

If you aren't able to attend, or even if you are... Jennifer Lee is doing a weeklong Right-Brainers in Business Summit starting on Monday (February 25th-March 8th). There's no fee, it's only about an hour each day and it might be a good way to kickstart yourself into getting something down on paper. Jen will have a bunch of other amazing people such as Jill Badonsky and Kelly Rae Roberts. And when you sign up, you get to listen to an interview with Marney Makridakis who runsArtella.

Tangled Jewelry and Feathers

We had so much fun at Jump into January! Here's one final blog post to show you the awesome jewelry and feathers that we created. Many thanks to Sadelle Wiltshire, Mary Ann S-D, Maribeth Sullivan and Linda Latham for allowing me to share their photographs with you!

Photo's from Sadelle's paper bead class!

 Jenny added color with Gelly Roll pens

Pictures from Susan Nutting paper tangled feathers class!

And here are some pictures of the whole gang! We had a great time!