Yeppers, that doesn't look a thing like jewelry. It's my first zen tangle. It's my pen drawing on a little 4 inch piece of paper. And yes, I do know this is a jewelry blog. But bear with me, this might actually make a little sense by the end of this post.
I recently stumbled across zen tangles when I was reading Marsha Neal's blog. Lots of you know her for her incredible ceramic pieces with these amazing textures that she's created from her own drawings. She recently started doing a weekly challange over on the I am the Diva blog, hosted by Laura Harms. She's a Certified Zen Tangle teacher and truthfully I don't in fact know just exactly what that means. So I hitched a ride and started tangling just because it was different from what I usually do as a jewelry component maker. It was a little different from my rather rigided thinking about design. You know, I like all of the dots to connect. I like things to be coherent within a strict and rigid little world I set up for myself.
Well low and behold letting go of those constraints is a real eye opener. Zen tangle actually opened up a whole new world for me. I am by no means an expert. Very far from it. Zen Tangle is an art form in and of itself with the premise that anyone can draw. But beyond that is the letting go of preconceived notions of what your drawings might look like. Think childhood, think coloring outside of the lines, think just letting go for a little while.
And just how does this tie into jewelry? I know you've been waiting for how this actually has anything at all to do with a jewelry blog. You know how sometimes you hit the wall. Just nothing at all comes to mind that might be in the least bit new, interesting. You know, the I can't make one more piece of jewelry because I am done in. There is nothing at all out there that is original. OK, I can totally accept that I am the only one who has ever been in this position.
Well, I can say with absolute certainty that taking a little tiny bit of time to do something completly different can open doors.
This is a grown up version of a pattern from my very first tangle. Go back and look at the first photo. This is a larger version of the pattern that I didn't even think about. It's in the bottom left corner. I would never have thought of this pattern if I hadn't just let go. It's destined to be a texture plate for working with metal clay (probably, but you never know).
The point of all of this is that sometimes if you let go you can move to a place that is totally an expression of you. And if you a tangle, and nothing at all comes of it, you've had a few minutes to let go. The ideas spring from there. And thats what making art jewelry so, so much fun.
So let those ideas bubble up, spring forth!
Happy making
