MIGHT LEAD TO MINGLING

Pictured above: a few Zentangle art tiles by Debora Grace of ARTHAUS:Detroit

So, this and every Wednesday I introduce tangles -- structured illustration patterns -- with fun and funky names like flooish and flux. I don't make those names up; they’re official names of official Zentangle patterns that I share at a weekly drop-in class, a modified version of my daily Tangle 365 drop-in.

More and more, participants start these Wednesday evening sessions chatting, catching up with each other and, from what I can see, just exhaling and appreciating the time and space to do all this. It's time and space I think we need. 

     It looks like T-365 strikes this nice balance of some of the things Covid has reminded us -- even us introverts here -- that we want and need. Creativity, connection, and community. One as therapy, the other as confirmation, and the next for affirmation.

      I normally introduce a couple new tangles each Wednesday, and used to get going on instructing them roughly five minutes into the lesson. But I’ve noticed that just having the extra lead time to see what each other’s been drawing, hear how each other's been living and doing, take our time to spread out supplies, and carve out this space for creative practice has been oxygenating for most of us.

I see and hear us all enjoying light conversations, catching up one minute, and solitarily immersed in focus on drawing the next. Both zones seem to be good medicine for everybody, so I’ve been letting instruction start time slide a little further out, so that this mingling can do its magic.

     Speaking of mingling, some of the Freedom Rider activists -- those upstart agitators who dared to integrate public transit in the Jim Crow south in 1961 -- were born this month. Here are a few to, with gratitude, wish a happy birthday to:

Pictured above: Jorgia Siegel

Peter Ackerberg, Bronx, NY, April 19, 1939...Paul Green, New York City, NY, April 28, 1939...John Dolan, San Francisco, CA, April 11, 1941...Paul Breines, Manhattan, NY, April 16, 1941...Gene Uphoff, Prairie du Sac, WI, April 3, 1942...Jorgia Siegel, Baltimore, MD, April 21, 1942.

Pictured above: Freedom Rider, Gene Uphoff

Thanks for stopping by.

Until next time,

Debora-Grace Stanczak, CZT