Second Act Art

                    I have been an artist at heart for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories range from finger painting at my parent’s kitchen table and participating in childhood art contests, to soaking up every detail I could in my elementary school art classes.                   In high school, I had an amazing art teacher who really pushed us creatively while teaching the skills needed to execute diverse projects. At this time, I was much freer in my work. I used bold colors, surreal ideas, and a lot of representational shapes and patterns in my art. The pieces I was creating at that time were very stylized.                   Before I knew it, much of my time became devoted to working at and then running a small business with my husband and raising our family. My creativity took ...

    Recently I've had the opportunity to take a college course that includes learning about and making Zentangles as part of the class content. For those of you who don’t know, Zentangles are small, quick doodles done by following specific criteria. They are meant to be relaxing to the artist when executing, while also giving a sense of accomplishment, as they don't take a lot of time to complete. The tangle describes the line or design part of the practice and the zen describes the meditative feeling they are said to evoke.                   This has not been my first experience “tangling”. I’ve been a part of an informal art quilting group in the past, and at one point we had decided to start utilizing this practice. It was an easy way to have something small and quick to complete while enhancing our design skills when it came to our textile creations.      ...