I Can See Clearly Now

Molly and Martha write:

I can Z clearly now … La Z en Rose

“Hi, I’m Molly, and I’m Martha! We are the daughters of the founders of the Zentangle Method.” This is how we start each one of our Zentangle retreat workshops.

For the past eight years, the two of us have been teaching deep-dive Zentangle workshops. Each workshop idea starts with a basic focus on some sort of tangling theme or technique. From there we build a dialogue around a specific Zentangle philosophy. Then the magic starts to happen, and we build creative and inspiring content based on the core theme. We journey through the days with a common goal of learning new Zentangle ideas and techniques, while opening our minds to the possibilities of taking what we learn from the tile into our everyday lives.

A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of spending four glorious days on a mountaintop in Boone, NC, with a remarkable group of Zentangle enthusiasts. The Art of Living Retreat Center was the perfect venue to gather like-minded artists in a nurturing and beautiful environment. This workshop was titled, “Translucen-Z, Create Tangled Illusions Through Light and Perspective.” We worked primarily on our newest tile surface, TranslucenZ® Tiles. These tiles are created from a vellum-like paper with gossamer see-through qualities. The paper brings with it an exciting new process of tangling both sides of the surface and using light to enhance and support the creative process. Seeing through this surface we were able to see through obstacles to a path beyond. We learned to let our artistic light shine through not only in our work but to enhance our individual creative personalities. As the days unfolded, this new “tool” unleashed a new confidence in our students, and they were able to see things in a new light. Borrowing from our “No Mistakes” philosophy, we found that any miss-strokes were met with a new approach to seeing things in a positive light. Though we do not have control over what happens in our world, we do have control over how we choose to view it and how we want to navigate it. We, as artists, get to choose what lens we want to look through. This shift of perspective is exactly what we are working with when we talk about the Zentangle “No Mistakes” philosophy.

To empower ourselves through our artistic vision we decided to honor this concept with our students and crown off this amazing 4-day journey in style. Pushing ourselves to use our art to practice finding the beauty and good that lives along the way in all our journeys, on and off the tile. As a symbol of this approach, we gifted each of our students a pair of rose-colored glasses. A fun-filled reminder of this philosophy. Putting that energy together, we collaborated on our new rosy outlook and donned our rose-colored glasses to remind us that we can choose to see our world and all its beauty, no matter the circumstances. Not because everything is good but because you have the choice to see the good in everything. Some may know of the traditional French reference, “La Vie En Rose,” a well-known saying and song lyric that celebrates this same idea which we say in English as, “looking at the world through rose-colored glasses”.

Can you just picture it? A roomful of Zentangle artists tangling away on a mountain top, wearing rose-colored glasses and Edith Piaf singing our anthem in the background. We are forever grateful for these amazing artists and their willingness to spend their precious time with us.

Forever in our hearts, “La Z en Rose”.

We are excited to launch our new Instagram page @tanglingwithmollyandmartha. Follow us for up-to-date workshop plans and fun ideas and Zentangle sister-love. Next stop, Western Massachusetts in June. If there is a place you want us to teach, let us know!