Zentangle Doppelgänger

In 2007, we started BLOG Zentangle and began our enjoyable series of conversations within our Zentangle community.

In reading through these blog posts with their insightful comments, we decided to bring a few of them to your attention from time to time. It is easy, for me anyway, to sometimes think of old information as stale information. But these insights and conversations are anything BUT stale!

We invite you to go back to the Zentangle Doppelgänger with this post from 2018...

Maria writes...

If we were to humanize our tangles. . .  which one would you be?  

When we first started speaking​ about Zentangle, one person spoke out and said Rick was surely Zen and I, of course was tangle. I kind of liked that.  You know. . . "Sonny and Cher,” "Burns and Allen,”  "John and Yoko,” "Mickey and Minnie,” "Fred and Wilma.”   I could go on and on.  (but Rick thought maybe it was enough. . .)  I love being "Rick and Maria". 

Lately, I started thinking about the personification of tangles, giving them character, images, and a history.  I soon realized my Zentangle Doppelgänger is, of course (duuuuuuh!) Mooka. I gave it a capital letter, just like me and my chop.

 I feel if someone were to describe me and Mooka, there would be lots of overlaps:  like being fairly curvy, exuberant, short (but wanting to be taller), we both have a history of art in our lives, we're both move quickly and in unexpected directions, and, we are most definitely a bit loopy. It is my "go-to" tangle, my "mac 'n cheese" tangle, the one that seems to just pour out of my pen, and one I cannot control. 

Rick, on the other hand, is without a doubt, Paradox.  I was going to write why here, but I asked him to do it instead. (mine would have been funnier). His version is nowhere near what I was going to write, but, Hey! That's cool.  Here it is:

I love that by drawing a simple series of straight lines in a particular way, a beautiful curve results. I love that I thought I had come up with this tangle only to discover that it is a generations old quilting pattern. I love how when you put paradox sections side by side a meta-shapes reveals itself; and if you do adjoining sections in different directions different meta-shapes reveal themselves. I love that you can take almost any familiar repeating shape and "paradox" it and discover fresh meta-shapes. I love that paradox's meta-shapes all result in tessellations or repeating shapes that neither overlap nor leave any gaps. I love that you can't predict what those tessellated shapes will look like until you draw them.

And, I guess that says a bit about how I approach the world.

I asked Indy and she said Pokeroot, because a few people commented on Zentangle Mosaic that she was the pokeroot queen. Mazzy said she would be pokeleaf, because, after all, they are sisters.  

Molly, immediately said Tripoli, Martha, Mooka. . .she is my first born and all, and she's just recently got the mooka bug and cannot stop drawing this voluptuous tangle. And Nick, well let's just say Hollibaugh and leave it at that.

Soooooo, my dear Zentangle family, what tangle would you be, if you could be a tangle and why?  I cannot wait to hear the stories and reasons for your choices.

Give this some thought.   It might surprise you what you come up with!

-Maria

Update:

October 10, 2023: If you commented below years ago what your Zentangle Doppelgänger is, is it still the same or has it changed? We would love to know!

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Thank you for everyone who commented on our last blog, When the Student Surpasses the Teacher. We were touched by all of your stories. We have randomly selected Anita Stovall and her CZT, Deb Prewitt to receive a Zentangle surprise. Please send your snail mail address to info@zentangle.com.