Many of us find their hearts only after they have lost their minds.-Nietzsche
A little over a week ago it was Valentines Day, a celebration of what lives in our hearts. That Tuesday was also the last day of ValentTangle, two weeks of exploring hearts in Zentangle. With over 200 participants from all around the world and an e-book with 14 tangle instructions, we took off in the beginning of February. This post will give you an impression of our mission! The artwork shared here was randomly chosen from the 14 albums and the mini-puzzles will get their very own blogpost in a few weeks.
We started off by combining tangles Crazy Huggins or Crazy Cadent with hearts. Isn’t this collage-photo a great example of how everybody can truly express their own creativity, skills and style in a small work of art? In my eyes it was certainly a heartwarming and promising start.
When I write those little prompts , I have no idea where people will eventually take their tangles and tiles. So can you imagine my excitement when I wake up and get to check out all that beautiful work! It inspires me to look carefully and opens me up to possibilities I was not aware of. Take a look at these spirals for example:
On day 4 we used one of CZT Margaret Bremner’s latest blogposts about tangle Striping. Only instead of starting with 2 strands of Fescu, we used hearts to stripe around. I so enjoyed the variety of tiles that day: the boldness of the stripes and the sweetness of the hearts. An irresistible combination. And what a great surprise to find out that Molly Hollibaugh from ZTHQ also tried her hand at this prompt! She presented her tile in the last ZT newsletter and mentioned our project.
Heart of Gold was the motto CZT Marty Deckel chose for her contribution for Day 5. She generously made gorgeous 3Z examples that clearly inspired many a tangler! Very nice to add these new tiles with their distinct signature, to our Valentangle tiles collection! Seeing Maria Vennekens square tile made my heart leap as well: she finished a tile with tangle ING that she started in a class I taught about ING, one of my protégé tangles. Can I make a case for ING here? It’s such a great tangle!
Ofcourse…it cannot always be pink and gold. Many times we have a heavy heart, or even a broken heart. It is part of the human condition and as Leonard Cohen wrote: it’s through the cracks that the light can come in. Such comforting words. Now look at this blue art…
Day 10 was the day of Franciose Lip from Australia. She encouraged us to pour out our hearts. And so we did. Anna from Sweden even put her daughter with a friend into the heart on her tile. So precious!
Ofcourse we couldn’t do without a little bling…
A triple S-curve as a string on Day 13 made me ‘oooo and ahhhh’ and sigh a bit, for the end of our heart project was near.
Last but not least: home is where the heart is! Here’s a peek into a village of love. Need I say more?
Thank you all and hope to welcome you next year!
