Another response has come from someone who read over my blog posts on Zentangle and has seen my crosstrainer shoes asking, “What's the difference between the Zentangles and my doodles? I've been doodling all of my life." It's an honest questioning from someone who wants to know.
I often respond with, "Is your work teachable? Can you teach others to do what you do?"
At that point, I find myself in a mini-lecture with this analogy to music.
The 102 “tangles” are a form of standardized notation, much as in music, that students first learn to master. Each Certified Zentangle Teacher learns to master these 102 tangles so as to be able to teach students to make art in the first two classroom hours. Standardized tangles make classroom instruction possible. The students soon learn to recognize these tangles in a complex looking piece of art the way musicians recognize chord structure in someone else's music.
Yes, there are gifted artists who paint well without lessons, or gifted musicians who can write and play songs without reading music. But they have no method for teaching students their craft.
My father grew up in an Amish home where musical instruments were forbidden. While I was yet in grade school, I would see him bring home from his monthly excursions to the local auction barn keyboard musical instruments; a bellows organ, an upright piano, or several accordions. I would marvel as in a few minutes he could teach himself to play familiar hymns as the family sang along. His method of teaching me to solve any problem was, “If you just look at it long enough, it will come to you." My brain was not wired like his. I never learned to play “by ear.”
For certain gifted people no lessons are necessary to create art; not so for the general population. We need a way of learning to make art we enjoy. Zentangle makes that possible for us “one stroke at a time.”
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A weekly entry of thoughts and observations that come from sitting on the sidelines of other people's lives.
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9 comments
Comment by Unknown on August 3, 2010 at 1:17 PM
What a great description - Thank you.
Comment by Marijane on August 3, 2010 at 10:37 PM
I love this post! I may print it out and use some of it my class. Thank you, Verlin.
Comment by Verlin on August 4, 2010 at 9:49 AM
Yes, Marijane, you may print and use this with your class. Thank you for asking.. v
Comment by K.A.D on August 6, 2010 at 1:00 PM
Really like this posting, Makes a whole lot of senses to me. Considering I do art myself.
Comment by Deb Phelps Miller on August 8, 2010 at 7:29 AM
Verlin, thanks for this posting. This seems to clarify what I as a certified zentangle teacher (CZT) struggle to articulate as the difference between doodling and the use of zentangle art form. Your reference to our teacher manual - the 102 tangles - as a beginners muscial scale is perfect. I plan to use this analogy in my future teachings of zentangle. Thanks again.
Comment by Genevieve on August 21, 2010 at 6:36 PM
I get this question all the time, and this is such a thoughtful reply! I too would like to ask your permission to use it (with proper attribution of course.)
Comment by Sandy Steen Bartholomew on August 21, 2010 at 8:39 PM
Makes perfect sense. And also encourages practice!
Comment by Verlin on August 22, 2010 at 1:54 PM
Thank you all for visiting and commenting on this post. You are welcome to use this post in your Zentangle work. v
Comment by Shelly Griska on August 31, 2011 at 8:35 AM
With all due respect, it looks to me like a marketing scheme to sell people (by means of lessons, seminars, kits) something they could do on their own. The human brain loves patterns -- this is why they're pervasive throughout decorative art from every culture. A couple hundred years ago all our great great great great etc. grandmothers were using patterns to decorate the everyday items they created for the family to use. It's only because we as a culture have come to believe that creativity is the domain of artists who possess "talent" or "genius" not available to the rest of us that people have come to believe themselves incapable of creating.
Just as anyone can learn to type, anyone can learn to play a keyboard instrument. The mechanisms of learning in each case are identical, and the same is true of drawing. It is a simple matter of developing eye-hand coordination. Where ineffable, elusive things like "talent" come in are in matters of composition or having a good idea (even if it is only an abstract idea, as with these designs), as well as things like sensitivity, sensibility, style, etc. Just because anybody can learn to play piano with adequate practice doesn't mean they'll all be Rachmaninoff. But if someone gets relaxation, enjoyment, etc. from playing the piano to the best of their ability, that's awesome.
I just look at this and see people being sold what they already possess but don't realize they do, and I think that's a rather sad commentary on how disempowered people feel from creativity in this culture.
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