“One of the classes I had as a freshman was an art class, and throughout that class I learned about a lot of different types of art, one of which are zentangles. What’s meaningful to me about zentangles is that once I started the pattern or design, it was easy to figure out how I was going to incorporate everything else, and I had a lot of fun while doing it.” –Me, quoting me, for the second time ever in my life. I love zentangles, although I suppose it’s because to me, zentangles have come to mean any patterns, collections of shapes, or swirly, swooshy, swoopy, designs within a work of art. My example of a swirly swooshy swoopy mix of designs.

What I like about acrylics is that it’s easy to just start painting. There’s no pressure that I can’t make mistakes or won’t be able to change something I don’t like. I don’t need to be perfect. That’s the point.

Because it’s fun not being perfect.

“The world was beautiful when looked at in this way- without any seeking, so simple, so childlike.” It’s always nice when your mind is in just the right place to be able to enjoy everything around you, including your task at hand. Even if that task is as simple as breathing. Everything is easier when you’re not trying to rush through it or feel stressed or anxious. 

How can doing things out of necessity or convenience break the bubble of a simplistic and happy state of mind?

There’s a lot of things that have been simplified over time to make things easier for people today, to make things more convenient, to make it so that you don’t have to think about it. I feel like the idea of doing something just ‘cuz has been left behind for the sake of practicality. Doing or making something because something just urged you to, because you started and now you don’t want to stop, seems sort of nonexistent. The question of “well why the heck not”, seems like it’s almost always counteracted by “why?” which I’m a little salty about, frankly. I love seeing random works of art, and things that don’t make sense, and little contraptions put together for the sake of doing a simple task the inconvenient way. I love seeing creativity and I love seeing the buildup of a project that took somebody a lot of effort just for it all to lead up to an achievement that could’ve been completed any normal way with not nearly as much energy put in. 

One of my favorite songs is The Machine by Lemon Demon. I love the lyrics of the song because they’re about a person who started building a machine that has no purpose, it just exists. It gets attention from the public because people are perplexed by it; to them it makes no sense. Why would somebody go through all the effort of making this enormous contraption if it doesn’t do anything?

“But the nothing that it does

Negates the everything we know

Because it’s screaming “Just because”

Because it’s neither friend or foe

And so we label it a menace

Or a grandiose work of art

From its finale to its genesis

We slowly pull it all apart”
“In life one finds friends in the strangest places”