What's In A Name

The first thing that drew me to Zentangle was the name.  A friend of mine who is a quilter mentioned it on one of her blog posts here back in June 2009 and I had to check it out.  This of course was before I knew anything about the world of blogging, and hers was the only one I checked out from time to time to see what my good friend from high school was up to.  I am so glad I saw that post because Zentangle has changed so much in my life...all good and wonderful!  When teaching Zentangle classes or doing a display/demo table for art on the town night, I often hear people say "Zentangle...what is that, or I love the name".  After you learn what it is and the more you do it, you realize how perfect the name is. 

The same goes for tangle pattern names.  I love to see the explosion of new tangle patterns and sometimes the inventor tells how it was named.  When they don't it's fun to guess how they came up with the name. Some obvious and some you never figure out.  I am sure some have no relation to the tangle at all. One of the latest official tangles from Rick & Maria is PUNZEL and I am guessing the name came from the classic tale of Rapunzel.  The tangle itself looks like long braided hair.  I love this tangle and had to play with it some more over the weekend.

Speaking of names...a little side story.  We were in Idado in Sept visiting my 89 year old father-in-law, Kermit.  I have made some tiles for him and for his lady friend Wanda in the past.  They have been fascinated with it and love to see the pictures on my Ipad, since neither of them has a computer.  One day when meeting a neighbor of his, he started to tell her about what I do and couldn't think of the name Zentangle, so he said to me "tell her about, oh you know, I can't think of what it's called, but it's that scribbling you do".   Even though I don't like when people say Zentangle is just doodling (because they don't understand or take the time to learn), somehow when an 89 year man who I have nothing but great respect for called it scribbling (first word he could think of) it made me smile....and it still does. :)