Greetings my tangling friends!
Our midweek muse is an addition to CZT Angie Gittles’s collection of cool tangles inspired by the beautiful pottery created by American Indians of the Southwest.
Given we’re soon going to be seeing April showers, Monsoon seemed to fit the bill for today.
If you’d like to find all of Angie’s tangles in this “series” to date, I suggest using the site search box at the top right of any page and the search term pottery. Another way is using the TANGLES BY ARTIST section in the left sidebar and looking for angieg. A third way is to use the live link on this page in the pink “more like this” section after the post and before the Comments section.
Angie introduces Monsoon,
Monsoon was inspired by a piece of San Ildefonso Pueblo pottery by potter Maria Martinez.
Pottery by Maria Martinez, sold at auction by Sotheby’s – click image for details
What I find interesting is that black triangles sometimes mean clouds/rain, and this pattern is very similar to the Zentangle® tangle “Rain.”
I named it Monsoon because in Arizona, a monsoon is a seasonal weather pattern that typically occurs from June to September and is characterized by increased thunderstorms and rainfall in the southwestern United States.
It’s fascinating learning about the creative genius of indigenous American artists through Angie’s additions. While Angie’s tangle inspiration was from a more traditional color of pottery, Maria Martinez is most well known for her “blackware”, as explained by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum:
San Ildefonso Pueblo potter Maria Po’ve’ka Montoya Martinez (Tewa), together with her husband Julian (Tewa), gained international recognition for their elegant “black-on-black” pottery that combined matte and glossy black designs on the same surface. Martinez’s pottery appeared in art circles at the same time non-Native artists began finding inspiration in Indigenous art. Martinez sold her artwork to tourists at the Palace of the Governors, and later to collectors at the Santa Fe Indian Market. By the mid-1920s, museums had started collecting examples of her pottery.
This is one example of Maria Martinez’s exquisite blackware pieces, a jar from the National Museum of Women in the Arts:
Angie illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Monsoon below, “The sample shows a Monsoon border coming out from a wave of Well on a pre-colored tile.”
Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These images are for your personal offline reference only. Please feel free to refer to the images to recreate this tangle in your personal Zentangles and ZIAs. However the artist and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to the images and they must not be publicly pinned, altered, reproduced or republished. (Small side note: if you look at the legalese in Pinterest, you are legally responsible for obtaining permission to post every photo that gets ‘Pinned’. Giving credit or sharing the source link doesn’t count.) Thank you for respecting these rights. “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” ~ Albus Dumbledore
As you enjoy any of the tangles on the site, please leave a comment of thanks and encouragement to show the artists you appreciate them for sharing their creativity to inspire yours. Your thanks helps motivate them to continue to share! And please share a link to your favorite tangles on social media. Republishing images isn’t allowed. Thanks!
Check out the tag angieg for more of Angie’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
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Share your Tangle on TanglePatterns
Have you created a tangle you'd like to share with the community? I'd love to see it.
You do not need to be a CZT to submit a pattern. Many of the tangles on TanglePatterns began as ideas shared by readers just like you.
Before sending your pattern, please take a few minutes to review What Makes a Zentangle® Tangle? and How to Submit Your Pattern Deconstruction to TanglePatterns. These pages on the SUBMIT YOUR PATTERN menu explain what qualifies as a tangle and how to prepare your pattern.
Not every pattern will be selected for publication, but I sincerely appreciate everyone who takes the time to share their creativity and contribute to TanglePatterns.
When you're ready, simply send your pattern by email following the instructions on the submission page.
I look forward to seeing what you've created.
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Related Links
- Looking for tangles by Artist or Type? For details visit the ABOUT > HOW TO FIND TANGLES BY ARTIST OR TYPE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site.
- What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
- Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
- How to use the site — an excellent free video tutorial showing how to use the site as well as pointing out lots of useful features you might have missed.
- Linda's List of Zentangle-Original Patterns — here is the complete list of original tangles (aka "official tangles") created and introduced by founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, including those not published online. If you are new to the Zentangle Method I highly recommend learning a few of the published Zentangle classics first.
- What Makes a Zentangle tangle? A Zentangle has no up or down and is not a picture of something, so you have no worries about whether you can draw a hand, or a duck. You always succeed in creating a Zentangle. Patterns that are drawings of a recognizable naturalistic or actual object, figure, or scene, are not tangles, and tangles never start with pencil planning.
- A pattern is not always a tangle.
- Un motif n’est pas toujours un tangle — Qu’est-ce qu’un tangle ?
- Un diseño no es siempre un tangle — ¿Qué es un tangle?
- How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
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March 25, 2026 | 
More like this: 
Very cool, Angie! When I saw the photo of Maria Martinez’s blackware piece in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, I instantly pictured drawing the tangle with solid black and surrounding it with dark graphite … must try that!