How to draw METOT

Hi there!

Today’s Totem tangle is from Japanese CZT Ayumi Kumazaki, a member of September’s online training seminar CZT41. This is her first tangle on the site.

Ayumi introduces herself and her Metot tangle,

I first encountered Zentangle® art during the Covid-19 epidemic of 2022 when it was difficult to get out and about. I am a nurse. With the Zentangle Method™, I hope to provide a little fun for the frail of heart and the elderly.

This tangle is based on a totem pole. It can be used to draw other tangles within the tangle, or to draw other tangles in the diamond-shaped space between the tangles.

The name of the tangle “METOT” is written backwards from TOTEM.

In this set of tiles Ayumi pairs Metot with Crescent Moon, Diva Dance, Printemps, Tipple, Msst, and Florz.

Totem poles and their history are fascinating; there are six basic types, including a “shame pole”. Here’s a brief introduction from  Wikipedia and you can read more about the history and cultural significance of totem poles – and the six types – at the link given.

Totem poles are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia.

Totem: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Image by Dominick Vietor from Pixabay

The word totem derives from the Algonquian word odoodem meaning “(his) kinship group”. The carvings may symbolize or commemorate ancestors, cultural beliefs that recount familiar legends, clan lineages, or notable events. The poles may also serve as functional architectural features, welcome signs for village visitors, mortuary vessels for the remains of deceased ancestors, or as a means to publicly ridicule someone. They may embody a historical narrative of significance to the people carving and installing the pole. Given the complexity and symbolic meanings of these various carvings, their placement and importance lies in the observer’s knowledge and connection to the meanings of the figures and the culture in which they are embedded.

Ayumi’s simple deconstruction of Metot is clever and is a reminder that it’s often good to begin a tangle in the middle of a section and work your way outwards. After I added a wee embellishment my Metot example ended up resembling spools of thread but there are many, many ways to scale, embellish or fill Metot and I’m sure you’ll have fun discovering a few.

Ayumi illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Metot below and she pairs it in a beautiful Zentangle tile with Knightsbridge, Flux and orbs.

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

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Check out the tag ayumik for more of Ayumi’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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4. 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.
5. 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.
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