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By KATHLEEN D. BAILEYSpecial to the Sunday News

DEERFIELD

CHRISTINE BRITOS, a certifi ed Zentangle teacher, passed out small white boxes to a handful of people

in the Deerfi eld Community School library. The participants in her class took out small, white squares of paper, or “tiles,” along with two calligraphy-quality pens, two pencils and a small, plastic pencil sharpener.

“There are no erasers,” Britos warned her students, “because there are no erasers in life. You make it work.”

When is a doodle not a doodle? When it’s a “tangle,” the complex series of designs created by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts and marketed as Zentangle. The structured designs free the mind, according to local teachers and practitioners.

Britos’ recent class at DCS, a fund-raiser for the school’s eighth-grade class trip, drew a mixture of parents and educators.

Britos used a fl ip chart to explain the elements of Zentangle. She drew a square and put dots in the four corners, then drew a “string” through the square to break it into four different-sized sec-tions. Each section formed the base for a “tangle,” or design.

The pens are Micron archival ink pens, Britos said, and the tiles are an Italian molded paper. The tiles aren’t available anywhere else in the United States, she said, and cost $20 for 55 sheets. But while the offi cial Zentangle supplies are expensive, that shouldn’t prohibit people from participating, she said: “It’s all about creating.”

After the participants examined their tools, Britos told them to put every-thing back into the box, except for their fi rst tile and one pencil.

“You need to clear away all the extra stuff around you, so you can appreciate the art,” she said.

Britos introduced the fi rst tangle of the night, the crescent moon. Under her direction, students drew half-circles around the rim of one of their sections, fi lled in each crescent, and drew other crescents around them until the section

was fi lled. Britos showed how to shade the design, explaining, “These pens are very sensitive. If you want a thicker line, push down, and if you want a thinner line, release it.”

To a question on shading, she responded, “Traditionally, we fi ll it in

Feb. 20, 2011 • Page F6

SHE WAS one of the most famous photojournalists of her time.

He would become known as the patriarch of one of the most famous families of athletes to come from New Hampshire.

Neither knew the man’s fate at the time . And, to be hon-est, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference to Cecil Fisk.

The recent death of Fisk — father of Hall of Fame baseball player of Carlton Fisk — led to the rediscovery of a photo the late Margaret Bourke-White took of Cecil for a photo essay about life along the Connecti-cut River that ran in the Nov. 6, 1950, edition of Life magazine.

Life was a big deal back then, a glossy magazine fi lled with almost 200 pages of pictures and stories and full-page ad-vertisements for products such as Schenley whiskey, Camel cigarettes and Dodge cars.

Bourke-White was an even bigger deal.

She was one of the fi rst great female photojournalists, a groundbreaker who became known for her photos of industry inside the burgeoning Soviet Union and her portraits of world leaders that included the likes of FDR, Winston Churchill and Gandhi. She is considered the fi rst female war correspondent of World War II.

Her life was depicted by Farrah Fawcett in the televi-sion movie “Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White,” and she was portrayed by Candice Bergen in the fi lm “Gandhi.” Her relationship with Life dated back to the magazine’s fi rst edition, in 1936, when her picture of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana appeared on the cover.

Bourke-White arrived in

New England in 1950 to record life along the Connecticut River and report on the indus-try and lives that depended on the river in the valley stretch-ing from New Hampshire and Vermont, through Massachu-setts and into Connecticut.

There was a distinct New Hampshire fl avor.

There was a picture of Ernest Stevens and his son-in-law Henry Dearborn, dairy farmers from Piermont who housed their Holsteins in the 16-sided Round Barn on Sunnybrook Farm. There was a picture of the paper mills in Groveton and a portrait of a Robb Sagen-dorph, the founder of Yankee, Inc. in Dublin and the man credited with saving the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

And on Page 128 was a picture of a tall, strong-jawed man working a lathe at the Jones & Lamson machine tool company in Springfi eld, Vt. The caption said Cecil E. Fisk, 37, lived across the river in Charlestown, N.H., where “forest was cleared by his forebears.” Carlton Fisk was not yet 2 years old. Conrad, the youngest of the four Fisk boys, was not even born.

Leona Fisk, Cecil’s widow, said they bought a copy of the magazine when it came out, looked at it, and then put it in a drawer.

“I never remember getting excited about it,” Leona said. “We didn’t think much about it.”

JimFennell

JustChecking In In

ZENTANGLE:Call this structured sketching mind-clearing,

call it focus-building, BUT DON’T CALL IT ‘DOODLING’

Historic convergence:Famed photographer,

famous NH family

“It was the coolest thing ever. The Fisk resemblance is very strong.”

CARRAH FISK HENNESSEYniece of Carlton Fisk (left) and granddaughter of Cecil Fisk (right),

on her generation’s discovery of the Life magazine photo by Margaret Bourke-White

BOB LAPREE/UNION LEADER FILE MICHAEL MOORE/KEENE SENTINEL

MARGARET BOURKE!WHITE/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

Toolmaker Cecil Fisk, later to become better known as Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk’s father, finishes a terret lathe at Jones & Lamson tool factory. This picture, taken by photographer Margaret Bourke-White, appeared in the Nov. 6, 1950, edition of Life magazine.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

A book of Zentangle drawings helped students understand the art form in Deerfield on Tuesday night.

PHOTOS BY DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

Christine Britos laughs while giving a Zentangle workshop at Deerfield Community School on Tuesday night.

Zentangle kits contain paper tiles, drawing pens and pencils, instructions and other items needed to begin drawing.

Christine Britos

(standing) conducts

last week’s Zentangle workshop

with Deerfield residents

Lori Shepard, Martha

Smith and Maria

Knee at the Deerfield

Community School.

VSee Zentangle, Page F9

VSee Fennell, Page F9

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Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011 • NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS • Page F9Lifestyles

black, but you don’t have to fi ll it in at all. Your goal is to enjoy the process.”

As the students sketched and shaded, Britos showed an album of tangles drawn by her children, Mitchell, 14, and Serena, 9.

“Mitchell’s are very tight, controlled,” she said. “Serena’s are looser, and she used to feel bad about that, but there’s no right or wrong.”

As the students worked, soft music — mostly classical guitar — played in the background.

“I like to choose music that’s in another language or without words entirely,” Britos said.

The music enhances the ex-perience, rather than providing distraction, she said. Though once you’re adept at Zentan-gle, she added, “you can do it in the middle of the city.”

Don’t use the “D” word How is Zentangle different

from regular doodling?“You take doodling and

you make it a process,” Britos said. “It’s deliberate doodling, which may be an oxymoron. It’s taking doodling to the next step.”

Zentangle creators Thomas and Roberts don’t even like the word “doodle,” she added.

There’s nothing new in the designs, many of which are taken from nature, Britos said, “but what they’ve done is taken the process and defi ned it.”

The process is useful both for clearing adults’ minds and helping children to focus, Britos added.

Warner artist Sandy Steen Bartholomew became certi-fi ed in Zentangle in 2009 and liked the technique so much she published her own books of designs, including “Totally Tangled.”

Bartholomew wrote in an e-mail, “Yes, it is great for meditation. I can’t sit still for anything, so meditation has always been impossible. But the process of drawing keeps me busy and entertained while the decision-making — what patterns, where, how much — keeps my left brain

busy and focused. I have no idea how all the brain magic works, but Zentangle some-how makes it possible to tune out and to tune in at the same time.”

Zentangle is not really doo-dling, Bartholomew added.

“It looks a bit like doodling to newcomers, and it feels familiar and comfortable to former doodlers, but (saying Zentangle is the same as doodling) is like saying yoga is the same as stretching; one is mindful, the other mindless.”

School toolKindergarten teacher Maria

Knee, a participant in Britos’ class, is certain that her kin-dergarten students can grasp the concept behind Zentangle. She’s tried a similar technique with the “un-coloring book,” a set of designs for which chil-dren fi ll in the colors.

Knee said she wouldn’t use Zentangle tiles for her students — both for cost reasons and because the tiles are so small — but probably would put the children to work on a white board.

“There’s no right or wrong, and that will be liberating to some children,” she said. “Kids who like rules — freeing them up will be a challenge.”

Kathy Mutch, Raymond High School’s art teacher, uses the technique with much older children in her drawing class. She took a workshop at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate in Con-cord and brought Zentangle into the classroom.

Mutch wrote in an e-mail, “I thought it might be a good, non-intimidating introductory activity. It’s a great way to get my drawing students thinking about the effects of different line and pattern.”

Mutch, who has some ac-tive boys in her classes, said Zentangle helped them to work more quietly, “and this will help them when they face more challenges.”

Mutch also wants her stu-dents to experience the medi-tative qualities of Zentangle, so they can more easily shift into “right-brain mode.”

In her workshop, Britos encouraged the students to use any kind of paper with their own students. “But when you do Zentangle for yourself, you need the nice tools; it’s a gift to yourself,” she said.

Though the term “Zentan-gle” is reserved for work on the offi cial tiles, Zentangle-in-spired designs are everywhere, Britos said. She recently used the technique on T-shirts for her daughter’s birthday guests.

The patterns are found in quilting, batik, stained glass and even tables, she said, add-ing with a smile, “The next one we’re going to make is called the ‘squid.’”

.

For more information on Zentangle, go to zentangle.com. For information on local classes and workshops, contact Bar-tholomew at beezinthebelfry.com or Britos at ExpressiveCoach.com.

Conrad Fisk said he came across the aging magazine in that drawer about 30 years ago and asked his dad about the story.

“He kind of got that old smirk of his and said, ‘No big deal.’ That’s my dad,” Conrad said. “He’s very humble.”

Of course, the Fisk clan has had their lives chronicled in magazines and newspapers across the country many times since. Much has been written about Carlton and his major-league career with the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox, but the stories go much deeper.

Older brother Calvin was actually considered a bet-ter baseball prospect than Carlton and is in the athletics hall of fame at the University of New Hampshire. Conrad was an accomplished athlete at Fall Mountain Regional in Langdon and, later, at Keene State College. Carlton’s son Casey played baseball in col-lege and the minor leagues, and Conrad’s daughter Car-rah was a soccer and softball player who is in the Keene State hall of fame.

The stories go on, and they all start with Cecil, who died Jan. 13 at the age of 97. He was a basketball player and tennis player of some renown.

Cecil was driving the family tractor when he was 95, while Conrad and brother Cedric hauled hay, and he was still splitting wood last year.

“We’re very thankful to have that gene,” Carrah Fisk Hennessey said of her grand-father. “He was amazing.”

Carrah said Casey came

across the Life picture doing a search on the Internet shortly after Cecil’s death.

“It was the coolest thing ever,” Carrah said. “The Fisk resemblance is very strong.”

Times along the Connecti-cut River are a lot different from 1950.

Stevens sold his farm and that funny-looking barn to Dearborn, who sold it to George and Ramona Schmid in 1968. The Schmids stopped dairy farming almost 15 years ago. They now run a craft shop across the street, and a neighbor rents the Round Barn to house his beef cattle.

The Groveton mills have closed, the last in 2008, and the North Country region in which they’re located is trying to get through tough econom-ic times. Yankee Magazine and the Old Farmer’s Alma-nac still remain in the hands of Sagendorph’s relatives.

Jones & Lamson closed down shortly after Cecil retired in 1978. So did the other machine tool shops in that area.

The Connecticut River may not pump as much life into the region as it used to, but the stories — and the pictures by Margaret Bourke-White — keep those memories preserved.

George Schmid said he found a copy of the Nov. 6, 1950, Life that he bought at an antique show awhile back, and Conrad Fisk said there is another copy the family has, but he’s not sure where.

Probably in a drawer some-where. .

E-mail sta! writer Jim Fennell at jfennell@unionleader.com.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

Martha Smith flips through a book of Zentangle drawings during a workshop at Deerfield Community School on Tuesday night.

Saying Zentangle is the same as doodling “is like saying yoga is the same as stretching; one is mindful, the other mindless.”

SANDY STEEN BARTHOLOMEWWarner artist and Zentangle teacher and author

CONCORD — Dress for Suc-cess is encouraging women nationwide to donate one new or nearly new interview suit during S.O.S. — Send One Suit — Weekend, an annual campaign to help disadvantaged woman enter the workforce.

Dressbarn, the national sponsor and S.O.S. drop-off location, will accept dona-tions during the campaign, which starts Thursday and ends next Sunday.

Dress for Success New Hampshire will receive the suits donated at dressbarn locations in Manchester, Nashua, North Hampton, Til-ton, Concord, North Conway, Stoneham Mass., Norwood,

Mass., Burlington, Vt., and Brattleboro, Vt.

During the campaign’s eight years, more than 315,000 suits and career sepa-rates have been donated.

“Dress for Success isn’t just about giving a woman a busi-ness suit; it is about setting her up for success. It is about changing lives,” said Krysten Evans, executive director of Dress for Success New Hampshire.

The international not-for-profi t organization also helps disadvantaged women by providing a network of sup-port and career development tools.

.

For more information, visit www.dressforsuccess.org/newhampshire.

Dress for Success puts out an S.O.S. to help women

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