Unique Draw: Artist April Couch's Totally Tangled Creations

In her Akron studio and shop in late June, artist April Couch sat at her desk to continue working on a wooden tray covered with white chalk paint and her drawings of a large flower and cherries. She used a fine-tip Identi pen to swiftly add olives until there were bunches. This piece is one of her Totally Tangled Creations — featuring her freehand ink drawings on bowls, vases and more.

“It helps me focus when I do this — literally, I leave the world,” says Couch from her Summit Artspace business. “I don’t think about anything except for where the next design or pattern is going to go.”

Growing up, the Alabama native-turned-Akron transplant was always drawing. But her high school counselor advised her to go into something more practical than art, so she got her degree in business administration and management from Baldwin Wallace University. For years, she worked in banking — but art remained her first love.

“At the bank, my calendar on my desk would be full of doodles,” she recalls.

After 17 years, she left the bank in 2002 to stay at home and raise her three kids. By the time they had grown up, she was substitute teaching and searching for a new path. In 2011, while shopping at Pat Catan’s, she saw a book about Zentangle. The art method involves using lines and dots to create drawings in a structured manner. She joined the Zentangle club at the Cuyahoga Falls Library.

“Zentangle is literally a step-by-step way to make a pattern … or a tangle,” says Couch. “It’s very meditative because what you’re doing is repetitive motions.”

In November 2011, the club did an art show that included her ink drawings on paper. By the time she made it to the show at the Cuyahoga Falls Library after church, 11 of the 12 pieces were sold.

“I’m crying, and I told my husband, This is what I want to do with the rest of my life,” she says.

She launched Totally Tangled in 2011, had a Canton shop in 2014 and 2015 and moved into Summit Artspace in 2016. She uses her degree to run it as a business, diversifying her products by printing her drawings on T-shirts, cards and more. Her art incorporates aspects of Zentangle along with her own designs to create a unique signature style.

“You’ll see a lot of what they call Zentangle patterns in my work, but you’ll also see flowers and leaves — ginkgo leaves and dogwood blooms and different things like that, daisies,” says Couch, adding that she also finds inspiration in architecture, fashion and more.

She sources pieces to draw on from thrift and retail stores, garage sales and online sources, including one that sells her cedar burls. At Home Goods, she found a metal vessel that she sanded, covered with orange chalk paint, drew on and finished with a light satin sealer.

“You will see that flower in everything — that’s my signature,” says Couch, gesturing to a large bloom in the center of that orange vessel, which took her over 55 hours to complete.

“I put those on first … and then I do everything else organically around them.”

For her most popular pieces, she gets dried hard-bodied gourds from places like Amish Country and Pennsylvania, carves them out, smooths the inside with a ball sander and then paints them. She adds elements to many — such as an oversized gourd she painted white, decorated with tribal pattern drawings and topped with woven pine needles, artificial sinew and a tassel leather belt. It took 85 hours to complete.

Her art shows highlight pieces spanning birds, eggs, pumpkins, vessels and more. See her at Ohio Mart Oct. 1 to 4 at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens. Also visit her at Summit Artspace during her business hours, Small Business Saturday and Artist Sunday Thanksgiving weekend — or as part of the new After Hours series Aug. 13, Sept. 10, Oct. 15, Nov. 12 and Dec. 10.

Although she didn’t pursue art until she was 43, she is thrilled to finally be living out her passion.

“I get to sit and do what I love doing as often as I want,” she says. “It takes me to my happy place.”

Inside Summit Artspace, 140 E. Market St., Studio 301, 330-294-1029, Akron,

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