The Big Give-away.

Appropriating Words

It’s the holiday season and in the spirit of this time of year I have decided to give away a piece of my art. Last year I had a similar event where I asked everyone to email me on a particular day, at a particular time. I opted not to do this method again, considering it caused quite a problem with my email provider when hundreds of emails hit them all at once. This year it will be a competition of wit and intellect. Are you up for the challenge?

This year’s competition is a competition of words, in particular, creating new words. This idea came to me after my friend and artist, Nicole McConville invented a word to describe her work: sigilation. In her case she took the word sigil and modified it to suit her own meaning, in a different form. Check out her site at www.sigilation.com I was fascinated by the concept of inventing a word to describe one’s art. This is nothing new,really, artists have been doing it for a long time. Dada, Modernism, Montage are a few examples of artistic inventions. Your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to invent a an word pertaining to art.

It could be a noun, verb, whatever, but it MUST be original and not appear in any dictionary.

Submission guidelines READ CAREFULLY!!!!!!!

• Invent a word. It must somehow relate to art, artists, the artistic process, or creativity.
  
• It can be any type of word, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.
• The submission must be original and not appear in any dictionary.
• You can create it from an existing root word. For instance: Neo-shrinalist (a term I jokingly use to describe my art) would be acceptable or as in Nicole’s case: sigilation from the root sigil.
• A nonsense word would also be acceptable (Dada would be an example of an invented nonsense word).
• The word must be submitted as an actual dictionary entry.
• It must have a pronunciation key. You might need to cut and paste the symbols into your entry.
• Your submission(s) must be emailed to me at assemblage@michaeldemeng.com by January 3^rd 2007
• THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: The subject line of the email must read: artspeak (it needs to be one word, in lower case. Any variation in the above spelling will never reach the selection committee.
• Two submissions per person…that’s it no more.

The Selection Process

The judges will consist of Nicole McConville and myself. The entries will be judged on the following merits.

1. Is it original?
2. Does it pertain to art, the art process, or some aspect of creativity?
3. Is it inventive or witty?
4. Does it roll off the tongue?
5. Is it catchy?
6. Did the entrant follow the submission guidelines?

The Prize:

Keeping with the theme of the competition I have created an assemblage piece using a old dictionary. It is valued at $500

The Winner

The winner will be announced on January 19^th via email. The winner’s entry and the entries of the twenty-one runner-ups will be posted on my site (www.michaeldemeng.com) and on my blog (www.michaeldemeng.blogspot.com).

Good luck and happy wordsmithing,

Michael deMeng

Changes

Hey

the prospectus for the give-away will be posted in a few days. A few things have to be figured out.
I just finished the piece of art for the prize. It's an assemblage book-shrine. I will post an image with the info.

Also I've changed my site a bit. I'm getting it ready for some changes that will be happing in May.

thats it for now, I need to get ready for some skiing...snow is everywhere....woooohooo.

for now I'll give you something to look at...a recent commission.


ciao,
Michael

deMeng Holiday give-away coming next week

Hey eveyone,

ART Give-away
Last year I gave a piece of art away for the holiday. I've decided to do it again this year. Next week I'll announce the specifics, but to give you the heads up, it is more of a competition and should be pretty fun. So stay tuned and more info will come your way. I'll give you a clue (though I don't think it will help figure out the nature of the competition), go to Nicole McConville's site: www.sigilation.com
Next week it will all make sense...I can't wait. Now I have to go and make the prize.
Tell all your friends, the more entries the more interesting.

Are you curious yet?

Next order of business
thanks for all the comments on "My Favorite Piece...Ever"
to Jane:
Onion...hmmm

to Carolyn:
Yes, anything I teach at Saluda will address the techniques used in this piece

to Hilari:
ding ding ding...correct! those are car beads

to Miz Carla
yep a ton of liquid nails...see you in Virginia.

to Peggi
I do love it when it comes together...finally!



talk soon,
Michael
p.s. I guess I won't have time to clean my studio.

My Favorite Piece...EVER

Okay, so I've created my favorite piece of art to date. Periodically this happens where you finish a piece in which you surprise yourself of what you are capable of. This is such a piece. Sometimes you wonder what happened on that particular day. Was it the blend of coffee I drank? Was it the Seinfeld episode that was on the night before? Who knows? All I know it is moments like this that keep me creating. Making art is emotionally exhausting, and very seldom a blissfull experience. For me it is a battle with myself to find something worthy of sharing. Some pieces are less of a battle and fall right into place, while others drive me to the brink of smashing the art into smithereens.

Like most of my work, the piece is intuitive. At first I had no idea what it was about, then, at the end of the internal tug of war, I realized it's meaning. It's quite a personal piece and won't go into detail, but it has to do with the city of Sienna, Italy...thus the title "Sienna"

Hope you enjoy,
ciao,
Michael

Dia de los Muertos 2007

Hey all

As many of you know the city of Oaxaca is in turmoil...it is so sad. What a beautiful place. Hopefully it can be that same magical city and everything will calm down. This has put the Day of the Dead workshop (2007) in the land of question marks. I have been talking to Colleen Darling (my organizer) and we are looking at a few options. Perhaps things will miraculously turn around and all will be well in a year. Another option that has popped up is moving it out of Mexico (there are really only a few places that celebrate D.O.D. with the zest of Oaxaca), and into Antigua Guatamala (the picture above is Antigua- I was amazed at how much it reminds me of Oaxaca). Apparently Day of the Dead is well celebrated there. We are checking with everyone who wants to go and see what sort of consensus there is. So just thought I'd keep everyone informed for now.

And Gris,

If you buy that place...you bet I'll be there with whoever wants to follow.

Came across some nice work by Peggi

These two pieces are by Peggi Meyer Graminski. Thought they were quite nice...not to mention appropriate in relation to my last post.. Check out more of her work at http://desertphotography.blogspot.com/

Happy Day of the Dead

Days of the Dead are underway. I just got back fromValley Ridge after a great weekend of teaching and friends and food. Oh...and I spoke to a dead person...actually she spoke to me. Not going to go into that right now, I must ponder this a bit, but very wierd, and I'll leave it at that.

The above image is my ofrenda (dia de los muertos altar), which I just completed. About 15 years ago my friend Bev Glueckert and myself started a contemporary arts festival based on the Mexican holiday. Bev and I retired from the organizing position about 5 years ago, but it is still going on. Tomorrow is the procession..thousands of skeletons and giant puppets wandering down the Missoula night time street. Check it out if your in the area...its amazing...but dress warm. I have to go as el Diablo, because I'm playing a judge in the Miss Dead Debutante Pageant...hosted by Burnt Parts.

Today the SteamRoller prints are being made (large banner prints for the parade pressed by steamroller). Very cool and done by the printmaking department of the University of Montana.

Here's the link to Missoula's Festival of the Dead

see you there,
M