Assemblage

This piece lingered on my table for almost the whole last year, until I got tired of it. So tired that I gave myself un ultimatum: finish or garbage. It is finished enough to be hanged on the wall.

This is a piece of countertop from IKEA assorted with screws, discarded metal pieces, rusted wired, a  "mumified" rose bud (rose bud encassed in acrylic medium), dryer sheets, tea leaves, pages from a Bible, a label from "Delirium tremens" beer, a piece of mirror, a transparency, glasses of course, a piece of orage "priority" luggage tag, a piece of circuit board, a toy car...

Altered frames

A friend of mine gave me the liberty to alter these 3 frames in whichever way I wanted. Hmmm ...that is a risky proposition to make - never know what comes out of it!

Here are the altered frames:

Framed face paintings

I took advantage of some time off between Christams and New Years and I framed the face paintings from Phoenix.

One is mounted on a canvass - backgroud graffitti style.
The other one is mounted on a piece of altered canvas. I used unstretched canvass, caulking, papers, found objects and paint. In both cases, I sew the faces on the fabric.

Creative outlets

This was the third deMeng class - and the wildest. First, I mixed up the venues. How I managed to do that on the last day of the retreat I have no clue. But I did - and I came in late. I gathered junk from the common pile (as I did not have any metallic objects, mesh, wire or any of these things) and I started playing with it. Again, no idea what I was doing, no theme, no plan. Just texture at the beginning and then color.
I made 2 pieces - one rectangular (an old photo frame) and one round. I thought about them as 2 separate pieces until Michale looked at them and decided they belonged together. And in fact they look much better together than apart - with the round piece on top of the rectangular one. And there are common elements between the 2 (the game aspect of the pieces). In part. they reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

Morpheus box

This was the second class with Michael deMeng. The process was the same, except that I was frustrated most of the day. I am not sure why, I think I panicked, afraid that I will not finish, I forgot the paints this time so I had to go around borrowing from people. It was also the first time I tried to incorporate more junk in the pieces. I think I found the end result to dark. In the end though, after a good might sleep, I like the way it turned out. And I finally found a place for the small gourd I brought from the Camino de Santiago!

Each side of the mobile piece in the middle has a saint or a buddha. I regret not having taken a voice recorder with me. Michael's comments at the end of the session were very good; they would have been helpful now on one hand to remind me about my pieces and also to help form an eye for things to look for in a piece so that I c an improve my work.

I can see clearly now

This is the first class I took with Michael deMeng in Phoenix. It was also the begging of the mix ups that lasted the whole week. I forgot to bring the box that was part of the supplies. I was convinced I needed it for the Wednesday class! So here I am with nothing to work on. Luckily I found a cigar box at the supply booth - I liked it au naturel and I almost felt guilty to alter it. But the end result was interesting and unexpected of course as I did not have a plan and not a clue how it will look like. This piece was sold.

Assemblage

Michael deMeng taught 4 classes in Phoenix. I took 3 of them. I don't think I ever worked so hard for fun! There was so much to do and I wanted to finish my pieces. I altered a cigar box, made the Morpheus box and 2 sculptures using electrical outlets. All of these pieces use junk parts from the junk yard. I had to follow my intuition - there was not enough time to change the design around too much. I'd grab the stuff that appealed to me for whatever reason (I did not question anything. For those who know me, thes might be a surprise as I suspect they will all agree that there is not one thing under the Sun that I do not turn upside down. But that is a whole other story). Then, with a generous amount of caulking, stick everything together. Pray that it dries. When prayers did not work, used all other means to my disposal to speed the process (heat gun, sun). Apply washes. Screw, nail, glue, wire, tie bits and pieces. Some people knew what they wanted to make, they had a theme and all the necessary doodas to get where they wanted to go. Not me. I have hard time working with a theme. 99% of the things I made start the same way, sometimes from a focal image, a color, something I find on my desk. I keep adding to it until I feel the piece is complete. Then I try to read the story. There is a story in everything I make,except I do not know it all.
I will post pictures of the finished pieces soon.