Is the Pen Mightier Than the Sword? Let's Find Out!

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to spend the day in one of Michael deMeng's classes at Stamper's Warehouse. Michael is an assemblage artist who creates shrines and other relics from all sorts of things, such as electrical outlets, light bulbs, Pez dispensers, and Hot Wheels cars. When he is done with them, you can barely tell what the source object started life out as. The depth of color and texture in his work is particularly intriguing to me. I loved what I saw of it in Terry Taylor's The Altered Object and Michael's new book, The Secrets of Rusty Things, provides even more visual intrigue.

For our class - Holy Rollers Hot Wheels - he showed us how to create an assemblage using a Hot Wheels car as the base. We brought our own cars and then, over the course of a day, built them up anyway we liked using all sorts of odds and ends (hardware, jewelry, plastic toys, leftover packaging, cosmetic supplies). We used the paint techniques that Michael shared with us to create a variety of weathered, deep, and mysterious looks. Of course, everyone interpreted these techniques in their own way, so no pieces looked alike. It was really wonderful to see what everyone came up with.

Many people did like Michael and created shrines that, when hung on the wall, looked nothing like cars. I embraced the car theme and just took it over the top. I created two cars. The first started out with a pirate theme but took a sharp left toward Grateful Dead when I found my metal roses:

My second took on a pretty-but-dangerous theme, with aged glitz and a little bling:

Deco-Goth...a bit like me. (wink!)

Kathy's creations had wonderful color and texture, very subtle yet complex. Here's one of hers:

That's a pen nib on the front. This is another angle:

At the end of the class, Michael did a discussion/critique on the cars. He is very articulate in expressing what works for a piece, so it was quite educational to hear what he had to say about each one (as well as how each artist viewed her own work).

After the critique, we went outside (where Michael had set up the lovely orange Hot Wheels track) and conducted the races. Now that's a lot of fun! We raced the cars in two's as we winnowed them down to the finalists, then raced the finalists against each other. For the last race, it was down to two cars - my Grateful Dead-mobile and Kathy's pen nib car. As they set up the cars at the top of the track, I said, "We'll see if the pen really is mightier than the sword!"

And the answer? Nope! The sword is mightier! Bwahahahahaha! I win I win I win!

Not that it mattered - once we were down to the last race, we knew we were winners. The Michael deMeng original would be on display in our home no matter what the result:

If you ever get a chance to take a class from Michael, for goodness' sake, do it! I have been working with glazed layers of paint for several years now and I still learned a lot from how he works. The way he showed us how to transform plastic objects was alone worth the cost of admission - lucky me that I learned much more than that! Thanks, Michael.

Similar yarns

• Artsy-Craftsy Adventures

Technorati Tags: Artsy-Craftsy Adventures

• ‹ previous
• 335 of 409
• next ›