Remember the story, the Island of Dr. Moreau? A mad scientists starts mixing people with animal…manimals, if you will…Well I thought it might be kind of fun to play around with that in an art project. So the idea is that you’ll head to the laboratory and take animal toys and mix them with human toys, then mount them in a frame to create a 3d sideshow banner. Your own Sideshow freakazoids! half-man/half-beast. Step right up! See the Rhino Boy, and the Octopus Haired Woman!
Supply List:
- Gaudy old frames (probably nothing larger than 8”x10”, but really that is up to you)
IMPORTANT: Needs to have some sort of backing! It can’t just be a hollow frame we need it to have a backing to build our relief on.
- Animal toys, doll parts, toy figurines, various body parts from models. The figures on trophies work really well too.
- Variety of found objects:
Items that correspond with the size of the frame. These will be used on the frame as well as around the interior portrait. Could literally be anything.
Bits of ephemera, text, and other paper images.
- Paint Brushes (a couple small detail brushes, and some cheap brushes (1/2 inch to 1 inch in size)
- Paint (acrylic…preferably Golden brand…either fluid or heavy body will work):
- Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold
- Nickel Azo Yellow
- Black (Mars or Carbon)
- Titanium White
- Pthalo Green (blue shade)
- Dioxazine Purple
- Van Dyke Brown
- Paynes Gray
- Quinacridone Crimson
- Adhesives:
- Aves Apoxie Clay ¼ lbs or more
- Dap Kwik Seal for kitchen and bath -White. Should say paintable or water base acrylic or latex.
- E6000
Optional
- Heat gun
- Dremel with cut-off wheel
A Little About ME
Michael deMeng is an artist who travels the world teaching and creating mixed media shrines and deMented toys. He has exhibited throughout the world with is unique style of assemblage. His book, “Secrets of Rusty Things”, published by North Light Books was released in May of 2007. His second book, Dusty Diablos focuses on his love affair with Mexico and the art it inspires.
Artist statement:
Discarded materials find new and unexpected uses in my work; they are reassembled and conjoined with unlikely components, a form of rebirth from the ashes into new life and new meaning. These assemblages are metaphors for the evolutions and revolutions of existence: from life to death to rebirth, from new to old to renewed, from construction to destruction to reconstruction. These forms are examinations of the world in perpetual flux, where meaning and function are ever changing.
