“…a cyber-pioneer…”
“…[one of] literature’s electronic visionaries…”
–Kelly Milner Halls, “Exploring E-zines: A Literary Revolution Online” 2001 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market interview with Valerie MacEwan
PhotoGeneration of Pictographic Southern Reality, 2014-2016
completion expected but not executed as of this date, whatever date you are reading this sentence.
With the purchase of a couple marvelous cameras, this project is taking longer than budgeted time allowed due to the response of family, friends, and the environment. Grandsons Oliver and Emmett became of age this year. An age wherein they contribute mightily to my creative endeavors both verbally and artistically.
Yall might find me on FaceBook.com/deadmule as Crash MacEwan or more simply, go to facebook.com/deadmuleschool for public forum about southern literary ideals.
Studio Recultivation Project Ongoing
BeeBaby Games for iPad, iPod, iPhone fun. These games are based on my art. They are created by Robert MacEwan, see bee baby games for information. This project on hold in 2016.
Fluxus Board Games: original games with pieces, boards and unique instructions.
Desktop Assemblage Kits
About This Artist:
Valerie MacEwan
Val MacEwan (°1954, Rockford, Illinois, United States) is an artist who mainly works with mixed media. With Plato’s allegory of the cave in mind, MacEwan makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing.
Her mixed media artworks are an investigation into representations of (seemingly) concrete ages and situations as well as depictions and ideas that can only be realized in mixed media art. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, she presents everyday objects as well as references to texts, painting and architecture. Pompous writings and Utopian constructivist designs are juxtaposed with trivial objects. Categories are subtly reversed.
Her works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image. With the use of appropriated materials which are borrowed from a day-to-day context, she makes work that deals with the documentation of events and the question of how they can be presented. The work tries to express this with the help of physics and technology, but not by telling a story or creating a metaphor.
She creates situations in which everyday objects are altered or detached from their natural function. By applying specific combinations and certain manipulations, different functions and/or contexts are created.
To the Readers and Those Who Wish to Contact Valerie MacEwan:
If you need to get in touch with me via the internets, the best email address is now the iCloud.com one. While I still utilize the deadmule ampersat gmail.com one — the vmacewan email address is easiest to check on my iPhone. So, in conclusion, one should address electronic mail to me via at the aforementioned iCloud. Simply fill in the blanks and apply your little web-savvy intellect to figure out how to address it. Consider it thusly: You know “valmacewan” will be followed by an ampersat followed by that google electronic mail thing then a period, and com …
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.
“…a cyber-pioneer…”
“…[one of] literature’s electronic visionaries…”
–Kelly Milner Halls, “Exploring E-zines: A Literary Revolution Online” 2001 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market, interview w/MacEwan
As the Literary Assemblagist, my role in the galaxy is to prepare the universe for eventual organic discussions of evolutionary economic environmental art projects. Really… I dreamed about it last night. My dreams are clusterflux of imagination and form. It’s a new decade, it’s a new Flux, it’s a new day for us all! More IUOMA, more FluXus, more fun.
Visit International Union of Mail-Artists
“Yup, it’s true. More than a decade ago, my visionary genius – documented and duly recorded – became public knowledge. Today the legend continues. While my assemblage art profoundly echoes the transient themes of yesterday’s blog posts, recording the unresponsive multitudinous presence of too many illiterate masses, current dogma remains intact. Thusly supposed, creationism relates not to mammalian evolutionary processes but instead to the mixed media representations of juxtaposed virtual and concrete forms.”
–Valerie MacEwan, “Endlessly Quoting Myself” 2011, interview w/me
V H MacEwan is the editor/publisher of the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She studied creative writing in Holland at the Ploughshares International Fiction Writing Seminar; received a grant from the NC Arts Council to fund the original print issue of The Dead Mule, and is an outspoken advocate of Linux and open source software Her writing has appeared in numerous places like the Mississippi Review, Tattoo Highway, The Asheville Poetry Review, Night Train Magazine and others. She spent 3 years as the Books Editor and Featured Columnist for Popmatters Magazine of Global Culture. While she helped to incorporate WebDelSol as a non-profit organization, work continued on the sadly now defunct wow-schools.net project. Dancing with Uncle Virgil, a literary work-in-progress, has been in the “edit” stage for over 17 years. Genius is slow to boil but mighty tasty when finished cooking. Google Valerie MacEwan. Apture Valerie MacEwan. Image search for Valerie MacEwan.
Visit THE EPHEMERA NETWORK
Current project working title: Pseudo-Scientifica. Photos of work-in-progress online were by April 15th, just in time for when the taxman cameth. Read Ideal Absolutes. After you read macewan.org, pop on over to Janis Owen’s “Cracker Kitchen” website, check out the book and then leave a nice comment about how fantastic the site looks (as it was created by yours truly because Janis is one talented woman. Curiously, when writing in the third person I find myself at a loss for words…)
Assemblage Projects — this section drastically needs to be updated for 2011 and 2012 shows and Fine Arts competitions and etc. Work completed 2013 not yet included and geezus h christmas, it’s december and it’s still not on here. damn.
Current Motivation — FREE ART. The “Take it! It’s Yours!” art project.
Art House Coop Projects [Atlanta, GA incarnation, now in Brooklyn, NY]
Million Little Pictures
Sketchbook Project
The Canvas Project
Beaufort County Arts Council:
Little Art Show [fundraiser, contributed 5 — 8″x10″ canvases]
Member’s Art Show 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
Washington County Arts Council Fine Arts Show 2010
Honorable Mention 3-D
2008
First Place, Muli-Media
2006
Overall Excellence Award from the Chairman
IUOMA [mail art]
Fluxus St. Louis
IUOMA
PROJET D’ART POSTAL 2009/2010
ILLUSTREZ UNE PERIODE OU UN EVENEMENT DE L’HISTOIRE DE VOTRE PAYS
and more… still counting…
Francis P. Hormenckel Artist Show
Juried Competition
Fall 2011
First Place, Watercolor/Acrylic Stools
Honorable Mention, 3D
Buried Wombat Fine Arts Show
Juried Competition
Fall 2010
First Place, 3D
Second Place, Watercolor
Incremental Oxidation Fine Arts Show
Juried Competition
Fall 2009
First Place, 3D
Honorable Mention, 3D
Beaufort County Art Council Fine Arts Show
Juried Competition
Fall 2008
First Place, 3D
Honorable Mention, 3D
Beaufort County Art Council Fine Arts Show
Fall 2006
Juried Competition
3rd Place – 3D
Honrable Mention – 3D
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About the scholar. Education | |
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East Carolina University, Greenville, NC nBachelor of Arts, History, major. Political Science/English, minor. nHonors graduate. nGraduate School: East Carolina University, History. Emerson University, Boston, MA, Creative Writing, nUndergraduate work: University of South Carolina-Aiken, SC Dual Major History/Political Science; University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. | |
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Awards, Affiliations, Publications | |
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Attended Ploughshares International Fiction Writing Seminar; Well, The Netherlands, 1996. Phi Alpha Theta International History Honors Society East Carolina University Graduate Fellowship recipient NC Arts Council Literary Grant recipient Published: PIF Magazine; The Rebel; Asheville Poetry Review; The Kostroma Writer’s Project, a Russian collaboration, Publisher/Editor: The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature Books Editor and Columnist for Popmatters.com Assistant Editor: The Rebel, East Carolina University Literary Magazine. Editor/Freelance Technical Writer/Grant Writer: Various in-house publications & newsletters; Grant Writer; Standard Operating Procedure guides; Organizational inter-official residual verbage extrapolator; |
Links to my genius:
Washington NC Historic District 
2 responses to “About (2/21/2009)”
Dear Valarie MacEwan of the Dead Mule,
The beauty of the online journal is the easy access to writers and readers. We at Caper Literary Journal and Caper Books/Patasola Press would like to extend a hand to fellow magazines and help our readers understand the vast network of online journals that live on the internet and keep literature alive. Would you be interested in being added to our list of links for our viewers in return for adding our link to yours? If you don’t have a link or resource list, that is not a problem.
Thank you for your consideration – and thanks for putting great work out there!
Sincerely,
Lisa Marie Basile
Editor
Nick Sweeney
Editorial Assistant
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I am an MFA graduate of Emerson and I teach creative writing and Southern LIt. in Wilmington, NC. I recently submitted a poem to Dead Mule and I am wondering if you routinely send out rejections if the work is not accepted? I submitted a few months ago and a colleague of mine has recently published with Dead Mule and told me the “turn around” time was about 2 weeks. If I hear nothing should I assume it was rejected? What is the Mule’s process?
Thanks very much; I am enjoying learning about you and your work.
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