We are set up. After entering with thousands and thousands of other artist worldwide from dozens and dozens of countries back in April "WE ARE IN and SET UP!". Each artist or group of artists must register thier work with pictures and described needs for the piece and space needed and wait to see of they are chosen by one of the 161 venues to offer the space for the competiton. ONLY 1500 pieces were chosen to compete for the $560,000 in prize money. The Employees and Curator of the Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum contacted us and asked if anyone had contacted us about a venue to display. The employees had voted unanimousy for THE CHASE and were very excited about getting it into the lobby of the museum. We were thrilled and started the paperwork months ago. Yesterday we put up "THE CHASE" in the main lobby of the musuem. I talked with Jim Kratsas,the curator, and he told me that over the next three weeks almost 200,000 people will go thru the musuem during ARTPRIZE 2012. The entire city of Grand Rapids Michigan in a 3 sq mile area will display 1500 works of art in these various venues. Hunters and sportpeople and taxidermits if your in Grand Rapids during Artprize please look us up at the museum and register then please give a vote "The Chase" # 5 2 5 1 1 .





























Producing the Highest Quality Custom Wildlife Taxidermy Art.
Visit our Studio Online at:
The Artistry of Wildlife
"2009 World Champions"
"Best in World Combined Artists"
World Taxidermy Championships
" 2010 Michigan State Champion"


Email:
info@artistryofwildlife.com

GOOD LUCK, Dennis and crew!

What a truly amazing work of art. Best of luck!

Fabulous!

Dennis where and when is this? Is it open to the public?

A "must have" for every living room!

Very nice work!

Grand Rapids Michigan
Now through Oct 5

Simply awesome

Dennis's "The Chase" is in the top 10 at this point. Some very stiff competition. He and the crew are the only taxidermy "art" in the competition. Lots of really nice stuff but in my mind his is either going to be number one or number two. The other art piece is one where the artist got a great photo of hundreds of Chinese lanterns being released over the city at night. Great skill but a lot of luck as well as the winds could have destroyed the plan. What will tell in the end is more in the eye of the beholder and the critics I think. Final voting now through I think the 5th.

Would love to see that in person, don't believe I can take it all in in a picture. Any chance of a picture from the side a little farther away?

Good news from Mike! Hope you do win.

Do a search for artprize. There are some pictures of the top 10. Also some explanations of the pieces. Great event. Tickets for the finals can be bought through ticket hub. If I remember correctly they were $15.00 each. Anyone in the area should take it in. Pretty cool event. Also if present you can cast one vote for your number one finalist. After the public voting is done the art critics then get to make there decisions. I do not know exactly how it works but the final standings are determined from that. Anyway, once again congratulations to Dennis and crew up to this point. Good luck on the final competition!

Well artprize is finished. Dennis got shafted in my mind. Ill explain that in a minute. In the end he ended up 8th. IMHO he should have been any one of the top three. Everyone there that day loved his piece "The Chase". Now the votes are the votes so I cant argue with that. Here is the explanation part. In my mind because of the type of crowd and competition this was I think taxidermy started out in the hole. Two reasons. First a lot of that crowd are anti hunting and trapping. I tend to believe there is some bias there because of that. Second, no matter how much creative thought and work went into the project I don't think they get it. What I mean by that is they do not consider it on the same level as painting, drawing, sculpture, et all. They do not understand the process in making a taxidermy sculpture for lack of a better word. They also do not then see that it takes all of those art form skills as well as others. So my long winded explanation means simply they can not then have proper appreciation for the piece. My last bit of my rant to show this is a 3 paneled jury awarded I think 100k but it might have been as low as 25k to an entry that was not even in the top 25. It made some kind of urban statement. Basically it was a bunch of junk picked up around Detroit, painted bright garish colors, and "arranged" in a 3D "art form" outside. IMHO it sucked! So what I am saying is Dennis and crew did great by coming in 8th out of 1500 or so entries but no real payday. Except for things like this jury award the real money stops at third. Now that I have said what I needed to.

THAT WAS A HELL OF AN ACCOMPLISHMENT GENTLEMEN!