Montanye Arts
Press Releases
February 21, 2007
Jeffrey Montanye
Montanye Arts Publishing
PO Box 148
Bullville, NY 10915
www.mazezing.com
jmontanye@earthlink.net
(845)361-2029
Maze Zing, an Amazing Book that Brings Mazes to Life!
ISBN 0-9779702-0-5
Author Jeffrey Montanye makes his début with his first book "Maze Zing, Junk Drawer Jewels." Five more maze books are to follow. If you enjoy sinking deep into labyrinths of illustrated barriers, finding your way from point A to point B, be prepared to lose yourself in "Maze Zing." What makes this book different are the photographs. These are not your every day illustrated coloring-book mazes. Creator Jeffrey Montanye has grafted his photography experience and love for mazes together to build intriguing puzzles from photographs. At some point, every refrigerator door has donned a handful of magnetic alphabet letters but in "Maze Zing", almost one thousand of the brightly colored letters were used to create the maze "Easy as ABC." Every maze is carefully put together using hundreds or even thousands of an item you might find in a junk drawer. The book is designed for kids eight and up but adults love it just the same.
The author has made himself available to schools, libraries and camps for presentations about writing a children's book. In his presentations, children get a hands-on feel of what it is like to create a book. Children get a chance to build their own book of mazes and riddles and have it printed as a hard cover book that they can display in their classroom or even have it placed in the school library. The presentations are designed to encourage kids to get out from in front of the video games and television and put their own imaginations to work for them. Jeff believes that real life is better than any reality TV show and he has the experience to prove it. From starting up and running many businesses as a kid to hiking eleven-hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail at the age of twenty, Jeff has a mountain of stories to grab the interest of any child.
Jeffrey Montanye grew up in Orange County New York. Since he was a child, he was always inventing and building toys and games and other useful devices. He has won ribbons and awards with his photography work and has had several toy and game inventions reviewed by toy companies and agencies. Jeff has an education and work background in electrical engineering and currently runs a shop where he designs and creates personalized books from people's photo albums. He also teaches classes on digital photography, video and computerized scrap-booking. His other interests include building remote control aircraft and model railroading. He enjoys hiking and biking however, lately creating books has taken most of his time. Amongst all his jobs and hobbies, his favorite is reading books to children.
"Maze Zing, Junk Drawer Jewels" will be available on Amazon.com at the beginning of July and will be sold in local book stores soon after. For information you can visit Jeff's web site at www.mazezing.com or call (845)361-2029.
To arrange a book signing or interview, contact Jeff Montanye at (845)361-2029 or jmontanye@earthlink.net
February 21, 2007
Jeffrey Montanye
Montanye Arts Publishing
PO Box 148
Bullville, NY 10915
www.mazezing.com
jmontanye@earthlink.net
(845)361-2029
Amazing mazes created from real life stuff!
ISBN 0-9779702-0-5
When you think of mazes, what comes to mind? An illustrated or computer created puzzle? Not so with Jeffrey Montanye, 38 year-old computer technician from Bullville, New York. Montanye uses objects which he aligns carefully end to end or side by side to create mazes. Objects such as fish hooks, dice, macaroni, Christmas lights, even safety pins and candy are used to form mazes which are photographed with a digital camera. These are no ordinary mazes. "With these mazes, it's not just quality, it's quantity," Montanye says as he brags about how many items are used in each maze. Nine hundred refrigerator letter magnets were used to create the maze "Easy as ABC." Eight hundred safety pins in "Stick It to Me" and over six pounds of candy Valentine hearts in "To the One I Love." Most of the items are purchased through on-line auctions or yard sales and flea markets but some are purchased in local stores. Montanye gets the strangest looks when he is purchasing for a maze. "You should have seen them at the party store when I dumped twenty packages of fake ants onto the counter containing over four thousand ants." Some mazes can be seen online at www.mazezing.com but most are being reserved for a series of books Montanye is writing titled Maze Zing. The books can be purchased through Amazon.com.
It's not the mazes that intrigue Montanye, it's the challenge. "I enjoy creating things that work and function and take on a life of their own. It's not just the art work or the book itself, it's the whole entity that the project becomes: designing the book, selling the book, people enjoying the book and creating a demand for the next book," Montanye says. He has been designing toys and games and creating businesses since he was eight. Many projects have been built and discarded over the years including a five foot long replica of Noah's ark made from thousands of popsicle sticks and a realistic model railroad which took up half the attic. This time the projects will last a lifetime through the books that Montanye produces.
Click Here For more interesting facts regarding Jeff and his experiences with self publishing, inventions he created, entrepreneur experiences as a child and adult, 1,100 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail and overcoming a severe stuttering problem. These are interesting points of discusion for group visits.