"Abstract Art" by benchen71

[KayW]

Answer confirmed... now, to find the mechanism!

EDIT: Got it - Nice one, Ben!

[benchen71]

Here's the list of solvers I woke up to this morning!

kieranjboyd
whimsy
Laura M
Dow Jones
Jeremy Smith
Will
spid4567
Cinny
Mike D
Capn Rick
Dplass
comp
Tom Wilson
boharr
woozy
Meg
Carolyn
wendy walker
Bird Lives
MamaEllen
Idriss Z
Mwoychick
CAe39
CPJohnson
markhr

[Bird Lives]

For those of you who worked the answer out from the hints provided: there definitely is a mechanism in the grid to be found!

Definitely, but as I said in my comment to Meg, it helps if you speak Strine.

[CPJohnson]

I got it; thanks, Ben!

[BarbaraK]

Moat crossed. Found the answer from the clues first and then got the mechanism.

[ChrisKochmanski]

Awaiting confirmation from Ben (what, he's not awake at 4:52 am Aussie time?), but confident.

Lesson: Don’t be over-confident. Turns out I was a little off. But not far. NOW the castle has been stormed. Thanks, Ben!

[lbray53]

I guessed the answer from the hints but have not figured out the mechanism yet. I have some ideas but strictly from backsolving. I would never have seen them without knowing the answer. Even then, I cannot make anything fit.

I am not seeking nudges at this point. I will work on this until the promised Saturday spoilers arrive.

EDIT: I finally found it. I never would have found the mechanism without knowing the answer. I was not familiar with the art. I tried some interesting things! Bird Lives' comment helped me find the last bit.

[DrTom]

For those of you who worked the answer out from the hints provided: there definitely is a mechanism in the grid to be found!

I am unfortunately in this camp, got it but don't have it. RATS! Obviously my painting isn't finished...

[benchen71]

I'm on holidays at the moment, so I haven't had a chance to update the list of solvers. But here we go...

Sharkicicles
KayW
andeux
Bbaack
LB800
BarbaraK
Totally the real and not fake Benchen71
19 second respawn times
lbray53
LuckyGuest
Hector
cshabsin
V
Byron
Puzzling Programmer
BobJas
LBintheBK

[Meg]

For those of you who worked the answer out from the hints provided: there definitely is a mechanism in the grid to be found!

Definitely, but as I said in my comment to Meg, it helps if you speak Strine.

And Meg had to google "Strine".

[Bird Lives]

For those of you who worked the answer out from the hints provided: there definitely is a mechanism in the grid to be found!

Definitely, but as I said in my comment to Meg, it helps if you speak Strine.

And Meg had to google "Strine".

Yes, well, on the page it appears as "Australian," but that's not how it's pronounced, at least not in Mailben and other large cities. My introduction to it was decades ago -- a book called Let Stalk Strine, by Afferbeck Lauder (the entries were in what we call "alphabetical order.") He later did one on upper class British speech, a dialect he dubbed "Fraffly." The book was Fraffly Well Spoken, as in "He's fraffly well spoken." (On the page, it's "frightfully.")

[benchen71]

I love those books! I live here and Let Stalk Strine was still hard to understand.

[benchen71]

Solver update before the nudges:

frostyjhammer
Golem
Tonearm
sea

[benchen71]

Nudges, in order of increasing blatancy:

1. There are lots of theme entries in the grid which should assist with the identity of the artist in question.

2. The name of the painting is suggested by the four longest entries which are all vertical.

3. One of the long entries turns on Australian English usage; but the other three should be international.

And if you missed an earlier post, the 1 across you want is in Australia.

[Joe Ross]

This Tuesday, January 25th, 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT & following the weekly Muggle Zoom meeting, there will be a Zoom session discussing the use of the graphical tools within Excel (& the spreadsheet forms I create for various meta puzzles discussed on this site) to solve metas.

We can also discuss other on-screen graphical tools that can be used.

Click on the Muggle Zoom Room link (above left) to enter.




Arrive an hour earlier and join the XWord Muggles weekly Zoom fun, which goes for an hour, then stay to discuss Excel.

[Abide]

Made several wrong guesses on Crosshare before coming here. Bird comments more helpful than the nudges

[benchen71]

Here are the last of the solvers before the answer reveal...

Matt A
Jack Sullivan
prog plus chat
Shalaka
ImOnToo
Abide
Gutman

Well done everyone! 54 people made it to the answer which is...

[benchen71]

Here's the answer to "Abstract Art":

Some people went looking in the wrong NGA (1A). The NGA I was referring to is the National Gallery of Australia. It also seems that many people solved the puzzle based on the hints, rather than the meta mechanic. Initially, I had asterisked the 4 long entries and the meta prompt was something like "a painting suggested by the asterisked entries". But then I thought that would be too easy, that it would be better for solvers to consider the long entries (a tactic that should definitely be in your meta-solving process) and then realise that they all had something in common.

Here's a link to the [url=https://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/jackson- ... s/painting in question[/url].

[whimsy]

BLEU and MARLIN helped me too, even if they weren't intended to -- especially with a name like Pollock!

[benchen71]

BLEU and MARLIN helped me too, even if they weren't intended to -- especially with a name like Pollock!

Those entries were entirely unintentional, just appearing in the fill.