Archive for the ‘G Heffner’ Category

Six through ten — blog years (not dog years)

Sunday, January 1st, 2023

 
Unless you favor retrospective musings, I totally understand your wanting to skip this post. Reviewing the second half of what has become a ten-year blogsite is almost too intimidating in scope for me to synthesize with any coherence, so I’ll break the previous five years into a few sections. My early annual recaps offered evidence that I was entertaining some ambitious goals, although I should have discerned at the time that the “blogosphere’ was winding down as a popular online phenomenon. Given the recent head-spinning rate of networking change, it’s a period that seems nearly unrecognizable today. Even my mother had a blog for a spell. And so I shall begin with a salute to her profound influence.

The world without her is still a world full of Mombo.

This past month was dominated by the earthly departure of V E Dixon, my mother. The role she played in my becoming an artist and the approach I bring to my practice cannot, and should not, be understated in this format nor any other. What a debt I owe to her, and to pay it forward will require that I live as long as she! I might’ve started “giving back” much earlier, if it had been my basic nature. I can be a quick study for most things, but it often takes me far too long to learn the rest, especially when it involves stepping beyond my own creative urge. Her life was a lesson in putting others before self. In order to support her parents’ household in a world at war, she turned down a full scholarship to the same University of Cincinnati that I would eventually attend. Decades later, in a nest recently emptied of seven children, and just as she was about to explore her own personal interests, she followed her family to a remote part of a rural Kentucky county. As a widow, she built an ethical foundation for a land-based legacy that is now set to endure for generations. When she faced a grim medical prognosis that would break the spirit of others, she maintained a zest for life, an obvious concern for how it might affect others, and an astonishing diligence to push back against it. The world of my youth had shouted, “Be cynical, or pessimistic, or both,” but she would always be my reliable source of optimism, like a spring which never dries up. I could’ve become a quitter early on, but she helped me to overcome discouragement born of self-doubt and to fulfill commitments. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Why not always do your very best? And then you will automatically get better. Along with my siblings, everything was done to provide the care she needed to continue living at home, until it became no longer possible. Those years — what could be mistakenly judged as sacrificial — strengthened our family bond in a way that will last us for the duration. To separate that from my activity as an artist was unnecessary at the time and foolhardy in hindsight. Above and beyond the value of artisanship, she taught me that a creative life without love for others is devoid of meaning. Of all the souls I have intimately known, hers is the most worthy of imitation.

Landscape art tries to elbow aside my other styles of collage.

I’m thinking about a hot day in August and how I found in the distant, knobby horizon a stimulating prompt to create a collage outside. Staying in the sun to dry my glue offered no mercy, so I eventually moved to the shade. I came away with an impression to finish in the studio as part of my evolving landscape series called Litter-ally Kentucky. As I reflect on a now-familiar process, it would be difficult to remember all the unknowns I faced when I first took paper and paste on location, had I not recorded my experiences here in this format over the past five years. As a fine-art painter, I possessed a meager background at best and no knowledge of how to function in the open air. I knew a lot about manipulating paper, however, and was fortunate to have many friends who encouraged me to join group outings and to use a medium that has never been associated with creating representational art out of doors. As I’ve noted before, people often think my collage landscapes are traditional paintings, until they view them up close. I share their sense of wonder myself, and I eventually discovered other artists who were solving the same challenges. We happen to be few and far between. My collage landscapes began to attract some attention. I competed in timed plein-air events, had my first solo landscape exhibition, and received a feature in the UK-based Contemporary Collage Magazine. I was so comfortable with concentrating in this area of collage that I applied for and was awarded funding support from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Kentucky Arts Council. In case you want to follow my journey here, I’ve done my best to tell the story at The Collage Miniaturist. I still have no idea where this adventure will take me, but I invite you to stop back and find out!

Check out my top ten highlights . . .

Are you still with me, reader? If I continue to give my verbosity free reign, this overview will get out of hand. Instead, I’ll offer links to posts that cover some milestone artistic developments since the end of 2017. I could feature my handmade greeting cards, best-in-show award, gift art, or collage purgations, but I can see that much of that is significant only to me. I want to highlight things that might be worth your time, too. (The following sequence is not relevant for chronology or significance.)
 
• Adjudication by the Arts Council as an Kentucky Crafted artist sealed my inertia as a unabashed Merzologist, while I ventured deeper into an investigation of representational collage.
 
• A relationship with the Kentucky Artisan Center culminated in Synthesis, my most ambitious collage to date. I owe that and more to my friend Gwen, who was gone far too soon.
 
• My expanded foray into the genre of figurative collage resulted in a successful still life, praise from Professor Sheldon Tapley, and acceptance to ArtFields in Lake City, South Carolina.
 
• The Kanyer Art Collection provided opportunities for me and a growing worldwide community of collage artists, including a purchase award for one piece in my series of tiny diptychs.
 
• My participation in the Baker’s 1/2-Dozen Collage Exchange of Cecil Touchon’s IMCAC and the Februllage collage-a-day initiative sparked two new series of collage rituals.
 
• I gained greater world exposure when scholar Anna Kłos selected my miniatures for back-to-back international collage exhibitions at Retroavangarda Gallery in Warsaw, Poland.
 
• My footing as a Kentucky artist stabilized with the aid of Kate Savage and Arts Connect, including a solo show, video, podcast, and “Paint the Town” events in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
 
• An imagination as peculiar as mine could not have foreseen that my basement studio would be showcased in THE CUTTING CHAOS from Finland’s Niko Vartiainen. It’s all about the stash!
 
• I’ll never take for granted my valued regional connections with Maker’s Mark Distillery, LexArts, Art Center of the Bluegrass, Connie Beale’s CAMP, or Art Space Versailles.
 
• And finally — important rituals at the heart of being an artist continue to surprise me, whether it’s a 30-day studio explosion or my vital practice of working from nature outside.

Friday, July 16th, 2021

Gwen Heffner, master artisan of Kentucky

Gwen Heffner
1 9 5 2 – 2 0 2 1

master artisan of pottery
major force in the Kentucky arts
my pal from our first encounter
R
I
P

I Must Have Kentucky ~ all the details

Sunday, April 2nd, 2017

“I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol.”
— Abraham Lincoln, 1861
 

I am constantly experimenting, because I find it difficult to pluck a coherent idea from a “cold start,” and so I cultivate a habit of collage experimentation to preserve a state of receptivity and to invite the uncanny “synchronicities” from which a more rational concept can be refined. More often than not, there are no distinct memories associated with the genesis of an idea. It is unusual, therefore, to have a clear recollection of the creative lineage for I Must Have Kentucky, currently on display as part of 225: Artists Celebrate Kentucky’s History.

I was stumped about how to respond when a call to artists from curator Gwen Heffner announced an exhibition to observe Kentucky’s 225th birthday. I thought about the history of my own town (Danville, the first capital of the state), about the The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project, about the story of tobacco growing families in Kentucky, and about the great Kentucky abolitionists. There were so many fascinating subjects, but none of them sparked a visual flame in my imagination. When I shared my befuddlement with Dana, my “partner in all things,” she suggested I consider doing something with Star of Abraham, an artifact I made in 2009 for the bicentennial of the 16th president’s birth. Star of Abraham ~ John Andrew DixonThe bulk of my collected Lincoln images had been exploited to cover a salvaged metal star. To produce a collage tribute to the martyred leader with a folk-art quality seemed a technique appropriate to the occasion, and it was still in my studio, generating little interest from visitors. I liked the notion of using it as a “found object” in a larger assemblage, but there needed to be more to it than that. The solution finally hit me on a drive to our family farm, when I turned off the radio and focused on the rolling “knobs” that surrounded me: Lincoln’s famous declaration about his home state during the Civil War!

I got down a flurry of thumbnail concepts in my journal when I arrived at my destination. It was barely necessary to ever look at them again, because the development toward a final idea took on a momentum of its own. I realized I could enlarge my Lincoln theme with additional artisanship to include the importance of Kentucky in his strategic thinking. A design took shape in my sketches, and I searched my stash for images that would do justice to the “brother against brother, family against family” character of the conflict in a state that gave birth to the presidents of each warring side.

The expanded mixed-media construction is created from recycled materials — found ingredients include salvaged wood and metal, plus discarded books, magazines, maps, and mailed promotions. My lettering is hand painted with acrylics. John Andrew Dixon at the Kentucky Artisan Center, Berea, KentuckyObviously, the dimensional star represents Abraham Lincoln. The five horizontal bands signify the final years of his life and the impact his decisions had on Kentucky and the United States during that time. Among the individuals featured are Kentucky native Jefferson Davis, Lincoln’s rival in war, and Senator Stephen A. Douglas, his rival in peace, plus Lexington native Mary Todd, her sons Willie and Robert, Munfordville native Simon B. Buckner, Frederick Douglass, U.S. Grant, Clara Barton, John Hunt Morgan, and others. Also represented: soldiers, their ladies, Kentucky coal miners, and the decisive Battle of Perryville.

The artwork commemorates our Commonwealth during 1860 to 1864, the most tumultuous period in its history. At the center of those pivotal years is the towering figure of its most illustrious native son, who encapsulated the significance of the border state to the cause of national unity when he reputedly declared:

“I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky”.
 

detail from ‘I Must Have Kentucky’ by John Andrew Dixon, Danville, Kentucky

I secured the existing ‘Star of Abraham’ to a construction of five salvaged
wood planks, which alternates hand-painted lettering with my typical collage
treatment. My Lincoln artifact had finally found a fitting context.

detail from ‘I Must Have Kentucky’ by John Andrew Dixon, Danville, Kentucky

I long have found interesting that Kentucky had given birth to both
presidential leaders in the national conflict, and I devoted a section of my
composition to that inexplicable fact.

detail from ‘I Must Have Kentucky’ by John Andrew Dixon, Danville, Kentucky

Border-state Kentuckians were divided when war broke out. Munfordville
native Simon B. Buckner attempted to enforce its neutrality before accepting
a Confederate commission. He led troops at the strategic Battle of Perryville
in 1862, and later became a scandal-plagued governor of the Commonwealth.

detail from ‘I Must Have Kentucky’ by John Andrew Dixon, Danville, Kentucky

One of my favorite spots in the piece: Lincoln’s boy Willie, U.S. Grant, a young
Frederick Douglass as a free man next to a slaveholder’s advertisement,
a superb wood engraving of combat, Clara Barton, Samuel Colt, and an image
of the Commander in Chief that indicates his unusual height.

Thanks for reading such a long entry. I invite you to register and comment here. Let me know what you think. If anything bugs you, constructive criticism is encouraged!

I Must Have Kentucky

Sunday, March 26th, 2017

There is a new exhibition by the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea — 225: Artists Celebrate Kentucky’s History — and I am proud to have my work as part of the display.paintings by Mark Selter and others at ‘225: Artists Celebrate Kentucky’s History’

My friend and fellow exhibitor Kathleen O’Brien wrote a fine account of the opening reception at her studio blog. She was kind enough to include some information about me.

From the KACB notice: “Kentucky has always cherished its history. The preservation of Kentucky stories, places and traditions has shaped its culture today. This exhibit includes over 60 works by 51 Kentucky artists who have recorded and celebrated numerous facets of Kentucky’s rich 225-year history. These works capture the essence of Kentucky — including its historical places, people, events, state commerce, agriculture and the state’s unique flora and fauna. Accompanied by written stories and histories in each artist’s words, this exhibit entices the viewer visually and verbally.” The show lasts until September 23, 2017.

My next entry will look a bit more closely at the work and its creation.

John Andrew Dixon with ‘I Must Have Kentucky’ ~ Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea

I Must Have Kentucky ~ John Andrew Dixon ~ collage construction ~ wood, metal, found printed material

I Must Have Kentucky
mixed-media collage construction by J A Dixon
42.75 x 20.5 inches

•  S O L D

Good Morning, Mrs. Bradshaw

Friday, September 2nd, 2016

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
— Mark Twain
 

My latest three-dimensional work, Good Morning, Mrs. Bradshaw, has been accepted for the new exhibition in the Kentucky Artisan Center at BereaHAVE A SEAT: Chairs by Kentucky Artisans. Gwen Heffner wears many hats at the Center, and she keeps coming up with strong ideas to showcase regional talent. She is not only an outstanding curator, but has become a significant catalyst for high-level artisanship in the Commonwealth. Her semi-annual calls for entry compel creative people across Kentucky to accept challenges they might not otherwise consider.

I chose the medium of collage to repurpose a child’s classroom chair that came into my possession as I debated with myself about whether this was a show I should enter. I was provoked to explore a time, not so long ago, when there was a well-understood line between what pupils should read and what they should not. Its vintage design took my imagination back to the earliest years of my public school education, with its sharp contrast between scholastic prescriptions and my personal interests.

“Dos and don’ts” have always been a part of the classroom, but times have changed. Nowadays, a youngster can find superhero stories and graphic novels in the school library. The goal was to capture what I remember as the tension that came with meeting an expectation of obedience to assignments, but always preferring to devote my attention to playful escapes. I decided to “resurface” the object with found material and mixed media — alphabetical specimens, printed text, game cards, book illustrations, calendar images, songbook fragments — plus colorful scrap from comic books and the Sunday funnies.
 

Good Morning, Mrs. Bradshaw
repurposed vintage classroom chair by J A Dixon
12 x 25 x 14 inches