Archive for the ‘Landscape’ Category

Dreaming of Wind Harbor

Tuesday, February 27th, 2024

“Nothing happens unless first we dream.”
— Carl Sandburg
 

Today’s featured artwork is a studio collage landscape inspired by a dream and finished from imagination. I believe it was triggered by a combination of time spent outside observing earth, sky, and water, with the natural reservoir of so-called talent cultivated from childhood.

Dream-inspired images are rare creatures for me, but I grab one when it emerges. More often than not, my waking imagination falls short when trying to capture it. Over the years, I’ve had more success in that line coming up with graphic design concepts than I have with artistic impressions. It probably has something to do with how my subconscious responds to an explicit problem-solving setup, in contrast to more undefined visual images (which in my dreams tend to be preposterously complicated and nearly impossible to retain).

As happened when I shared this image elsewhere, I have often received the remark, “You’re so talented.” Many artists have heard this, too, and would relate to my mentioning it. I usually respond by saying something like this: talent alone goes stagnant early on if an individual doesn’t develop it with a life of effort and follow through. I appreciate what these people mean and their sincere intent to praise, but they usually don’t grasp the full picture. A refined trust in intuition is often mistaken for talent, but actual talent is a creation of the Universal Source. Artistic talent, intellectual talent, empathic talent, athletic talent — there is no difference, because we all get our start with some kind of talent as a divine inheritance. For some of us, it might’ve been more obvious (especially if we liked to show off for others). How many “talented” young athletes are age-group champions into later life? How many “talented” young musicians or dancers become professional performers with the respect of their peers? There you have it. Any talent can be lost without the effort and stick-to-it mindset that overcomes challenges and builds effective skills and attitudes. And make no mistake about it — such acquired discipline comes from God, too, so let’s give proper credit and keep working!

 

Wind Harbor
collage on canvas panel by J A Dixon
studio landscape from dream / imagination
14 x 11 inches
available for purchase

Believing is seeing . . .

Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

“Accepting the familiar is the enemy of seeing… Seeing takes work and patience and concentration and focus otherwise we are always walking around in a fog only seeing what we think we know but not actually seeing anything at all.”
— Cecil Touchon
 

 
Although I have worked outside at entirely wild places (river palisades, for example), I seem to be drawn more to locations that have been cared for by others. To truly observe a rural setting and interpret it with found paper as a collage landscape, I need to spend hours slowing down my busy mind. I approach a kind of reverence for it as a place of evident stewardship and quiet beauty. It’s a slow-motion form of rapt attention, and I am able to see it as a fusion of natural creation with human affection. LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY is the result.

 

Her Brother’s Barn
Boyle County, Kentucky
 
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
8 x 9.3125 inches
16 x 20 inches, framed
giclée print available

Now offering collector-quality glicée prints

Friday, November 10th, 2023

The LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY collection was conceived and funded as a traveling exhibition. While the original body of work is not currently for sale, all sixteen collage landscape artworks are available as affordable frame-worthy glicée reproductions printed on archival stock.

Despite patrons’ asking for them over the years, offering prints is a first for me — other than at note card size. The high standards I was looking for have been met by Fine Art Editions Gallery & Press of Georgetown, Kentucky. Owner John S Hockensmith, well-known photographic artist who fine-tuned an advanced giclée process for his own exacting requirements, has made his exceptional quality available for my work. I’m gratified to be one of a limited number of Kentucky artists with whom he has chosen to collaborate.

Due to the nature of the ingredients and constraints of working en plein air, my originals are typically small. Without loss of detail, these glicée enlargements capture the dimensionality of my collage technique and reveal subtleties of pasted layers and torn text. You can purchase individual prints at 150% enlargement on standard acid-free vellum stock for $275. The entire LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY group of artworks can be acquired as a collector set printed on Japanese paper and housed in an archival box for $3500; individual works printed on the same handmade paper are available for $295 each.

the LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY collection

Monday, October 16th, 2023

 

Thank you for your interest in my new collection of landscapes. This original collage artwork is infused with litter to promote stewardship of natural places. Premium giclée prints are available.

 
   

   

   

   

   

Saturday, October 7th, 2023


 

My solo landscape show: “LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY”

Sunday, September 24th, 2023

“At some point, the virtuosic construction of these works seems to fade in the mind, leaving in its wake only the images themselves: soft, somber, complicated skies worthy of Turner or Constable; rolling fields that would have attracted Thomas Hart Benton or Grant Wood.”
— Kevin Nance
 

A year after an update here about progress on my grant-supported body of new collage landscapes, I’m pleased to announce that this en plein air artwork will be revealed next month.

 
The exhibition will open on October 5 at the Woodford County Library in downtown Versailles, Kentucky, and continue through November during regular hours. The library will host an opening reception on Sunday, October 8, from 2pm until 4pm. I’ll give a gallery talk Thursday, October 12, at 6pm, and again on Saturday, November 11, at 2pm.

I’ve devoted much creative time and energy to this project over many months. Public funds have provided support and enabled me to bring a higher level of presentation to the most in-depth investigation that I’ve made into representational collage, but the endeavor could not have been possible without the hospitality of those who opened their rural places to my grateful scrutiny. Fortunately, only one person declined to grant permission for me to “paint in papers.” Everyone else was astonishingly trusting and helpful. Of course, they know who they are, and I can’t thank them enough.

The artworks that I created at locations in six Central Kentucky counties are infused with fragments of litter accumulated along local streets and roadways. The concept of using collage art to bring awareness to the ongoing problem of littering was the theme of my application for support during the aftermath of lockdowns. I received a Kentucky Artist Rescue grant from the Kentucky Arts Council with federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Since I intend to have this show travel around a bit over the coming months, I want to acknowledge the individuals in Woodford County who offered my first opportunity: Karen Kasacavage and Tommy Dennison. Leave it to a pair of helpful librarians to get me out of the starting gate! Because part of my overall effort is to engage both children and adults during the show’s run, this will be an ideal setting to carry an unconventional message about achieving a cleaner environment in the Commonwealth. With this recent body of work, I’ve repurposed the products of our “toss-it” culture as interpretations of specific natural places. My hope is to bring awareness to the role of individuals in reducing consumer waste and to promote a more conscious stewardship of the land that surrounds us.

Each of the 16 artworks (ten verticals and six horizontals) is matted and framed in the “gallery style” within a 16×20-inch proportion. In order to allow a series of showings in different counties, the originals will not be available for purchase at this time. Instead, collector-quality glicée prints of all the landscapes on display will be offered through Fine Art Editions of Georgetown, Kentucky. You are invited to visit the exhibition and attend associated events. I also will have original collage artwork for sale across the street from the library at Art Space Versailles.

As LITTER-ALLY makes its journey around Kentucky, stop back here for more information, new developments, and to dig a bit deeper into my adventure creating collage landscapes en plein air.
 
 

High Bridge Vantage
Garrard County, Kentucky
 
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
10.9375 x 7.9375 inches
20 x 16 inches, framed
giclée print available

Gallery of Collage Landscapes

Wednesday, March 8th, 2023

John Andrew Dixon ~ collage artist

Thanks for your interest in my collage landscapes. Click on each thumbnail to view a larger image. Click here to scroll the original blog posts.

View the LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY collection, too!

 

‘Outside/Inside’ is where it’s at!

Monday, January 30th, 2023

“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”
– Edward Hopper
 

“Painting in papers” is my passion as I work in the studio to finish a season of outside starts while dreaming of springtime. There are many varieties of collage rooted in the history of art and craft. I do get lost in this particular one!
 
 

a boulder of sweetness, a boulder of sorrow . . .

Thursday, December 29th, 2022

“Tension between the best things that can happen and the worst things that can happen is where you and I find ourselves every day. That’s where you’ll find Jesus. Over and over again, he’s in that place between sweetness and sorrow — fruitfulness and barrenness.”
— Troy Brewer
 

Not too many people in the world receive a miniature collage landscape as a thank-you present for the holidays. I’m so grateful for this year-end commission. What a splendid gift — from my dear patron and for her recipient, too! Family loss, family gain. Funny how sweetness and sorrow get all blended together at this closing time of year.

 

Les Rochers du Long Lac
collage landscape by J A Dixon
6.5 x 6.8125 inches
0:100 site/studio
private collection

“LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY” takes shape . . .

Friday, September 30th, 2022

“The thing is to be attentively present. To sit and wait is as important as to move. Patience is as valuable as industry. What is to be known is always there. When it reveals itself to you, or when you come upon it, it is by chance. The only condition is your being there and being watchful.”
— Wendell Berry
 

At the close of 2021, based on my plein-air practice to date, I applied to the Kentucky Arts Council and received a KAR grant with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The goal of my project is an exhibition-worthy body of collage landscapes created from salvaged ingredients consisting of litter, trash, and recycled papers. The new works are en plein air interpretations of actual rural spots in Central Kentucky. The collection will be made available to partnering venues as a thematic exhibition that carries a call for greater awareness of how we interact with our environment. The traveling display will invite community engagement in the form of gallery talks, student opportunities, and online references — with a message for greater litter awareness and a cleaner countryside in the Commonwealth.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To fulfill this grant-supported process, I am nearing the end of my creation phase. It’s been a period of acquiring paper litter, arranging visits to rural locations, engaging with property owners who accommodate my on-site sessions, starting the landscapes outside, and making follow-up studio refinements. Collage artworks will have been made at over a dozen locations in six contiguous Central Kentucky counties around Danville. I avoid exceeding my outside time when completing a landscape indoors, to stay within a 50:50 ratio. There are techniques for details that are best left to the end, when the breeze is not a factor, but my goal is to retain the fresh, intuitive quality of the initial impression.

It often seems like I’m behind schedule, until I remind myself that the entire process is not unlike the act of being present in nature. The way forward can be revealed as much by receptivity as by forced progression. I’ll spend the balance of the year with finishing touches, having the artwork professionally framed, preparing support materials and promotions for my sought-after series of shows, plus contacting venues suitable for the traveling display (which will be chosen in part based on the anticipated reach and exposure for optimum audiences, including youngsters).

An important part of this project has been my desire to interact with the public about a relatively recent area of concentration for me as an artist — representational collage. Until they observe more closely, many people think my landscapes are traditional paintings. It’s been rewarding to watch this sense of discovery, so similar to what I experience as I explore the potential of art made from paper. This connection with others fired my enthusiasm and prompted me to propose a way to engage audiences with another layer of meaning. By including a higher percentage of litter and trash, I hope to further a conversation about the ongoing problem of litter in Kentucky and the solid waste crisis in general. As I exhibit “painted” rural scenes that were created with by-products of our wasteful society, I’m optimistic that my art will promote a more conscious regard for stewardship of natural places.

 

Near Catnip Hill
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
50% / 50% — site to studio
8.375 x 8.625 inches, 2022

Her Back Door

Wednesday, September 14th, 2022

“Don’t come a-knockin’ around my door
Don’t wanna see your shadow no more
Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else’s eyes.”
B L Cummings
 

Here’s a recent plein air collage of mine that’s on display in the conference center exhibition presented by the Arts Commission of Danville / Boyle County at Constitution Square. I consider this in the category of “miniature house portraits,” which would pose challenges in any medium. Working with paper (particularly when outside) makes for a tricky process of interpreting proper perspective. It’s been suggested that I didn’t nail the vanishing points with this one, even though I completed most of the architectural treatments in the studio.

Harlan Hubbard thought that, “a painting, to be good, must be done with dash and abandonment, even one which has meticulous detail. If one niggles over it, the result is dull and lifeless.” It’s a danger for any artist to “niggle” or “noodle” at the expense of the overall expression. I haven’t convinced myself that it didn’t happen with this one, even though a plein air painter that I admire thinks otherwise. It has something to do with my intentionally introducing a contrast of crisp detail and soft ambiguity — with a debatable degree of success. I guess that the “eye of the beholder” has to take it from here. Without a doubt, I haven’t confronted this difficulty for the last time.

 

Her Back Door
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
7.125 x 9 inches
50:50 site/studio
available for purchase