My sincere thanks to Brett Smith and Diane Dehoney for bringing this media coverage to YouTube and for promoting the show at Paul Sawyier Public Library. My collage landscapes infused with litter are on display in Frankfort for three more weeks.
Archive for the ‘J A Dixon’ Category
Watch my LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY show promo!
Sunday, September 1st, 2024Evolving creative intent with similar subjects
Friday, August 30th, 2024“The writing and playing of music is a matter of intent…. You can’t just throw a paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art.”
— Duke Ellington
There are so many old farmhouses and barns in our Knobland region of Kentucky, and they always hold my rapt attention as I interpret them in found papers. It is necessary, however, for me to quiet my busy mind and discover a soul connection to a particular natural place and the evident stewardship of those who have cared for it. Then, and only then, can I apply an intent to coax my intuition in an expected direction and to handle paper and paste with creativity.
I am pleased with what I achieved on the top half of this small canvas. The foreground is now due for an efficient studio finish.
Check out my series of posts that have described a seven-year plein air adventure, “painting in papers.”
At Walnut Springs (unfinished)
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
on stretched canvas, 10 x 8 inches
Plein Air Artists of Central Kentucky
Double or nothing . . .
Friday, August 23rd, 2024
Dixon appears again at Art Space Versailles, hopeful that a buyer might be interested in the collage artwork called Renewal.
I scheduled a double event this week and it was a fine way to saddle up and ride a momentum. I was eager to point out that Renewal was on consignment at Art Space Versailles.
The studio piece began with my musing on the cyclic life of trees, which makes sense because I’m endlessly fascinated by them and since I work primarily in papers after all. Most collage artists are scroungers at heart, so I had turned to my stash, searching for potential ingredients. I found more than enough for a 12×12-inch canvas and intuitively assembled a “ground” of these found images. I think that toward the end of the process it had became as much an abstract composition as an interpretation of my thematic idea. I didn’t want it to appear too abstract or purposely surreal, so, at the closing stage, I crafted a literal seedling from individual paper components, more in the representational manner that I use for collage en plein air. I guess one could say that the culminating element pictured the birth of a tree, but, as with all life cycles, who can say when the beginning or ending actually occurs. The art itself is re-purposed paper, a clear ending for a tree, at least until inevitable decomposition takes place, and then another cycle of renewal carries on.
In contrast, the exercise in spontaneity featured below had no preconceived intent and originated as a demo miniature during my exhibition-related workshop at Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort on Tuesday. I refined and completed it last night during the appearance in Versailles as a guest artist. The unfinished piece had been immediately titled by a workshop participant after the primary ingredients were juxtaposed, and I just couldn’t top her suggestion!
It joins countless other artworks that tip the Pop-ist hat to Andy Warhol (Campbell’s Soup) or Ray Johnson (Lucky Strike). But the grandfather of Pop Art was Kurt Schwitters. So much of contemporary collage is, in essence, an homage to the German innovator, and I never tire of working in the Merz tradition that he pioneered a hundred years ago.
Kick the Can
collage experiment by J A Dixon
7 x 8.5 inches
Stigma
Sunday, August 11th, 2024This collage miniature started as an intuitive exploration, took root as a study in color and form, then resolved itself as an exercise in compositional refinement.
Stigma
collage on book cover by J A Dixon
5.6875 x 8.875 inches
available to collectors
Can collage evoke a story?
Wednesday, July 31st, 2024
Maybeland
collage artwork by J A Dixon
11.875 x 8.875 inches
available to collectors
For the record . . .
Sunday, July 14th, 2024I am comfortable with art containing visual ingredients that represent a spectrum from the greatest evil to the highest good, but it always bugs me to see a collage artist traffic in the shock that comes with merely taking a “cheap shot” or “low blow” at religious imagery.
Collage outside stands on painting.
Monday, June 24th, 2024“I think you have to know more than what is current and ‘hot,’ to use a loathsome word. You have to be familiar with the foundation of the work and understand it’s what you’re standing on.”
— Mike Nichols
My recent outing to Shaker Village involved a different approach to collage landscape when I made two detailed sketches first, with the intent to tear and glue paper on top of it. I have a keen interest in the fact that those who developed collage as a modern art considered themselves painters. I keep pushing to use paper outside with that foundation in mind. Partly due to my added preliminary time, I was disappointed in the degree of progress for the day. The second start with a more architectural emphasis will be put on hold. I would like to return to this exact spot. I may decide to finish the sheep enclosure rapidly in the studio (to preserve the overall impression and to retain its designation as a plein air artwork by staying within the 50/50 allocation of time), but it might be more desirable to go back and complete it on site. We shall see.
Sheep Enclosure, Shaker Village (interim stage)
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
12.5 x 5.875 inches
Catharsis series extends itself
Wednesday, June 12th, 2024My third rule of collage: Intuition is worthy of your trust.
Taken to fruition, a catharsis of the unconscious is always a possibility with this medium. And so, my peculiar series continues in a thought-provoking manner.
From Their Special Place
Wednesday, June 5th, 2024“We are part and parcel of the big plan of things. We are simply instruments recording in different measure our particular portion of the infinite. And what we absorb of it makes for character, and what we give forth, for expression.”
— Rockwell Kent
I returned to historic Caldwell Farm to coordinate an “Art Out” for the Plein Air Artists of Central Kentucky (PAACK). When I suitably had met my few obligations for the day, I went alone toward the heart of the acreage to locate a spot that the owners refer to as the “Special Place.” Along a well-tended pathway, near a quiet watershed, I set up my makeshift plein air collage rig. From that perspective, I sought to interpret in papers a far-off cluster of corn cribs and structures that once served as the focus of an innovative cattle-raising operation. Two different angles of this agricultural configuration previously had become part of my LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY collection.
I found myself simplifying, simplifying. Paper demands it, of course, but also I had hoped to touch the essence of the early summer scene — a moody sky, the limited palette of buildings, plus an expanse of new corn, barely above the soil. Representational collage, if anything, must be about expression, not craft. What one is blessed to take away from contact with the fusion of nature, ingenuity, and intentional affection is left to individual receptivity. Being a so-called artist is not necessary to reap the potential benefits of experiencing rural beauty.
From Their Special Place
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
9 x 7.625 inches
available for purchase
Make Your Mark
Saturday, June 1st, 2024
Make Your Mark
collage on reclaimed canvas by J A Dixon
26.5 x 26.5 inches
April Burst
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024“Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing being wrong.”
— Peter McIntyre
It has been too “moist” this week for me to make art with paper outside, so I did my studio finish to the collage that I had started at a previous Art Out. Whether or not it is apparent to others, I try to do something different each time, an interpretation or radical ingredient choice that causes discomfort at first. I think it’s important to momentarily frighten myself. Then I know that I might be breaking new ground.
April Burst
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
Plein Air Artists of Central Kentucky