The Collage Miniaturist

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“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

“And yet, standing at his appointed place, the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. He neither serves nor rules — he transmits. His position is humble. And the beauty at the crown is not his own. He is merely a channel.”
— Paul Klee
 

Another anticipated En Plein Air annual exhibition has appeared and vanished, my sixth consecutive participation since I took up the challenge of “painting in papers” with the PAACK. My sincere thanks to Art Center of the Bluegrass for continuing to support our regional group!

The two miniatures that I included in the show are featured here. Completing both of them in the studio raised some concerns that I’d be able to retain my on-site impression as I made detailed additions too delicate for outdoor work. Did I manage to do it?

East End Survivor
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6 x 7.125 inches, framed 11 x 14
available for purchase

Gardener’s Nook
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6.25 x 7.25 inches, framed 11 x 14
available for purchase

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

Here’s my collage en plein air for this summer’s annual “Paint the Town” challenge (organized by Kate Savage of Lexington’s Arts Connect). Hours never evaporate so alarmingly fast as during this event. It had to be delivered framed and ready for immediate display within the six-hour deadline. The piece looks a bit unfinished to my eye, and probably will until an image wrapped in expectations has faded from my head. My insane trackside rig (located across from the Lawrence Brewer & Son Horse Oats warehouse) drew the attention of a railroad inspector, but, thankfully, I was left uninterrupted.

Do you think I should’ve brought along the kitchen sink, too?

Oathouse
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
100% / 0% — site to studio
10 x 10 inches + handcrafted frame
available for purchase at CAMP

Did you celebrate World Collage Day?
Check out this Instagram tag and be amazed.

My Oh So Fallible Intuition
collage experiment by J A Dixon
6.25 x 6.6875 inches
a salute to World Collage Day, 2022
available for purchase

“Follow the ways of natural creation, the becoming, the functioning of forms, then perhaps starting from nature you will achieve formations of your own, and one day you may even become like nature yourself and start creating.”
— Paul Klee
 

As I pushed toward the hanging date for Change of Seen last month, I pulled out an unfinished work. In 2020 it had been my hope to complete it as part of the Paint By Nature entry — an interpretation of an urban oak tree. Everything was done except for the tree itself, which I’d wanted to paste together in a burst of spontaneity. The “start” went into cold storage when I ran out of time for two submissions. Fast forward to January 2022. Now I had the ideal scenario. My tight deadline would not allow me to indulge any slowdown or second guess. Positive, unanticipated things often happen when I occasionally challenge myself to work under a severe constraint. The hesitant, rational mind is sidelined in favor of an intuitive response that is rooted in everything one has ever created. This can be the case with music, writing, or nearly any artistic format, but the phenomenon especially lends itself to painting.

Interestingly, I’ve always preferred watercolors to other paint mediums because of its unpredictability and the “happy accidents” that occur. I admire oils greatly, but they hold no attraction for me as I approach my 70s. I hadn’t expected to discover that “painting in papers” could captivate me so and knit a reverence for nature into my art. One of the primary appeals of collage is total flexibility. It’s almost impossible to make a blunder, if one stays “in the zone” without letting the intellect gain an upper hand. When others use words such as exacting or meticulous to describe what I do, it usually throws me, because I consider my approach as more instinctive. And yet, there is no denying the presence of “artisanship.” With any task at hand, craft is essential. It was drilled into me with rigor after I chose the path of applied design. (That the young are asked to dedicate themselves to a particular discipline and to ignore countless alternatives is a weird fact of life. Many of us spend decades unraveling it.) So, a certain precision is fused into my method, even when I’m racing the clock. One man’s chaos is another man’s perfectionism.

I’ve lived my adult life trying to spin creative gold in a studio of one sort or another. A supremacy of the natural world in my youth had been set aside as part of an itinerary toward the graphic arts profession. Reflecting on a long journey that leads to the ever-rolling “now,” I recognize that nature was always calling. It influenced my leaving big cities for a smaller community. It provided a firm foundation for my diet and a health-oriented lifestyle. It was an unfailing source for well-being when conditions seemed out of balance. Even so, an unsatisfied need remained elusive until I finally took paper and paste outdoors, where the potential for inspiration was out of arm’s reach. That I could respond with collage, and find it so rewarding, is something I hadn’t foreseen.

If you want to start with the first chapter, you can find that story here. It’s been almost five years of direct observation, and I’m itching to begin a new season of working en plein air. The broader point I’d like to make is how the experience also has invigorated the way I approach representational collage in the studio. It feels like it’s all been funneled into an evolving intuition. Working outside has transformed how I make visual decisions even when using photographic reference under pressure, as I did with Grand Chinkapin. After quickly preparing piles of printed scrap that seemed appropriate for tree foliage, I was able to explode those ingredients into place with a minimum of conscious thought — not unlike I try to do every time I take my collage kit on location. “Painting from nature with paper” has become a more integrated practice, inside or outside. Change of Seen shares this adventure with others.

Grand Chinkapin
collage with combined mediums by J A Dixon
0% / 100% — site to studio
11 x 7.75 inches + shadow-box frame
available for purchase

With another year of plein air activity under my belt, I had one image stuck in my imagination that I needed to paste together without any direct reference to an actual place. This last artwork for 2021 is included in my solo display, “Change of Seen,” at the John G Irvin Gallery in Lexington. A snowy deep freeze in Kentucky has blunted turnout for the exhibition so far, but everybody can see all the work by following my previous links during this month. Here’s to a hoped for but yet unfulfilled public reception that will entice more people to the show itself.
 

Sentinel
collage landscape by J A Dixon
7.125 x 9 inches
available for purchase

CHANGE OF SEEN
collage landscapes by John Andrew Dixon

curated by Kate Savage, Arts Connect
for the John G Irvin Gallery at
Central Bank, Lexington, Kentucky

Below are a pair of small skyscapes that I finished just before hanging “Change of Seen,” my collage exhibition curated by Arts Connect for a two-level bank gallery in downtown Lexington — 31 works total. A couple of studio miniatures seemed a fitting addition to what coalesced as my first all-landscape display and a retrospective of sorts for my five-year journey into representational collage. All during 2021, I couldn’t take my eyes off the changing sky, or stop thinking about how I might interpret it by pasting colored paper, tissue, and reclaimed tea bags. These two pieces are from imagination and memory. I kept layering torn ingredients until I was satisfied with the impression.

Kevin Nance wrote a brief review of the show that was perhaps too flattering. It’s been almost a week since the opening and my feet aren’t fully back on the ground yet. I cannot imagine a more able curator/impresario than the assiduous Kate Savage, a tireless catalyst for all things ART in our Bluegrass region. As just one of the multiple services she’s offering to help spread the word, her non-profit will sponsor a shopping page at the Arts Connect website during the run of my exhibition.

Please check it out!

Rose at Daybreak
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6 x 7 inches, framed 11 x 14
available for purchase

Summer Sundown
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6 x 7 inches, framed 11 x 14
available for purchase

“Collage is a fantastic tool to modulate the strain of life and associated feelings.”
— Laurie Kanyer
 

This one was started some time ago, in response to the Paradise conflagration, but I had no determination to finish it until after a deadly storm front came through our region last Saturday.
If you can, please reach out to help.
 

Ticket to Trauma
collage catharsis by J A Dixon
8.25 x 10.625 inches
available for purchase

The national symbol of the eagle is so iconic I often forget that Benjamin Franklin was opposed to its adoption and favored the turkey. (Some things need no further elaboration.)
 

If You Turkeys Can Keep It
collage catharsis by J A Dixon
8 x 10 inches
available for purchase

“We think of the things we own and use as defining us in some way, but that can only be true if we first describe the things. Describing is a remarkable human act. It connects our inner and outer experience: as we observe and record the material world, we respond and reflect. We enter the realm where the material world meets the imagination. That’s the fertile ground of art.”
– Sheldon Tapley
 

I created this artwork for The Object Seen: Contemporary Still Life, current exhibition at Art Center of the Bluegrass in Danville. The juror was Sheldon Tapley, masterful painter, draftsman, and Stodghill Professor of Art at Centre College. I received a 2nd-place ribbon and cash prize. The honor came as a surprise, since I don’t consider myself a practitioner or student of still life as an art form. I have, however, looked deeply at artwork made by Sheldon and those who are. The arms-length quality of modern still life has compelled my close scrutiny for many years. Given that influence, I brought to the genre what I’ve discovered by “painting in papers” from direct observation (the long sweep of art history hovering somewhere outside my conscious awareness, with its rich tradition of artists tackling visual cornacopias of objects and edible fare). I decided to interpret a tabletop group of objects from raw material, rather than assemble a conventional collage composition from found images.

Please view a video clip of the juror’s remarks about my artwork.

The peony tulip blossoms were created en plein air in a local flower garden. The small “still life within a still life” was commenced and partially finished from a setup of actual objects. I relied on photo reference for the rest. Ingredients include colored paper (printed and unprinted), wallpaper, ruined book parts, tissue, reclaimed tea bags, string, and a dried leaf, plus minimal use of walnut juice, burnt coffee, tinted paste, and marker-ink edging. Adhesives include wheat paste, acrylic matte medium, and white glue.

Still Life with Peony Tulips
collage on salvaged canvas
18 x 23.75 inches

•  Second Place Prize