Polyphemus
collage miniature by J A Dixon
8.6875 x 11.25 inches
available for purchase
Archive for the ‘Collage’ Category
March Ex(plosion) | Third Collage
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021March Ex(plosion) | Second Collage
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021
Alas, the Little Students
collage miniature by J A Dixon
8.6875 x 11.3125 inches
available for purchase
Synthesis — six details for study
Sunday, January 31st, 2021“Great performers focus on what they are doing, and nothing else…They let it happen, let it go. They couldn’t care less about the results.”
— John Eliot“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
– Viktor E Frankl
Completion brings varied doses of relief, disappointment, astonishment, regret, and pride. To sort them out, it is beneficial to self-assign the task of tight scrutiny while a measure of internal evaluation is front of mind. It is sometimes interesting to experience a perceptible transition from “hate it” to “that ain’t bad” — or from “wow, cool” to “perhaps if I had instead.”
With Synthesis, I found that I didn’t need for a state of high criticism to slowly diminish. This time around, a sense of broad satisfaction could not be denied. Even so, I undertook my customary ritual of zoomed-in photo crops, looking for strengths and weaknesses before the full aura of the creative process had faded. The handy smartphone camera makes for an uncomplicated post-mortem examination. Self-directed questions don’t always have answers, but it is important to ask them anyway. Have you made effective use of your ingredients? Did you achieve your hoped for balance of design logic and intuitive spontaneity? Is there a coherence when you compare the overall impression from a distance and the up-close, microcosmic structure? Were your original aesthetic goals for a well-composed yet “maximalist” effect fulfilled?
Synthesis (six details for study)
collage on canvas by J A Dixon
48 x 36 inches
available for purchase
A Creative Synthesis Revealed
Friday, January 29th, 2021“Improvising is the closest thing I do to meditation. I have to respond honestly to what’s happening in the music.”
— Michelle Dorrance“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering.”
— Jordan B Peterson
The year culminated in my largest collage artwork so far. I’m pleased to announce its acceptance as part of REVEAL, a new display of large-scale, two-dimensional pieces in the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea. All of us might point to a milestone achievement. It can be the most effortless and the most challenging thing we’ve ever done, both at the same time.
Buried in a twelve-month cycle of worldwide catastrophe are countless stories to be told by artists who crossed the treacherous, often surreal territory of 2020. Perhaps they are less significant than what so many others endured, often within tragic circumstances, but creative people have had to face unprecedented disruptions like everyone. Restrictions under “lockdown” transformed many aspects of individual practices. I am very fortunate to have been able to continue working in the same isolated way characteristic of my long tenure from a home-based studio. Our regional plein air group managed to stay active. Artistic cross pollination flourished online. Opportunities for me to show art remained intact — all because many persevered to organize exhibitions that might have been conveniently postponed or canceled. Each person on that list overcame hurdles to make things happen, and to develop virtual adjuncts that held risks to a minimum.
Amid the frustrating chaos, there are many things for which to be thankful.
As I’ve described here before, my experimental miniatures have been the basis for larger works on canvas. Decades of design decisions and influences enable my work to be intuitive in process. In late 2020, I challenged myself to take what I’ve discovered with explorations at a smaller scale and to formalize it as a merger of design structure and pure spontaneity. Within a large format, I can focus on a counterbalance of both. Synthesis is an example of this fusion.
For me, collage abstraction is about the creative tension between order and chaos, comparable to how a soloist elaborates extemporaneously on a written melody. The characteristics of the paper ingredients — color, value, shape, line, texture — serve as the notes, rests, and rhythms of the composition. Thumbnail studies represent the evolution of a “manuscript,” analogous to musical notation, which then allows for an improvisational “performance.” But unlike a live concert, the visual artist can choose to return to a spontaneous expression and make deliberate refinements before declaring a piece “finished.” If so, it becomes similar to layering or enhancing tracks in a recording studio as the last step in a process. My bringing a large artwork to completion in this manner stands in contrast to the making of collage miniatures. There is a strong connection between the two rituals that I shall continue to explore.
Synthesis
collage on canvas by J A Dixon
48 x 36 inches
available to collectors
Best in Show: Sycamore Reach
Monday, January 11th, 2021The sun was setting. Late November light penetrated the very top of a tall sycamore. It looked as if the tree was reaching up into the deep blue sky of autumn to capture the final rays.
The email notice stunned me for a moment. Sycamore Reach, my latest example of “painting nature with paper,” had been chosen for a top local prize. I knew I’d worked at the pinnacle of my abilities, and my fingers were crossed that it might be well received, but it was an unexpected thrill nonetheless. My surprise soon gave way to satisfaction, and I was left with the fullness of gratitude — a good place to be left.
Paint by Nature: Trees was a stimulating opportunity to bring into the studio everything that I learned from another season of plein-air outings. Using photos I took with a smartphone, my subject would be a grand American Sycamore that inhabits the median of Lafayete Parkway in Lexington. I’d looked at a few arboreal candidates during my research trip to the city, including a majestic Chinkapin Oak. There wasn’t much direct illumination left when I got to the sycamore, my last destination. The lighting turned out to be ideal for a reference image.
It’s a privilege to dedicate my creative effort to promoting the important role of trees and the priorities of Live Green Lexington. My appreciation to Jeanette Tesmer, Alice Hilton, plus everyone who helped organize this nature-inspired arts event — and especially to show judge Leah Castleman, an art educator, avid painter, and outdoors enthusiast.
The exhibition is located in the upstairs community gallery of the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center through Friday, February 26, but the center is closed “until further notice due to red zone status of COVID-19.” You’re invited to take a Virtual Tour of the show, and think of me when you vote for People’s Choice!
Sycamore Reach
mixed media collage by J A Dixon
8 x 10.75 inches
• Best in Show / People’s Choice / S O L D
Three fourth-quarter miniatures
Sunday, December 20th, 2020
Her Pensive Nights
collage miniature by J A Dixon
8 x 8.375 inches
available for purchase
Untitled (smooch)
collage experiment by J A Dixon
7.1875 x 7.1875 inches
available for purchase
Tiny Medicine
collage miniature by J A Dixon
4.75 x 4.75 inches
available for purchase
Knobland
Monday, October 5th, 2020“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry
I spent a hot but glorious day with the August sun and “knobs” of Boyle County, Kentucky. At first it looked as if I didn’t need to do much with this one when I examined it in the studio, because I’d decided to ignore any evidence of habitation at the rural setting. 
Something convinced me that wasn’t the way to go, so I decided to plunge back in, referring back to my photo reference. As usual, I was bound and determined to avoid exceeding the time I’d spent on location or to ruin the impression that I’d already captured. I didn’t know exactly what to do. That I couldn’t leave well enough alone was clear enough. Working more from a memory of how the farmstead was tucked into the countryside, I completed the miniature within the desired limitation. To be totally honest, I still don’t know if the result is an artistic improvement, but the presence of people with a relationship to this particular natural place ended up being an overwhelming necessity for my landscape. You can be the judge of its final merit as well as I.
Knobland
plein air collage miniature by J A Dixon
50% /50% — site to studio
6.9375 x 7 inches
• S O L D
Sixth Chapter: A virtual field trip for youngsters . . .
Saturday, August 22nd, 2020
“You can decide that you want your art to be very close, exacting, and faithful to the scene, or you can just let nature charge your imagination, and you just go from there.”
— from our video “ridealong”
It turned out to be one of the more memorable days of the summer — not just another opportunity to take my collage making to a natural place, but a collaborative effort with my friend Brandon Long from Art Center of the Bluegrass. Responding to the new demands of the era, he was in the middle of organizing a virtual field trip to dovetail with our annual En Plein Air exhibition. He wants to encourage youngsters to create collage artwork out of doors, so he asked me if I would be the subject of a short video. Our local PAACK had already scheduled an event at Central Kentucky Wildlife Refuge, but, with the likelihood of rain, 
the gathering had been postponed earlier that morning. Brandon and I felt lucky, and we pushed ahead with the outing anyway. We were successful in avoiding the poison ivy and pulling off our little production at the edge of Island Pond. Not much later, a thunderstorm sent me skedaddling beneath a nearby shelter. Somehow, I came away with a good start on a miniature that I could finish in the studio. My goal has always been to spend less time with the indoor follow-up than I spend on location. Sometimes it happens, but usually I need a 50/50 time ratio between site and studio to bring something to a satisfactory resolution. There are artists who would not consider that a legitimate plein-air solution. It’s a standard limitation that we use for our Central Kentucky group. At any rate, I find the entire process to be personally rewarding. If I keep doing this, I think that basically I’ll get to where I can complete something in the field. Meanwhile, the challenge is to “paint with paper,” capturing the essence of a viewscape on site, and then to avoid messing that up with my finishing touches.
https://artcenterky.org/2020/08/creating-collage-en-plein-air/
Before a Storm
plein air collage miniature by J A Dixon
50% / 50% — site to studio
7.5 x 7.8125 inches
available for purchase
Final Line
Tuesday, August 18th, 2020As the full impact of navigating a declaration of pandemic struck everyone in early 2020, there was an activity that offered the sense of continuity many of us needed and a behavior that provided the social distancing all of us were expected to fulfill — a new season of creating artwork en plein air which allowed us to experience nature directly as an individual. In retrospect, I found it to be a profound source of consolation in a period of unprecedented disruption.
The first PAACK “art out” that I joined this year was a day at Perryville Battlefield, considered one of the most pristine sites where a Civil War conflict took place. There was a distinct awkwardness in the air when we met at the gathering point, but everybody soon shrugged it off and dispersed to scout locations. I found an appealing view of a hilltop and tree line off Oscar Bradley Road. A marker designated the location as where the final line of Union troops overlooked a strategic crossroads. I took a softer, more abstract approach with torn paper than I previously had. Perhaps it was something to do with a clear impression of being on hallowed ground. I left with a solid interim piece of work and strong feelings that went beyond artistic gratification. It didn’t take much follow through in the studio to complete this one to my satisfaction.
Final Line
plein air collage miniature by J A Dixon
65% /35% — site to studio
7 x 7.0625 inches
collection of the artist
Forgot to Commit Sins (diptych 7)
Sunday, July 19th, 2020
Forgot to Commit Sins (diptych 7)
collage miniatures by J A Dixon
1.75 x 1.75 inches each
left square | right square
Purchase Award / The Doug + Laurie Kanyer Art Collection
I finally help to “paint the town” of Lexington!
Friday, July 17th, 2020
Paint the Town is an annual plein-air-oriented landscape exhibition in Lexington, Kentucky. The parameters of the traditional twelve-hour event are strict, and I’ve always had the notion of it as a flat-out competition — sort of a bass tournament for artists, if I may indulge a silly exaggeration.
With the current societal restrictions having caused so many art shows to be postponed or cancelled, it’s a distinct credit to ARTSconnect that a way was found to make the event happen at all in 2020. The Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center reopened to host the exhibition. Many of the more stringent guidelines (and, sadly, all the hospitality enhancements) were stripped out of this year’s version.
I’m willing to admit that the relaxed standards were enough to convince me to take part, not having participated in this kind of gig before. I was eager to gather what I’ve learned from my plein-air experience and “paint with paper” in the studio. The goal was to fuse the spontaneity of working outdoors with a more deliberate process that I’ve explored by using photo references to create 
a larger landscape on panel. I can’t be more pleased with the results. I continue to incorporate white tissue for desired cloud effects, and I’ve come to rely on reclaimed teabag material as a beneficial adjunct to colored papers. I work at not overdoing tinted sealants, but the added depth is worth a cautious, mixed-media enhancement (especially when I mix acrylic gel medium with a rare portion of walnut juice from Richard Taylor).
Please take a Virtual Tour of the show. My 90-second sound bite is included, or you can listen to the audio by clicking here. Of course, there’s a YouTube video of all the artwork, too. My two collage miniatures enjoy some great company, and it pleases me to point out that juror Bruce Neville designated Byway Corner with an Honorable Mention. Current gallery hours at the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center are Wed/Thurs/Friday, noon to 5pm. The show lasts until August 3, 2020.
Byway Corner
collage landscape by J A Dixon
7 x 7.125 inches
available for purchase
• Honorable Mention
Along Market
collage landscape by J A Dixon
7 x 7.125 inches
available for purchase