A RIVER CONNECTION: Artists of Asheville opens at Kleinhelter today. The gallery in New Albany, Indiana presents a fundraiser for artists affected by flood damage from Hurricane Helene. 100% of sales will go to help them rebuild. Some of my collage landscapes from the autumn exhibition will continue to be displayed separately. If any of these find a buyer, I will contribute $100 each to the relief fund. The show lasts until February 22, 2025.
Please consider helping out.
It’s November! I’m pleased to share a notice for SMALL WORKS and that my collage landscapes will be a part of this group exhibition at Kleinhelter Gallery in New Albany, Indiana.
“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”
— Albert Einstein
If you want to make something happen, ask a librarian. Diane Dehoney is one of the best! Bringing our enjoyable collaboration at Paul Sawyier Public Library to a successful close was not my favorite part of having a show there. Heartfelt thanks to everybody in Frankfort.
LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY is back in storage, but I want to send it on the road again for more to see. If you know a good location for it in 2025, please let me know!
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.
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
My solo show of collage landscapes stays on the road — this time at the Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort. The exhibition lasts through September 23, and I am present for a gallery talk on August 20 at 6pm.
“Yes, I hustle, I hustle to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.”
— Anthony Hopkins
The plein air tradition is alive and well in Central Kentucky. My thanks to Arts Connect for an outstanding “Paint the Town” event, with sincere appreciation to juror James Swanson for his recognition of collage as a plein air medium. A 2nd-place prize was quite unexpected, because it was everything I could do to meet their timetable in the extreme heat. All artwork had to be delivered framed and ready for immediate display by the 8am to 2pm deadline.
This event is always challenging for me, because I rarely need to paste as fast as I must for such a rigorous pace. Every time I go outside to create a collage landscape, adequate preparation is important, and then I try to be as spontaneous as I can with the materials that I bring. For this annual competition, the chosen scene is carefully scouted. I make more “prepared ingredients” ahead of time. That usually means additional printed-text gel transfers on a range of colored papers. You may have seen how I often include them for facade patterns, foregrounds, and foliage. Dana (my indispensable partner) dug out some of her mid-century carpet thread for my mobile stash, and I used it during the final minutes for utility wires.
The resulting exhibition is at the downtown branch of Lexington Public Library. For as long as it lasts, please view the artworks online to see a strong body of landscapes completed on that hot day. Buy one!
Ode to Grain
collage en plein air by J A Dixon
100% / 0% — site to studio
10 x 10 inches + wood frame, crafted by the artist
available for purchase
• Second Place Prize
My solo show of collage landscapes is back on display — this time at the Eastside Branch of the Lexington Public Library. The exhibition lasts from May 1 to June 30 — Palumbo Drive at Man O War Boulevard.
“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
