Pearl of the Lily
collage on book cover by J A Dixon
5.25 x 8.25 inches
available for purchase
Posts Tagged ‘Dixon’
March Ex(plosion) | Fifth Collage
Friday, March 5th, 2021March Ex(plosion) | Fourth Collage
Thursday, March 4th, 2021
Zot Zowee
collage miniature by J A Dixon
8 x 9.5 inches
available for purchase
March Ex(plosion) | Third Collage
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021
Polyphemus
collage miniature by J A Dixon
8.6875 x 11.25 inches
available for purchase
March 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
This go round: an ex(plosion) of collage
Monday, March 1st, 2021“When I think how I am not following orders to do what people think I should do, I am scared, but then I think that it is my own work, if anything, that will be remembered. I can’t work for other people. I don’t do good work with their ideas. So I’ll go on with my own.”
– John Steinbeck
The March Exercise is back and fully upon me — another opportunity to harness myself to an all-consuming discipline, with a month-long ritual of collage that has nothing to do with anything but my own way of making it. This whole winter thing began as a 2006 marathon experiment in time management, when I woke up one morning dedicated to the idea of transforming everything to do with how Dana and I positioned our active graphic design practice. Here at TCM, I’ve periodically showcased an extended collage-a-day regimen, most recently with an intense summer flurry of diptychs. I’m back at it again. There won’t be many words in this space for awhile, just traditional, cut-and-glue collage, until I surface for air in April. Until then, I hope you enjoy the Ex(plosion).
Really Done Me
collage miniature by J A Dixon
5.25 x 6.125 inches
from my Series of Rock
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
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
Haven on the Ridge
Wednesday, September 30th, 2020“Observers should feel that the act of painting was effortless — that it happened, it just happened. Which, of course, is not true.”
— Jane Piper
I’ll be spending more time in the collage studio soon, but I made the most of the warm months to create collage artwork in the open air. Much love and appreciation goes out to my sister, Joan Wood, for hosting a summer plein-air gathering at her wonderful retreat on Kelley Ridge in Garrard County, Kentucky. Since I was the PAACK coordinator for the outing, 
I decided to set up in a central spot to help me avoid overlooking any of our intrepid participants. The turnout was great, and I had at least one visitor that I wasn’t expecting. A house portrait demands a certain density and exactitude. I left with a good start, but it fell short of the hoped-for level of detail, so I challenged myself to bring it around with an expenditure of studio time equal to what I devoted to the outdoor session.
Cardinal Haven is the name that our mother, Virginia, came up with for Joan’s isolated abode (which spurred the title of this featured miniature). It’s on display right now, as part of the annual group exhibition in downtown Danville. En Plein Air lasts until October 30.
Haven on the Ridge
collage miniature by J A Dixon
50% / 50% — site to studio
7.1875 x 7.1875 inches
private collection
Seventh Chapter: Interpreting an observed world with collage . . .
Thursday, September 17th, 2020“Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
(clockwise, from top left) Working at the sunny flowerbed in July. The ‘rig’ that enables me to take the medium of collage outside. The result of my concentrated, on-site attention. Closeup of a marvelous bloom that cast its spell on me.
My thanks to Margo and Russ Goodwin for their purchase during our annual exhibition, En Plein Air. Your sunny garden in July was a perfect spot to paint flowers, which I’d never done with paper before. My appreciation to Donna F for her continuous encouragement, to Katherine W for getting a shot of me with that rig I developed to create collage outdoors, and to Amanda G for taking pity on me with the loan of her handy umbrella. The last image in the grid above is the result of my preliminary work at the flowerbeds — to get a roughly seven-inch square composition. Needless to say, all the time spent studying the surrounding zinnias resulted in minimal pasted paper for the actual blossoms, but stored memories and photo references were sufficient to prime an expressive treatment back in the studio.
As I’ve mentioned before, my objective is to spend fewer hours with the indoor follow-up than I do on location. I’ll usually require “half-and-half” to resolve a solution. Yes, there are those who wouldn’t accept that as a legitimate plein-air piece. It’s a standard cut-off point that we use for our PAACK. It works well for me at this stage of my learning to “paint in papers.” The more important aspect of this journey into natural settings is the clear sense that contemporary collage, an innovation by modern-art painters, may still be largely untapped as a method of visually interpreting the observed world, especially as part of the plein air tradition. Flowers should be a essential part of that adventure.
July Zinnias
plein air collage miniature by J A Dixon
50% /50% — site to studio
6.375 x 7.3125 inches
• S O L D
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 Give a Damn (diptych 1161)
Friday, July 31st, 2020
Forgot to Give a Damn (diptych 1161)
collage miniatures by J A Dixon
1.875 x 1.875 inches each
left square | right square
available for purchase
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