{"id":14770,"date":"2021-01-29T17:04:57","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T21:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/?p=14770"},"modified":"2024-12-03T16:39:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T20:39:21","slug":"a-creative-synthesis-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/14770","title":{"rendered":"A Creative Synthesis Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cImprovising is the closest thing I do to meditation. I have to respond honestly to what\u2019s happening in the music.\u201d
\n\u2014 Michelle Dorrance<\/p>\n

\u201cOrder is not enough. You can\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.\u201d
\n\u2014 Jordan B Peterson
\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The year culminated in my largest collage artwork so far. I\u2019m 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<\/a>. All of us might point to a milestone achievement. It can be the most effortless and the most challenging thing we\u2019ve ever done, both at the same time. <\/p>\n

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 \u201clockdown\u201d 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<\/a> remained intact \u2014 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.<\/a> Amid the frustrating chaos, there are many things for which to be thankful.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve 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<\/a><\/strong><\/em> is an example of this fusion.<\/p>\n

<\/a>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 \u2014 color, value, shape, line, texture \u2014 serve as the notes, rests, and rhythms of the composition. Thumbnail studies represent the evolution of a \u201cmanuscript,\u201d analogous to musical notation, which then allows for an improvisational \u201cperformance.\u201d But unlike a live concert, the visual artist can choose to return to a spontaneous expression and make deliberate refinements<\/a> before declaring a piece \u201cfinished.\u201d 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.
\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Synthesis<\/em><\/strong>
\ncollage on canvas by J A Dixon
\n48 x 36 inches
\navailable to collectors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cImprovising is the closest thing I do to meditation. I have to respond honestly to what\u2019s happening in the music.\u201d \u2014 Michelle Dorrance \u201cOrder is not enough. You can\u2019t 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,273,1,253,8,18,111,35,46,19],"tags":[417,90,308,557,313,587,418,310,319],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14770"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19013,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14770\/revisions\/19013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}