{"id":4193,"date":"2014-07-31T22:53:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T02:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2023-01-03T16:22:47","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T20:22:47","slug":"all-things-collage-year-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/4193","title":{"rendered":"All Things Collage: Year Two"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014 Mark Twain<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTake what you can,<br \/>\nAll you can carry.<br \/>\nTake what you can,<br \/>\nAnd leave your thoughts behind.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014 Tom Petty<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf everything you do must be measured against the good opinion of everyone else, what happens to your good opinion of yourself?\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014 Wayne W Dyer<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hmmm . . . just realized that my line-up of quotations above might seem odd to some of you. At any rate, they capture a bit of what is on my mind, as I begin to reflect on a couple years of remarks about collage at this blogsite.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Mombo_MotherOfTheArtist.jpg\" alt=\"Mombo_MotherOfTheArtist\" width=\"144\" height=\"166\" title=\"mother of the artist\" \/ hspace=\"1\" vspace=\"1\" align=right \/>Like many others, I spend prayerful time caring for a parent with progressive dementia. The other day I was trying to explain to my mother, in terms she could appreciate, my burning desire to make collage artwork, and, touching on her prevailing sense of confusion, talked about my creative activity as a way to bring some kind of harmony out of the chaotic stream of disorder that dominates so much of current stimuli in our daily lives. It brought to my awareness the motivation at the center of what I love to do, but also fell short of the clarity for which I was reaching. Over the next year, I hope to find better words which get to the heart of that idea \u2014 how I take what I can carry into a process that leaves thinking behind, a kind of sweet madness that offers explanations difficult for me to achieve any other way. Of course, this is not the only approach to the medium. I hope to profile more collage artists who use a different methodology than my own \u2014 the extraordinary minimalists, the dedicated aestheticians, and those who continue to harness a kind of thoughtful irrationality that keeps me in awe.<\/p>\n<p>I just looked over <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/2179\" title=\"All Things Collage: Year One\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">my previous comments after a full year of blogging<\/a>, and, as a result, I feel the need to temper my ambitions going into year three, but that is not my nature. There are too many interesting things to explore in the dynamic world of contemporary collage. One of them is the continued explosion of collaboration. Another is the influence of social networks. Nearly every day I see an artist defeat the purpose of the platform with overexposure, failing to keep the age-old quality-vs-quantity issue in balance. One of my goals for the coming year is to take a closer look at how the ease of internet sharing affects the challenge of striking an equilibrium between the imperative to follow one\u2019s passion without regard for opinion and the practical aspects of seeking recognition and approval from others. As most of you already know, it is not an easy task to walk that tightrope.  <\/p>\n<p>And one more thing, dear visitor. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-login.php?action=register\" title=\"Please register to make comments!\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Please let me know<\/a> what I can do to make this site more interactive as a unique forum for discussion. Meanwhile, you can count on me to observe, write, and make more art. Stop back again!<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Dixon_Untitledflutter.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Dixon_Untitledflutter.jpg\" title=\"Untitled (flutter) ~ J A Dixon\" width=\"334\" height=\"454\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Dixon_Untitledflutter.jpg 668w, https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Dixon_Untitledflutter-300x407.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 88%; line-height: 133%; margin-top: 486px; margin-bottom: 55px; color: gray; padding-left: 30px;\" align=\"left\"><strong><em>Untitled (flutter)<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\ncollage experiment by J A Dixon<br \/>\n9 x 11 inches<br \/>\nnot for sale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhen we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.\u201d \u2014 Mark Twain \u201cTake what you can, All you can carry. Take what you can, And leave your thoughts behind.\u201d \u2014 Tom Petty \u201cIf everything you do must be measured against the good opinion of everyone else, what happens to your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,65,1,52,68,76,35,55,131],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193"}],"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=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17216,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions\/17216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}