{"id":4760,"date":"2015-01-17T14:17:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T18:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/?p=4760"},"modified":"2022-07-18T13:53:20","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T17:53:20","slug":"a-universal-antidote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/4760","title":{"rendered":"A universal antidote . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSelf-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it
\nacting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is
\nthe greatest art of all.\u201d
\n\u2014 Ray Bradbury<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was honored, but also thrilled, to accept my third invitation for the \u201cNew Year New Art\u201d exhibition at our local Community Arts Center<\/a>, one of the outstanding cultural institutions in Central Kentucky. The extraordinary thing about this annual show is a freedom to display, \"The<\/a>without juried appraisal, one or two pieces for which one has passion. The only restriction is that the work not be over four months old. I decided to create something around the holidays specifically for the opportunity, and, because I had just completed a difficult portrait commission in watercolor and pencil, a more personal form of expression was a welcome idea. I had used an illustrative, \u201cnews-magazine-cover\u201d style that always has had great appeal to me, but that over the years has challenged my self confidence and repeatedly has put my perfectionist tendencies to a stress test. Fortunately, I have discovered a universal antidote for all that \u2014 collage.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the January exhibition I wanted to do something fresh, to surprise myself, but also, as most artists prefer, to create something that would please others, that would excite an individual\u2019s subjective response. Mixed-media collage is a medium that people find both provocative and delightful, and to which I am strongly committed, but that should be no surprise to anyone who follows this site. As a working designer and graphic artist, I return to collage on a nearly daily basis as fuel for my creative life and a potent solvent for that side of myself which continually flirts with self doubt if something might not turn out exactly as I imagine it should. All that nonsense fades away when I incite the spontaneity of this magnificent medium. <\/p>\n

Of course, I remain captivated by the ability to make something of value from material that otherwise would be thrown away or recycled. I enjoy creating artwork that has bold visual appeal from across a room, but that also provides a depth of interest at close observation, with many stimulating details within an intimate viewing distance. \u201cMatthew\u2019s Touchonic Lodge\u201d is primarily an abstract composition, and I salute two collage artists whose work I admire with my title and embedded allusions. \u201cApparition Rising\u201d uses ingredients that are more whimsical, but perhaps slightly \u201cspooky\u201d at the same time. A phrase from a song that I like sparked the genesis of its assembly. Both are significantly larger than my typical miniature, more dimensional than a standard flat surface, and, as with all my designs, I worked intuitively with color, contrast, and the activation of space. In addition, I continue to push the effect of collage as a stand-alone treatment that does not demand the protective glass barrier. Please let me know what you think of these new works.
\n <\/p>\n

\"Dixon_TouchonicLodge\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s Touchonic Lodge<\/em><\/strong>
\nmixed-media collage by J A Dixon
\n22.5 x 20 inches, December 2014
\ntitle source: homage to artists M Rose<\/a> and C Touchon<\/a>
\nPurchase this artwork!<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Dixon_ApparitionRising\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparition Rising<\/em><\/strong>
\nmixed-media collage by J A Dixon
\n19.5 x 27.5 inches, December 2014
\ntitle source: from the song \u201cGhost Town<\/a>\u201d by J Brasfield
\nalso available for purchase<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSelf-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.\u201d \u2014 Ray Bradbury I was honored, but also thrilled, to accept my third invitation for the \u201cNew Year New Art\u201d exhibition at our local Community Arts Center, one of the outstanding cultural institutions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,7,1,11,149,8,150,36,13,22,18,111,54,20,35,46,172,151,272,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760"}],"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=4760"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16291,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4760\/revisions\/16291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}