{"id":9417,"date":"2017-08-12T10:23:26","date_gmt":"2017-08-12T14:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/?p=9417"},"modified":"2017-08-12T14:28:59","modified_gmt":"2017-08-12T18:28:59","slug":"star-of-commonwealth-through-the-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/9417","title":{"rendered":"Star of Commonwealth ~ through the glass"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cImpossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they\u2019ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It\u2019s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It\u2019s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.\u201d
\n\u2014 Muhammad Ali
\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let us take \u201cour telescope\u201d and look more closely at the Star<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. My strong appreciation of fine-art collage is second to none, but there is something equally as satisfying when one is called upon to create an \u201cartifact\u201d that pays tribute to a unique historical or personal legacy<\/a>. I think that I managed to compile enough ingredients to do justice to the theme of the current exhibition<\/a> \u2014 Kentucky\u2019s 225th birthday celebration.<\/p>\n

If anyone asks, \u201cWhere is he or she? Why did you not include this or that?\u201d the answer might be as simple as an absence of \u201cstuff.\u201d The reason for that is my firm reluctance to use anything but original source material that would otherwise be destined for the recycling bin or landfill. I cannot bring myself to go online to search for, print, and use digital imagery, even though nearly anything can be \u201cacquired\u201d in that format these days. For me, art is always about constraint. Or, as the late Martin Landau<\/a> put it, \u201cIt\u2019s not about comfort, it\u2019s about discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please click on the images below to zoom in on Star of Commonwealth<\/a>.
\n 
\n
\n\"detail<\/a><\/p>\n

How can a collage artist go wrong, relying on images of
Kentucky\u2019s two most widely recognized and revered native sons?
For me, Frederick Douglass is the figure who links them best.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

One of my organizing factors was to confine the more intense colors to the
\u2018floating\u2019 star and to use the plank surfaces to carry a more historical tone.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Kentucky has one of the greatest multitude of counties for any state in the union.
Woefully inefficient, or one of the better examples of self-government close to
the people? You can decide. I just like how colorful it makes an antique map.
At any rate, the frontier\u2019s exploding population pushed Dan\u2019l toward the sunset.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

One of my favorite zones involves a visual juxtaposition of worship, whiskey,
constitution, thoroughbreds, coal mining, confederate leader, battle flag, and a
reference to human slavery. Only the history of Kentucky could contain all that.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cImpossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they\u2019ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It\u2019s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It\u2019s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,118,1,160,157,8,22,18,111,35,39,9,92],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417"}],"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=9417"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9524,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417\/revisions\/9524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}