J A Dixon, artist
The Collage Miniaturist welcomes you to this log of creative thoughts and images. He encourages you to visit frequently, to make comments, and, if you see a collage miniature that pleases you, to purchase it for a collection.
Collage Approach for LITTER-ALLY KENTUCKY, 2024
Artist Profile for CHANGE OF SEEN, 2022
From a solid foundation in design, John Andrew Dixon creates intricate collage artworks full of color and visual allusions. By repurposing discarded paper, ruined publications, and other devalued remnants of everyday culture, he uses his aesthetic sensitivity to produce enduring artworks that exemplify his refined process of intuition and exceptional artisanship.
Dense with layers of ingredients, his work captures a visual balance that is rich with spatial harmony (color, shape, texture, rhythm) and emotional impressions (surprise, intrigue, beauty, joy).
“I am struck by the capacity to spontaneously create value from found material and stuff of little intrinsic worth,” Dixon says. “I balance my approach by considering collage as both artifact and painting. The result is derived as much from creative impulse as rational thought, almost like improvisational music. Anything cast off has the potential to be reinvigorated and infused with new meaning. Collage is ideally suited to individual interpretations and offers a universal intuitive experience for observers. I’m gratified when others share in this sense of receptivity and pure discovery.”
By commission, Dixon also offers what he calls “legacy collage.” Using furnished artifacts from travels, career, or a lifetime, he creates archival works of art that provide patrons a way to preserve and display significant elements from their documents and clippings. These works make ideal gifts to esteemed individuals or their heirs. With his illustrative abilities and mixed media skills, Dixon can include creations from his own hand in the commissioned piece. He refrains from using ink-jet reproductions in his work and avoids dissecting books that can still fulfill a useful life.
To understand collage and its history as an art form, Dixon has studied the work of Schwitters, Höch, Hausmann, Cornell, Rauschenberg, Hamilton, Otnes, and Kolář, as well as contemporary practitioners. Dixon earned a degree in Graphic Design from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). After working in Brussels and Chicago, teaching design fundamentals at Wright State University in Ohio, and a 40-year career as an award-winning designer and illustrator, Dixon brings a mature focus to his work in mixed media. As a fine artist and exhibitor, he is a regular blogger on the topic of collage and is active in ongoing joint ventures among regional creatives. In 2017, he was named an adjudicated member of the Kentucky Crafted Program administered by the Kentucky Arts Council. Working from a studio and gallery in the heart of downtown Danville, Dixon and his wife and partner, Dana, offer visual communication solutions to institutions and entrepreneurs. His current work is displayed at Dixon Design and available by appointment. Many of his collage miniatures and larger works can be purchased directly from this site.
As a local leader, Dixon has volunteered on many boards and was presented the David Bell Birney Hope Award for outstanding community service in 2010. An avid bicyclist, he has contributed his talents to local efforts on behalf of bicyclist-pedestrian safety and accommodations. He was appointed to the Kentucky Bicycle and Bikeway Commission as an adviser to the Transportation Cabinet and was named to the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. He is also widely recognized for his association with The Great American Brass Band Festival, 
having created ten of the annual posters during its 30-plus-year existence as one of the “best events in the Bluegrass.”
Dixon and his six siblings grew up in rural Ohio. Inspired by their parents’ values, each migrated to Central Kentucky to reside in proximity, having made a mutual pledge to share a quality of life as a close-knit extended family. Since 1979, a remote farm retreat in the Knobs of Casey County has been their unifying focus — a legacy of stewardship to new generations.