2020 JOURNAL:
Looking at my final experiment of the year while developing a large work on canvas.
Did we leave 2020 better than we found it? Each individual will decide.
Untitled (dark4x)
collage experiment by J A Dixon
7 x 5 inches
Archive for the ‘Journal’ Category
Thursday, December 31st, 2020
An all-seeing eye is watching
Saturday, August 3rd, 2019
“Mastering music is more than learning technical skills. Practicing is about quality, not quantity. Some days I practice for hours; other days it will be just a few minutes.”
— Yo-Yo Ma
Mombo gets a lot of junk mail — a ridiculous amount — but, at the age of 94, she is long past having any interest in it. When I care for her, the current stash provides scrap for compositional studies created while she rests.
We all need to practice something, don’t we?
Untitled (cyclopea)
collage experiment by J A Dixon
7.5 x 7.5 inches
not for sale
Back at the nest: more stretching
Monday, January 21st, 2019Here’s a quick journal collage using only a small pile of junk mail at the home of Mombo, before it went into her recyclables. Not everything is performance. Athletes call it training. Musicians call it practicing. I’m not sure what most visual artists typically call it — sketching? exercising? At any rate, whatever the medium, we all need to do it regularly, too!
Untitled (host nest)
journal collage by J A Dixon
7 x 9 inches
First cause: the intuitive response
Sunday, April 23rd, 2017“Every athlete, every musician practices every day. Why should it be different for artists?”
— Christoph Niemann
Creating a collage within constraints is one of the most enjoyable activities within the medium, because it is necessary to throw oneself upon the mercy of pure intuition. Last week I was in the middle of caring for my mother at our family farm, and I assigned myself this exercise:
• Complete one full-page collage in my journal within the time of Mombo’s two-hour afternoon nap, using only ingredients found in the recycling bin.
Naturally, my journal is the perfect place to conduct such exercises. I take what I learn from the small format and bring it to larger artworks. What is it that I learn? That, too, is primarily a matter of fortifying one’s intuition. I hope to internalize the creative response that each experiment reveals and keep my collage process as subjective as possible. For me, nothing bogs down the making of a collage more than too much rational thinking, which is best reserved for aesthetic refinements, finishing touches, and creating titles.
Untitled (first cause)
constrained collage exercise by J A Dixon
page from 11×14 Strathmore journal
not for sale
the necessity of journal experiments
Friday, October 14th, 2016“You must train your intuition. You must trust the small voice inside which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide.”
— Ingrid Bergman
Believe it or not, collage-miniature experiments in my sketch journal have become less about visual results than they have about intuitive choices and conditioning my sequential responses. If one can internalize this process as a smooth, nonjudgmental flow, then it is possible to bring it to bear with more rational, formal concepts. This will help avoid bogging down in an undesirable, second-guessing mode. I hope that makes sense. If not, I promise that I will keep trying to articulate this important aspect of creativity.
Untitled (Oat Man Mountain)
a journal experiment by J A Dixon
5 x 4.5 inches
Untitled (Per Pound!)
a journal experiment by J A Dixon
7.75 x 8 inches
Untitled (pierced)
a journal experiment by J A Dixon
3 x 4 inches
Untitled (DBC)
a journal experiment by J A Dixon
9 x 5 inches
For Your Protection
Monday, September 7th, 2015“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Another trip collage from my recent “fishing retreat” to the Les Cheneaux Islands of Lake Huron. Working within the constraint of limited scrap at hand is a worthwhile visual exercise in preparation for creating collage artworks at any scale.
Untitled (For Your Protection)
journal experiment by J A Dixon
6 x 6 inches
another “trip collage” exercise
Monday, June 29th, 2015“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.”
– Orson Welles
Here is another journal experiment based on ingredient constraints. It has a more abstract emphasis, in contrast to the previous example. There are numerous ways to impose this instructive limitation. Some collage artists have been known to create a composition restricted to the random scraps found on their work surface. Others make it into collaborative play, swapping an envelope of ingredients within which to work. A speed requirement will reveal more aspects of creative decision making and give rise to other insights. Paradoxically, there is no limit to how limitations can unlock the freedom of artistic expression.
results of a “trip collage” exercise
journal experiment by J A Dixon
7.25 x 5.25 inches
It’s a trip collage, man . . .
Monday, June 22nd, 2015“It is the limitation of means that determines style, gives rise to new forms and makes creativity possible.”
– Georges Braque
From the first decision an artist makes when confronting a blank format, available options are eliminated. As contradictory as it may sound, writers, designers, musicians, dancers, visual artists — all of us find fertile ground in restriction. Working within limitations, self-imposed or otherwise, is always at the heart of the creative process. One of my preferred journal experiments is a variation I call the “trip collage.” Mind you, this has absolutely nothing to do with psychotropic escapades. However, I do periodically “expand my consciousness” of the medium with an exercise based on limited ingredients. When on holiday or outside the studio, I produce a small collage only with the elements immediately available at hand. Litter, junk mail, discarded packaging, or the detritus of a particular environment will become the instruments of a miniature orchestration. Even within this constraint, choices about what to use and what to ignore will govern the approach, and the interesting relationship between spontaneity and intuitive judgment can be observed.
results of a “trip collage” exercise
journal experiment by J A Dixon
5.5 x 6.75 inches
White space ain’t a negative thing.
Saturday, May 16th, 2015“Life is trying things to see if they work.”
– Ray Bradbury
A familiar approach to collage makes use of elements positioned on a field, activating the “white space” with a typical figure/ground relationship. Often the working substrate is carefully selected for inherent visual interest or aesthetic qualities. Like a visage with character, a single piece of “ancient” stock can speak volumes on its own. There are many other ways for “negative space” to play a key part in collage artwork. For me, experimenting with small studies in my journal can suggest a different twist, with the potential for exploitation in a more finished composition.
Untitled (IRA)
journal experiment by J A Dixon
4.375 x 4.25 inches
and another journal experiment . . .
Saturday, May 9th, 2015
Untitled (Equal)
collage experiment by J A Dixon
9.5 x 8.25 inches
Drawing out the unfulfilled possibility
Saturday, May 2nd, 2015“I am a great believer in the primacy of drawing as a means of engaging the world and understanding what you’re looking at.”
– Milton Glaser
“Why do you make collage artwork when you can draw?” People who broach the subject rarely come at it quite so directly, but even if they did, the question would not be any easier to answer. To begin with, I do indeed draw, and have since the dawn of memory, and I bring that ability to my work as an illustrator, portrait artist, watercolorist, and wood engraver. My enthusiasm for collage is rooted in something else — an impulse not entirely clear to me. I am grateful for all my talents, but I was educated and trained as a designer, and the practice has done more than enable me to create a life as an independent creative professional. It has become embedded in my consciousness. Decades of visual decisions have informed my responsive intuition. Collage is part design experimentation, part painterly expression, part artisanship, and part meditation. It is always a probing beyond expectations, an exploration of potentials, a harnessing of associations in flux. It can be the result of self assignment, but the most exciting effects often grow out of ritual. For me, it is never disconnected from what is taking form in my current journal. Not true artist’s sketchbooks (much as I have always hope they would evolve toward), they inevitably become a record of verbal and visual thoughts or non-thoughts. Some of my journal experiments combine techniques and mediums in ways that have not yet found manifestation outside their covers. Perhaps some day the question will be: “Why do you also draw in your collage artwork?”
Untitled (necklace)
journal experiment by J A Dixon
9.5 x 6.25 inches