This is Art?


Hey there.
I hear you muttering under your breath.
I'm right here.



"If this is art, then I have
a boxful in the back shed."





Well, yeah, you probably do.
But it's not art in the box, friend.
It's art when you take it out of the box
and decide to do something with it.

"This is art?"

That's what someone said
when they saw Man Ray's Gift, too.

I'm sure any one of them had
a flat iron and 14 tacks in their house.
But they didn't put them together, did they?

The art is in the presentation.

Here's the story behind this mixed media piece:

I was visiting a friend and noticed his pants were mended ingenously. He uses a special glue and patches them so there's no sewing involved. Apparently this glue is washable...indestructible even. I told my friend - those pants are a work of art.

"These??? These are just babies. You oughta see some of my other pairs."

He disappeared upstairs and comes down proudly bearing a pair of pants that most of us wouldn't even give to Goodwill. And he had reason to be proud. If you're an artist, you see the beauty in the texture of a well-worn pair of pants. I have worked for weeks to get that kind of texture in a painting. So I talked my friend into giving me the pants to make art. Just to be clear - he wasn't wearing them! I laboriously attached the clothing to a cradled wood panel. Then I used watercolor pencils here and there. I dry brushed all over here and there with a grassy green. It is signed on the back  And I sold it.

I'm going to make another one for my friend.
After all, I have the other half of this pair of pants. :-)

3 comments:

Jane said...

I'm speachles......
In a good way=)

Maureen said...

Dixie,
Your art is presented with flair and my mouth is open with awe. This is so wonderful. How many ways can you present them?

Dixie Redmond said...

I've been thinking about this. It's kind of didactic, but fun in a way. I have an idea to use another pair of jeans...but I don't think my friend will give up another pair. They're very precious to him.


"Do not let what you cannot do
keep you from doing what you can do."

John Wooden