DIXON ART TOUR 2010
By Trevor Burrowes
trevoroche@aol.com

The heart of Dixon is a sloping main road bordered by old adobe buildings that have been doctored up to fit various architectural fashions. There are vast amounts of land at the backs. Even with a crowd it is peaceful.

As always, Sandi and I try to keep our studio visits to the minimum. The first stop is always the community center, and buying a meal prepared by elderly volunteers. The building is old and basic, curiously plain despite the white-painted ceiling vegas that fit in staggered formation over large beams.

We started the tour with nearby Marie Coburn of Floramania. Someone says that her work had been exhibited at the Smithsonian, and it was easy to see why. Her life-size flower figures were extraordinary--sculptural renditions of c. 1600 Italian paintings of fruit and vegetable arranged to portray people. She had someone else deal with the visitors while she stood on the porch making a large wreath, clipping the dried plants and sticking them into place by means of a glue pot. In front of the porch was her garden, a wild place, bisected by a walkway, that had gone to seed for the fall. The garden continued, terraced, on either side of the steps leading down to the street.

Walking up the road from Floramania, cars pass by with inches to spare, the shoulders being lined with parked vehicles. We crossed the road to see Robert Brenden’s stone carvings, abstract sculpture and pencil drawings.. One gets the sense that his oeuvre--stone capitals and pillars, etc.-- is meant to be applied to expensive architecture. Although his studio was small, his work had a quality of grand scale. His stone carvings appear to be based on classical forms, while his assemblages are boldly abstract.

Backtracking, we casually meandered off the main down a dirt road that led to Al Terrell’s graceful, clean pottery forms. Pots with lids, often. Al partnered with Sarah O’s "Studio Examino, painting and sensing workshops to cultivate mindfulness." She paints on paper modularly put together and affixed to cardboard panels on which is absorbed the excess paint. The first impression is of delicate horror vacui imagery, almost a sort of doodling. On later examination, one sees monstrous scenes that somehow don’t horrify. (In that way they remind me of Henri {le douanier}Rousseau. Amazingly, she does not sell these fine works, but uses them as teaching tools for her workshops.

After Sarah O, I was basically through. It would be hard to top that experience. But we did swing by the museum (gallery?), where an assortment of tempera, watercolors, and woven throws and vests were displayed. My favorites were two tempera landscapes with Mexican workers by Eli Levin. I call Levin a modern old master, so deeply immersed in the art of the masters is he. The later works, one each from 2004 and 2005, were fresh and filled with light.

We ended up stopping by the two sites along the highway toward home: At site 2, Lou Malche showed digital, snapshot-like photographs while Kay Weiner, an obvious professional, showed work that was truly “fine sculptural jewelry” in silver, gold and stones. She lives on at least 10 acres of idyllic grassland with huge trees, right up against the Rio Grande. One fenced acre or so of flat low-cut grass was dedicated to a brown-black horse, intent on grazing. A stout, old brown dog slept soundly in a corner outside the studio.

The last stop was at Steve Ebben’s studio, sandwiched between the highway and the Rio Grande. Steve looked like a sophisticated cowboy, very trim and neat, his chiseled face crowned by a brown hat, his teeth pearly white. He advertises himself as artist/blacksmith, displaying sculpture, hardware, copper fish and mobiles. I asked him if he was influenced by Calder--some of his mobiles could have been Calder replicas-- and was surprised when he demurred, favoring Miro and Klee instead. I couldn’t quite connect with his exhibition. His yard sculpture was so magnificent, with so much gravity and presence, that I could hardly bear to leave. Meanwhile, near the studio, were myriad small, shiny replicated pieces, the copper fish series most prominently, most of which hung as mobiles. It was hard to understand how the creator of those spare, elegant rusty-metal yard sculptures could adjust to producing such obviously commercial objects —“I have to make what people will buy,” he said. The aesthetic wonder that I saw in the rusty yard sculpture was cut off from everything else in his studio environment.