Ted Dixon Finds Joy, Memory and Music in Two Friends [Playing] at WAAM

Ted Dixon Finds Joy, Memory and Music in Two Friends [Playing] at WAAM

by Robert Brune

There was barely an empty seat inside the Solo Gallery at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum Saturday afternoon as visitors gathered for an artist talk with Ted Dixon. By the time the program began, people were standing shoulder to shoulder around a visibly delighted Dixon, whose exhibition Two Friends [Playing]: New Paintings Inspired by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays provided a colorful backdrop for the conversation.

WAAM Executive Director Nicole Goldberg opened with some playful recognition of just how long Dixon had hoped for a solo exhibition at the museum. With that moment finally here, Dixon was beaming. Exhibitions Director Suzy Jeffers followed by thanking Dixon for bringing such a strong new body of work to WAAM before introducing Dixon and Taliesin Thomas, Ph.D., the exhibition’s juror and facilitator for the afternoon’s discussion.

Thomas, who has known Dixon for years, spoke warmly about the artist and his work. While the conversation occasionally ventured into philosophical territory, one of her simplest observations captured the exhibition particularly well. She described the paintings as possessing an “explosive, joyful vibe,” a description that seemed equally applicable to Dixon himself as he enthusiastically discussed his process.

That joy has a musical foundation. The exhibition was inspired by jazz guitarist and composer Pat Metheny and pianist and composer Lyle Mays, longtime collaborators whose work together helped define the distinctive sound of the Pat Metheny Group. Metheny is a 20-time Grammy Award winner, while Mays, who died in 2020, was an acclaimed composer, arranger and musician whose interests extended into mathematics and architecture.

Yet Dixon stressed an important distinction about the paintings. He was not attempting to illustrate individual songs. Instead, he wanted the music to act as a catalyst, allowing memories and emotions to emerge and become something visual.

“I didn’t want the viewer to think I was interpreting the song or a song,” Dixon explained. He wanted viewers to understand how the music affected him and then find their own emotional relationship with the resulting paintings.

For Dixon, listening can unexpectedly transport him across decades. During the discussion he described music bringing him back to his upbringing, his parents, the childhood memory of having a bicycle stolen, his graduation and thoughts of his grandmother. The association does not necessarily originate in a song’s subject. Rather, something within the music unlocks a memory, giving Dixon an emotional starting point when he enters the studio.

That relationship between sound, memory and abstraction gives Two Friends [Playing] much of its emotional accessibility. Circles, irregular shapes, lines and fields of brilliant red, yellow and blue move through Dixon’s paintings with something approaching musical rhythm. Some compositions feel exuberant while others offer quieter visual passages. Collectively, they suggest the improvisational exchange inherent in jazz without attempting to literally reproduce it.

The discussion became particularly revealing when Dixon was asked whether any memories inspired by the music had been too personal to share through his paintings. Dixon answered simply, “No.” For him, releasing something personal into a work of art allows the experience to become larger than his own emotional attachment. He said he considers the possibility that someone encountering the painting might receive “something beneficial” from it.

Family remains fundamental to that process. Dixon spoke about still wanting to make his parents and grandparents proud, even though they are gone. Those relationships continue to provide an anchor for his work and for the questions about love, memory, distance and human connection that repeatedly surface in his paintings.

Perhaps most touching was Dixon’s candor about what exhibiting at WAAM means to him. He wants fellow artists to respect what he is doing. He spoke of seeing work created by artists associated with WAAM going back to the 1930s and recognizing the standard that history establishes.

“I can’t come back and just put up anything,” Dixon said. The desire for validation was not presented as ego, but as respect for the artists who came before him and those working beside him today.

On Saturday, Dixon did not have to wonder whether his work had connected. The packed gallery, questions from fellow artists and visitors, and warmth surrounding the conversation offered their own answer. After years of wanting this moment at WAAM, Dixon appeared determined to enjoy every minute of it.

Two Friends [Playing]: New Paintings Inspired by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays ultimately feels less like an exhibition about translating music into painting than one about what music unlocks inside us. For Dixon, it opens doors to family, childhood, love, loss and memories scattered across a lifetime. He then gives those experiences back through color, shape and movement, inviting viewers to discover what the paintings might unlock within themselves.