Child of Giants

Monterey Herald ^ | June 28, 2005 | LISA CRAWFORD WATSON

[Utah Binger]

'CHILD OF GIANTS'

Son speaks of growing up with Maynard Dixon, Dorothea Lange

By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON

Herald Correspondent

Daniel Dixon has led, by most accounts, a remarkable life. At age 10, he was living in a Taos adobe, warmed by piñon fires and bathing "like homesteaders" in a tin tub. In 10th grade, he dropped out of school and became homeless. As a young adult, he became a freelance writer, having practiced the craft in the libraries where he had holed up to keep warm.

Now a respected writer and biographer, it was actually not his life the 80-year-old Dixon came to talk about Friday evening at the Performing Arts Center at Pacific Grove Middle School. And it was not his life the crowd came to hear about except for what it must have been like to grow up the "Child of Giants," two of the more renowned and remarkable people in the world of art, painter Maynard Dixon and photographer Dorothea Lange.

It was not Dixon's intent to introduce the legendary artists to a largely informed audience but, admittedly, to provide a personal, even intimate perspective through "the recollections of a very small boy, gnawed away by time, (the memories) of places and events almost lost in the shadows."

"My opinions might not be as memorable or poignant or vehement as those my mother photographed," he said, "views perhaps blurred by emotion but also unclouded by scholarship."

It was an informal yet poetic writing from which he read and also presented images illustrating the work and the lives of these artists, storytelling his way through what it was like to be very young and the son of such parents.

Dixon began with a 45-minute depiction of his father, a man "known and celebrated on the streets as one who styled himself to suit the city but also to suit himself." A man, as "thin as an arrow, who had an irreverent wit that could wound like an arrow." A man whose paintings had "heat and distance and loneliness and immensity." A man who had no rivals that could have "portrayed the American West with deeper understanding and integrity than Maynard Dixon."

The second half of the evening, with help from wife Dixie Dixon, was devoted to his mother, a photographer "who had the capacity to see and capture the soul of America at a particular time... over a lifetime of shutter clicking."

Despite the implausibility of gaps in such an eloquent and comprehensive account, it was the audience that revealed exceptions to his story, becoming a spontaneous, if not unexpected contributor to the telling.

One Monterey couple took their seats in the auditorium, mindful of "The Shepherd Boy," the Maynard Dixon painting wrapped snuggly in a wool blanket and waiting for just the right moment to retrieve it from their car and show it to the scion on stage.

When the buzz around the room reached them that a Maynard Dixon painting just might sell for $1 million these days, they knew the time had come to remove the painting to the protective custody of their possession and anonymity.

"I believe I graduated from high school the year Dixon died," the man said. "This painting belonged to my first wife's grandparents, who purchased it in Tucson. It has been hanging on the wall in my den since they passed away in the '70s, and I've enjoyed it ever since.

He unveiled the piece and presented it to those seated nearby. "It is a very interesting painting," he said. "There is absolutely nothing in the foreground except terrain, but the rest of the image, a rider overlooking the pueblo from the bluffs, is so realistic. It looks like a man, and it looks like a horse; that's the part I like. I brought this with me because it is a Maynard Dixon affair and to see if Daniel may even know it."

Although this was the couple's first opportunity to hear Dixon speak of his parents, there were others, the presenter acknowledged, who had returned for "second or third or fourth helpings."

"Some of you may be here to fill your nap gap with things you feel you might have missed," he joked.

Bob Sadler first attended Dixon's presentation some three or four years ago. In his words, "delighted by the stories," he returned for seconds and then sponsored the event at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Having heard it yet again, he returned for his fifth helping Friday night.

"The first time I saw Daniel's presentation," said the Pacific Grove management consultant, "I received a rich, historical perspective I wouldn't have gotten any other way. His passages are almost poetic in their delivery. I was told he almost never talked about his parents before, yet every time he tells it, it gets more intimate and emotional. I've gotten to see this story emerge, and I know we're going to see it deepen, still."

During intermission, a young man rose from the audience to tell of an article he had read about Maynard Dixon's early visit to Big Sur, a journey about which the painter's son had been unaware. He offered to provide a copy of the article to augment the family record.

Next, a woman was called upon to report on a cabin in the Carmel Valley where the artists had stayed. "Your father was there and your mother was there, along with a group of friends. Your father," she said, "even signed the door. I've tried to photograph it, but something always goes wrong with the film. Now, I have a digital camera, so I plan to try again."

When Dixon asked if she would take him to the cabin, she said, "It would be an honor."

Despite personal stories, connections and interests in the legendary artists from the audience, and a son who surely knew them best, it was Dixon who acknowledged that we can all discover them best within their art.

"The sage, the juniper and the horny toad knew my father well," he said, "and the high plains of Montana, the canyons and cottonwoods of Wyoming and the people who made it more than geography. Of the Maynard Dixon I knew so well and loved so long, these works will truly inform you."

Of his mother he concluded, "Throughout her life, my mother was the servant of her subject matter. The camera, she said, is an instrument that teaches people to see without using the camera. She never asked anyone to smile."

For those who missed the illustrated talk, "The Thunderbird Remembered," available through Amazon.com, is a shared recollection by Maynard Dixon's sons, Daniel and John, as well as two of Dixon's wives, photographer Dorothea Lange and artist Edith Hamlin, of memories both vague and vivid.

[Utah Binger]

Nice article about Dixon.

[Utah Binger]

Maynard Dixon Country

Another famous guy came from the Fresno area.

[ValerieUSA]

The camera, she said, is an instrument that teaches people to see without using the camera.

Excellent. As a photographer, I often think I am also a teacher.