Meet Cassandra Elaine Dixon

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cassandra Elaine Dixon.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born and raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico. At 18, I moved to Georgia where I studied Illustration at Savannah College of Art and Design. I attended SCAD with a scholarship for swimming. My senior year, the women’s team won 1st place at NAIA Nationals, the first national title SCAD had ever accomplished! A competitive swimmer since the age of 9, the water has always been my preferred medium of existence. I have always been inspired by the water, devoted to the water, and relied on the water. Strange, I know – especially growing up in the desert! After graduating from SCAD, I started coaching swimming, and eventually took a job as Assistant Coach for the Women’s Team at New Mexico State University. After one year as an NCAA Div 1 coach, I decided I wanted to focus on my art career. I received my Masters of Fine Art with a focus on Installation and Sculpture from New Mexico State University. I relocated to Patagonia, AZ in 2016. I have fallen in love with southern Arizona. The mountains, the sky, the air, the birds – this is where I belong right now.

Please tell us about your art.
I have always used art to express my emotions, and I have always identified as an artist. When I was a teenager, I experienced a horrendous sexual assault, which broke me and stole my creative life force. For a decade I existed and carried my secret in silence. Doing laps in the pool and making art were my only escape. In 2010 I discovered art therapy, and I practiced it on my own for 2 years until I found an amazing art therapist. In 2012, I came forward to the world with my secret and created an art exhibition called the Secret Show. I held an open call for artists everywhere to submit their work created in the aftermath of their sexual assault. It was a beautiful and successful healing event, with over 50 submissions.

My work asks questions concerning the body, identity, and the formation of female subjectivity in response to sexual violence. The process of my art explores shame, silencing, and healing through the cultivation of power and pleasure by processes of art making. How can art represent growth and facilitate recovery in our highly sexualized, individualistic, objectifying culture?

My work asks viewers to consider love as the ultimate weapon of transformation. I do not restrict myself to any one method of art making, and I never make the same thing twice. I enjoy a myriad of mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, video, performance, and poetry – and I am continuing to expand and experiment by combining different materials and techniques.

Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
I think the role of the artist is to interpret and express their unique experience. Every person in the world is an artist, whether they acknowledge it or not, and has the ability to create anything they can see in their mind and feel in their heart. The definition of art is not restricted to painting, drawing, or sculpture – it is a phenomenology – it is breathing, seeing, eating, connecting, loving, living – it is the creation of your very life. If you create each day with conscious intention, your life will become a beautiful work of complex art, where you can look at each layer and recognize each brushstroke as a memory and a feeling.

You will be able to learn what techniques you enjoy, which methods work for you, and which materials serve you or not. I’m speaking about more than just laying brushstrokes down on a canvas. I’m talking about your relationships, your lifestyle, your diet, your interaction with the world. My art is deeply affected by issues in the world. As I work through my personal issues in my art, I become connected with others working through similar experiences, and their work touches me, and then I am transformed – we are all transformed – as we raise our consciousness and deepen our understanding of self and universe – that we are both individual and all together one. The more we can continue to create about our experience, the more our collective consciousness will be raised. I believe artists have the power to create peace on earth.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
You can see my work on my website at www.artcassandraelaine.carbonmade.com. My Instagram page is @artxcassandraxelaine. Send me an email! I am open for commissions and love creating in collaboration!
This past year alone I had the opportunity to do two book covers, a tattoo design, a three-day mural event called the BBoy BBQ, wedding invitations, three exhibitions in the US, and multiple paintings for private commissions.

I would love to hear from you! artcassandraelaine@gmail.com 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://artcassandraelaine.carbonmade.com/
• Email: artcassandraelaine@gmail.com
• Instagram: @artxcassandraxelaine

Image Credit:
Sistar I See You was created in collaboration with Steph Preciado.

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