RESPONDING CREATIVELY: MARK DIXON '96

BY BRIAN SCHUH '02

Art professor Mark Dixon '96 teaches his students to critically investigate sensory items, respond creatively to the world and cope with ambiguous situations. He leans on these skills as an artist and educator. And last spring Mark and his students practiced these skills intensely as the pandemic unfolded and classes went online.

After he graduated from Guilford, Mark first focused on sculpting with materials like concrete and steel. However, he encountered some ambiguity when a new interest arose. “I started making sound-making machines that were sort of bizarre things that I didn’t know what to do with,” he says. “I knew it was creative, but I hadn’t quite figured out how to make sense of it as an art practice.”

Mark embarked on an MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University to help integrate sculpting and machinemaking. When asked to describe his practice now, he succinctly explains, “I make machines that make sounds and perform with them.”

As part of a collaborative artist group known as Invisible, Mark has produced machines and toured with them to galleries and other venues. One creation, “The Selectric Piano,” is a typewriter that types but also plays a piano.

At Guilford Mark regularly teaches Design of Objects (formerly 3D Design), in addition to sculpture, welding, technical wood classes and first-year seminars. Last spring he had planned to teach a welding class during the 3-week term. Conceding that no online version of welding is feasible, Mark had to quickly develop a new class. He says he asked himself four key questions: How can I make a class physically healthy in a time of a significant health threat? How could it be fun in a time of real fear and anxiety? How could it be expansive and open in a time when options seem to be reduced? And finally, How can this class be better than what I could have done in normal times?

The debut of “The Peripatetic Studio,” a class that explored how artists use walking as part of their practice, answered those questions. “There is a raft of art history around artists using walking as preparation for their practice or for a tool of developing creativity,” Mark says. “Walking can also be a tool for artists to make work, such as drawing or sculpting while walking.”

One assignment for the class prompted students to walk a shape or a line repeatedly for two hours while leaving a trace. The students then met virtually to discuss their experiences.

“Mark introduced many ideas and concepts that you can do on your walk to make it less about walking and more about thinking outside of the box,” says Julius Burch ’23, who used a rake and shovel while walking around a baseball field, creating a cone shape.

And of the abrupt switch to online courses, Mark says, “I let students know that what we’ve encountered in this moment is a design problem. We have to come together and come up with a new design for doing our education so we can get the most out of it and learn things that we never dreamed we could learn in our in-person classes.” “One of the strengths of the arts is that I feel anything can be done,” he adds. “We just have to figure it out.”