Trash finds a forever home
While on a morning walk, artist Tom Dimond found a scrap of paperboard by the roadside. Something about the die-cut piece of litter in the sunlight caught his attention, it was printed with the image of three cherries in bright green and red colors. Tom picked up the piece of paper and brought it back to his studio. He had grown up in a house located on Cherry Street, so this cast-off piece of paper made its connection and was rescued from certain biodegradation. Trash finds a forever home.
Stopping in a convenience store one day, Dimond saw a entire display of those paperboard cherries and it became clear, on that morning stroll almost two years prior, he had found an automobile air freshener of the kind you would hang from your rear view mirror.
In Dimond’s mixed media collage titled Homage to KS, we find another connection with cherries. German artist Kurt Schwitters has long been one of Dimond’s favorite artists and Dimond points us to Schwitters’ piece, Merz Picture 32 A. The Cherry Picture, 1921. The brightest piece of paper in the center of the Schwitters composition shows an eye-catching cluster of red cherries and the printed German and French words for the fruit.
Thus the title of Dimond’s work, Homage to KS.
Scavenged objects, bits and pieces, an endless variety of discarded items become material for painting, collage, works on paper.
Tom Dimond explains his works, “This series combines free flowing gestural marks with watercolor, acrylic monoprints on Japanese papers, inkjet transfers of drawings, found objects, comic pages, watercolor washes, various acrylic mediums such as gloss medium, crackle paste, block out medium and gum arabic. Sizes vary from 30×22 to 20×14.”
TOM DIMOND resides in Seneca, South Carolina. His work is shown in gallery exhibitions around the southeast region and beyond.
Tom Dimond is EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ART, Clemson University.
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Also, see Tom and Terry Jarrard-Dimond’s works at
instagram.com/lineandcolorworks2
REF: Kurt Schwitters
“In the winter of 1918–19 Schwitters had collected bits of newspaper, candy wrappers, and other debris, and began making the collages and assemblages for which he is best known today. The Cherry Picture belongs to a group of these works he called Merz, a nonsensical word that Schwitters made up by cutting a scrap from a newspaper: the second syllable of the German word Kommerz, or commerce.” — moma.org
“Schwitters called his work Merz to distinguish it from Dada. His Merz collages stood out for the wide-ranging and at times personal nature of the materials they incorporated. He wrote, “I could not, in fact, see the reason why old tickets, driftwood, cloakroom tabs, wires, and parts of wheels, buttons and old rubbish found in attics and refuse dumps should not be a suitable material for painting as the paints made in factories.” — moma.org
SEE: Kurt Schwitters, Merz Picture 32 A. The Cherry Picture 1921, at www.moma.org.
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To learn more about Tom Dimond and his work, let me know how I may connect you. If you travel to Greenville, South Carolina, check in with me for other work by recognized artists in printmaking, collage, other works on paper, and painting. For gallery hours, see the website below.
— jwilkinsonstudio@gmail.com
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The Undisturbed Natural Landscape. (Art and camping take a hike).
Joel Wilkinson ART
Greenville, South Carolina
WEBSITE: joel wilkinson studio and gallery
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