1928-2015 → Bill Dixon was a well-traveled painter, printmaker, draftsman and muralist. He painted prairie scenes, mountains and seascapes, and created abstract works and constructive pieces from found objects along the beaches of Vancouver Island. His subjects were boathouses in Victoria’s Fisherman’s Bay, lighthouses on Vancouver Island, forests near Kenora, Ontario and old barns or abandoned vehicles in Manitoba.
Although art making was a constant for him, Dixon also worked as a United Church minister and psychiatric social worker, living in numerous places across western Canada. After his first year as a United Church minister, he took a year off to work on a fine arts degree at the Winnipeg School of Art.
Dixon painted eight murals in his lifetime. Over 40 years ago, he painted a mural in Sooke, BC that illustrates how the logging industry has been a part of Vancouver Island history. In 2023, artists Diego Narvaez, Shelley Davies from the T’Sou-ke Nation and Micah McCarty of the Pacheedaht Nation collaborated to renew the mural. They wanted to pay tribute to Dixon’s contributions, safeguard the iconic image representing Sooke’s past, and offer a glimpse into the future of the forests. Davies and McCarty led the content of the mural renewal, representing both T’Sou-ke and Pacheedaht nations. Bill Dixon died at the age of 87 in Grand Forks, BC.
“Visual arts have been the continuing thread of my life. Other disciplines have been studied and experienced in other careers. I have pulpit-preached and people-pastored. I have organized community resources and comfort-counselled fearful souls, young and old. I have played on stage and sung in choirs. I have been an art educator and have opened unseeing eyes to the beauty around and within…I am most healthy, most alive, when I am creating a perfect world within the rectangle. The painting is free to travel when held within a frame. The most important painting is the next one.” Quote from Bill Dixon’s Artist Statement in his obituary, https://www.mhfh.com/obituaries/Rev-William-John-DIXON-BA-MDiv-BSW-BFA?obId=34736734
For all you deep art divers out there.
Check out Bill Dixon’s newly revitalized Sooke, BC mural.
The Canadian Art Preservation Foundation posts short biographies and information on artists and artwork from its collection in a not-so-subtle attempt to capture your attention and interest in our mission, but we also just want to keep this artwork in view. We are excited about the art we collect and want to share it with you. CAPF is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the artwork of Canada’s superstar artists for future generations to examine, study and exhibit – the ones you know and the ones you might not know so well. We accept artwork, journals, notes, letters, exhibition catalogues and anything else that might comprise a visual and/or intellectual “portrait” (ahem, please pardon the pun) of a particular artist.
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