Articles from:
The Inquirer and Mirror 2007
The Inquirer and Mirror 2006
Nantucket Today
Boston Globe
Independent
Nantucket Times

Extracts from feature article in August 4, 2004 edition

In the eye of the beholder

by Hadley St. John

M.J. Levy Dickson’s work reflects the artist’s boundless vision.

Surrounded by her watercolors and oils inside her Wauwinet studio last week, M.J. Levy Dickson talked about teaching at the Children’s House of Nantucket, a Montessori School where she developed a curriculum to teach art appreciation and history to kindergarten children.

“There is no right or wrong, and that’s the big thing they have to get used to,” Dickson said of teaching youngsters to think independently.

An educator at heart, Dickson also relies on intuition and employs a visceral process with her own artwork …

“I like to create a harmonious tension,” Dickson said of bringing those fleeting moments when the world seems to move in synchronized rhythms in to her work.

“A harmonious tension keeps everything in check,” she said. “When you are skating, there’s that point when you are totally at one with the ice. Or when you are sailing, when you are holding the tiller and you can feel the wind carrying the boat, and you know that everything is right-that’s what you want your painting to be.”

… Dickson’s conversations about her work are laced with Chinese proverbs, and her methods reflect the artist’s life philosophies. Dickson validates both serious subjects, like her recent body of watercolors depicting soldiers fighting in Kabul, Iraq, and lighter subject material, like the still life watercolors of seaweed [and sushi.]

… Like art, Dickson’s subjects lie in the eye of the beholder.