Sharon McConnell Dickerson’s life as a flight attendant and chef on corporate jets was always an exciting one, sending her to the skies in the company of magnates and public figures such as George and Barbara Bush and Henry Kissinger. That life abruptly ended, however, when she was 27, waking up in Chicago, suddenly unable to see. The tumultuous road to diagnosis revealed uveitis, a degenerative eye disease that today has taken almost all her sight. What it has given her is a creative inner vision few people ever explore deeply enough to tap in to.
As a blind figurative sculptor, artist, lecturer and speaker, Dickerson of Columbus sees with her hands the details of life. In April, she will share that with her new community through an exhibition at the Columbus Arts Council’s Rosenzweig Arts Center. Her internationally-known series of lifecast masks of primarily blues musicians, several of her full-body sculptures and works from her collaborative series of broken glass bas-relief works with Terri Massey will be on display.
A Cast of Blues
Dickerson’s journey to cope with fading sight introduced her to art, and specifically, sculpture. The New England native studied in Paris and in Santa Fe, where she moved. There a friend introduced her to the blues, and a new path opened.
Today, Dickerson is best known for “A Cast of Blues,” an extraordinary series of about 60 total lifecasts made with musicians during their lifetimes. Some who sat for her include Bobby “Blue” Bland, Big George Brock, Bo Diddley, Blind Mississippi Morris, David Honeyboy Edwards, James “Super Chikan” Johnson, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Willie King, Jimbo Mathus, Pinetop Perkins, Charlie Musselwhite and Koko Taylor, to name only a few. Super Chikan will attend and perform at the Columbus exhibit’s opening reception April 1.
“This project is about making the most personal of recordings with the musicians — that of their human face and in some cases hands — to add to the legacy that they leave to us,” Dickerson expressed. Each cast is like a 3D photograph, capturing flesh, muscle, scars, bone, hair and subtle
expressions of emotion.through materials including resin and plaster.
“You’re asking people to give you something of themselves,” acknowledged the artist.
“Working with these musicians, and later moving to Mississippi, broadened my understanding of where the music came from,” she remarked. “I was compelled to preserve their images in a special way, a way that I was capable of doing because I am blind.”
Please touch
Gallery-goers used to a hands-off-the-art policy will be pleased to learn Dickerson wants viewers to touch the casts.
“They are meant to be fully accessible, installed at a level so that kids or anyone in a wheelchair can reach them,” she explained…
Touching allows each lifecast to be experienced in a way a photograph or painting doesn’t present. When Tommy “T.C.” Carter, who had been blind since birth, “saw” the lifecast of Koko Taylor, he was so emotionally overwhelmed that he cried, Dickerson shared. It was the first time he knew what Taylor really looked like.
The lifecasts exhibit will also contain biographical panels so viewers can access an audio version that shares music from the artist. A brief film demonstrates the process of making the casts.
Broken glass
While Dickerson is best known for “A Cast of Blues,” more recently she has collaborated with Terri Massey of Senatobia on bas-relief sculptures made of broken mirror and broken glass. Understandably, this a do-not-touch portion of the April show.
A defining moment inspired the glasswork series. One morning, Dickerson stood in front of a mirror expecting to detect what she had the day before — a flat black silhouette. But on that morning, she saw nothing. It was a stark reminder that one day even obscure refractions of light or shadow would be lost to her.
“I was very angry,” she recounted. She wanted to smash the mirror. She did, in her mind. But then, after long thought, she began piecing the glass together again in her mind, wondering if perhaps beauty could be found in the new image.
“I saw myself as this Picasso painting and had the inspiration to start breaking mirrors and start making sculpture.”
She and Massey bring their individual gifts to the glass studio, with Dickerson conceptualizing images in a sculptural way. “And Terri has a keen eye for details,” Dickerson said.
Massey, who suffered physical and emotional trauma after a severe riding accident, knows something of Dickerson’s experience.
“I’m broken, too, but I want this project to be not just about being broken, but about healing. It’s been therapeutic, a period of mending for us both.”
She will attend the April 1 opening.
Opening night, special guest
The multi-faceted exhibition — which will also feature five of Dickerson’s nude full-body sculptures — begins with a free opening reception Thursday, April 1 at 5:30 p.m. at 501 Main St. A lifecast subject, James “Super Chikan” Johnson, will not only attend but will perform at 6:30 p.m. There is no charge. Seating is limited. Masks and social distancing will be required.
Dickerson’s move to Columbus from Como with her husband David Dickerson occurred about six months before the pandemic altered everyday life. The artist has remained busy, however. She is enjoying her husband’s large family here, and she is working on a memoir that includes stories about her family roots.
Her creative curiosity and willingness to explore new modes of expression remind her that as long as she can “see” with her hands, there is never anything such as complete darkness.
To learn more about the Columbus Arts Council exhibit, visit columbus-arts.org, visit their Facebook page or call 662-328-2787. Learn more about Dickerson at mcconnelldickersonart.com.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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