The White Rabbit Consortium
artists statement
The White Rabbit Consortium is a collective formed close to twenty years ago. It began when four University of Southern Illinois graduate students and one Giuseppe Fontaine, held a ‘Mad Hatters tea Party’, at a local drinkery known as the “Stagger Inn”. There they conceived the ‘W.R.C.’ as a means of collaborative exchange in creative thought, work and living. The members: Giuseppe Fontaine {manager, mentor, sugar daddy}; husband and wife {with two young sons}, Loni Wolfe and Tobi Watson; Tommy Atkins {the arty Brit from Liverpool}; and the late James ’pixie’ Doodle {U.S.I. graduate school via Clown school, Florida State University}. The collective had maintained a low profile, mostly showing in small venues such as bars, coffee shops, church halls, storefront galleries and homes of family and friends. They have exhibited in Louisville, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Giuseppe is the only member to have shown in Baltimore, solo, as well with T.W. Dixon, a close friend and associate. The two met while the young Mr. Dixon was an undergraduate at Abilene Christian College in Texas. Later, Mr. Dixon would meet the rest of the group while working as a short order cook at the “Stagger Inn”, he was a roomate of Giuseppe’s at the time. The group currently shares a large house {which was left to Giuseppe by his late great aunt, May} in Louisville, Kentucky. They have rarely shown these past several years, but by request from Mr. Dixon, they have consented to exhibiting in Baltimore. It will be their first collaborative effort with T.W. Dixon. The show itself will be a ’work in progress’ throughout it’s duration and a memorial to their late friend ’pixie’, who at the time of his death, was working on a mural of his own design. The W.R.C. has asked Mr. Dixon to oversee the work on the mural as well as the modifications to the exhibit during it’s stay in Baltimore. Enjoy. As ’pixie’ would say, “free your ass and your mind will follow”.
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