All she is saying, is give pieces a chance: Artist wants her audience to help complete the picture – by cutting it up

DIXON – It’s not enough that Anne Hermes is a cutting edge artist; she wants her audience to be cutting edge, too.

The Dixon woman is getting ready to unveil a 37-foot long, 6-foot tall abstract painting during an exhibition – but this is no ordinary painting, it’s part of her pieces movement.

Her plan is to put the mural on display at The Crystal Cork, 219 W. First St., beginning Nov. 10, followed by an opening exhibition on the 16th. That’s when the work of art will become more like a scrapbook. From 6 to 8 p.m. people will be invited to hold up a frame in front of the painting and pick a part of it to purchase. The pieces will be cut out that night.

Why destroy something she’s created? To create something even bigger.

“Throughout the exhibition, the customer is given the ability to leave with a physical example of how we are all intrinsically connected as humans,” Hermes said. “It allows us to bring a piece of this connectivity home with us, as an example of our shared space in this world.”

It’s a concept Hermes has been working on for a while.

“I have been working on this concept for about 2 1/2 years, as a feature piece for an exhibition,” she said. “I had a show coming up at The Crystal Cork and my spouse said, ‘Hey, why don’t you give them a shot at it?’ When I explained the concept to owners Judy and Eric Brantley, they were both super excited to make it happen.”

This isn’t the first time Hermes has put her work in the public eye. A lot of eyes have been on her work in downtown Sterling, where hundreds of people a day see the larger-than-life floral mural on concrete grain bins at Third Avenue and Second Street, which she completed last year.

A 57-foot-tall mural on grain bins, a 37-foot-long painting, they’re all part of Hermes’ mission to get people to see the big picture.

She said that at the end of her upcoming exhibit “everyone will have a tangible expression of our fundamental human connection, as well as a very physical connection to each other – because without your piece, we are incomplete.”