A tribute to one of Hixson’s closest friends, Dorothy. Her presence embodies both freedom and refinement. Rendered in motion, her body arcs through space with confidence and grace, capturing the vitality of someone who moves easily between worlds. One moment she is a fire spinner, commanding light, heat, and the attention of a gathered crowd; the next, a composed business owner offering meticulous, professional care through her work in fine gardening.

Hixson uses exaggerated gesture and luminous, saturated color to express Dorothy’s multidimensional nature. The circling form above her echoes both fire and orbit, suggesting ritual, repetition, and balance, while the darkened ground anchors her movement in discipline and control. Loose brushwork and visible marks preserve the immediacy of motion, emphasizing instinct and embodiment over exact likeness.

Rather than portraying a single role, the painting holds multiple identities at once. Dorothy is depicted not as a fixed figure, but as a force, elegant, grounded, and untethered, moving fluidly between intensity and precision, performance and professionalism, freedom and responsibility.

As part of this work, Hixson includes preliminary sketches of Dorothy in motion as she hops, lands, and lifts again. These quick, gestural drawings are less concerned with anatomical precision than with capturing the sensation of movement, weight, and imbalance. Through repetition and variation, the sketches function as a record of attention, tracing the fleeting nature of the body in motion before it resolves into a finished form.