LADDIE JOHN DILL (b. 1943) is the archetypal Southern California artist. He was born in Long Beach and attended Santa Monica High School. He received his B.F.A. from Chouinard Art Institute, and established a studio in downtown Los Angeles in the 1960s, eventually settling in Venice, CA. In spite of his groundbreaking use of materials and processes, he is a formalist at heart, and his work falls within the modernist mainstream. One of his first jobs wan as an apprentice printer at Gemini G.E.L. where he had the opportunity to work firsthand with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Jonhs, and Claes Oldenberg. His early works were simply, brilliantly colored light pieces, which consisted of a single neon tube, which was hung on the wall. As Dill worked against the wall, the wall became part of the piece, and he began to see the works in relation to a room-environment situation. He became interested in three-dimensional situations which led him to experiment with silica sand in addition to the multi-colored lights. He chose silica because it was the closest material to dry liquid. Every day he would change the shape of the piece using brooms and shovels to mold the sand, and he would also realign the lights.
Seeking stability and an element of control, he then executed a series of concrete and glass pieces using concrete-like hardened sand in contrast with the glass. He worked with an engineer, Jack Brogan, who had assisted several artists with their new materials. Brogan assisted Dill in creating mixture of Portland cement with a special acrylic that would adhere to wooden supports of his paintings. Dill was able to experiment with an extensive palette of colors, which would mix with is new material. Each of these pigments was organic and included full ranges of brick reds derived from red iron, rich cola-blacks derived from black sulfur, and yellows and naturally mine blue cobalt oxides.