Nofa Farha Dixon, assistant professor emerita at the University of North Florida, has been an art educator, a professional artist and an active member of the Jacksonville Community for several decades. She served as Curator of Education at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville for twelve years prior to becoming a faculty member in the Department of Art and Design at UNF where she taught drawing, painting and design classes. She served as an Artist-in-Residence for Duval County Schools, 1997–1999, and in 1998 was awarded the Art Educator of the Year by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville.

Her hand-constructed clay forms undergo multiple glaze firings and are finished with a mixed media surface treatment resulting in a unique signature style. Her work is included in major corporate and private collections. A few years ago she completed three major commissions for the Art in Public Places Program funded by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, Baptist South Hospital and the Women’s Center of Jacksonville. Her sculptures and clay vessels are included in many private and corporate collections and have been on display in galleries throughout the United States.

Dixon earned her BFA with an emphasis in Fine Arts and Art History from St. Andrews Presbyterian College, Laurinburg, North Carolina, and her MFA in painting and drawing from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. In 1993, she began teaching as an adjunct while being a productive studio artist exhibiting her art throughout the United States. In 2001, she was promoted to a Visiting Professor and to an Instructor in 2004. Later in 2006, she was promoted to an Assistant Professor and in 2009 to an Associate Professor. Dixon teaches drawing, painting, design and special project classes (Art-in-Public Place or site specific art). She has taught eight such classes, which have created nine mosaics and murals, all of which have been installed at the University of North Florida campus. These projects have impacted the campus and the students in many positive ways. The students have a better understanding of what is involved in the creation of large, site-specific artwork — while learning to work by collaborating and making decisions concerning each project.   

Although she was trained as a painter, for years Dixon worked as a sculptor using clay, found objects and mixed media to achieve finished forms and unique surfaces. These forms and unique surfaces became her identity and have earned many honors and a great deal of recognition. These clay forms have been represented in many galleries throughout the United States and are included in hundreds of private, public and corporate collections, both nationally and internationally. 

Most recently, Dixon is creating and exhibiting collage images and using acrylics to paint on canvas. She conducted numerous collage workshops and enjoy working in both two and three-dimensional formats. She is challenged in maintaining an experimental approach to thinking and to creating and works to pass this attitude to her students.