Artist Powered by the Act of Observing That Was Limited as a Child

 

Catherine L. Johnson never spent a full year in school between the ages of three and 10. Instead, she was often in a hospital bed at Shriners Hospital for Children in Minnesota. From six months to three years old, she lived in the hospital full-time. She spent the first years of her life in a body cast, face-down in a hospital bed.

Johnson, now 71, is a fine artist in Saint Paul who works in all media, regardless of physical difficulties. She was born with her right leg twisted around her neck. As a result, she has congenital hip dysplasia and has spent much of her life in and out of hospitals for reconstructive surgeries on her hips, right knee, and feet.

She remembers the mica twinkling in the floor like stars on her way to surgery and the bronze statue outside the hospital, “Man and Freedom.” Created by Ivan Meštrović, the bronze nude man gazes upward, arms reaching for the sky. His ribcage flares as if he’s inhaling a deep breath.

For Johnson, this statue represented a feeling she understood but couldn’t put into words. She saw the statue as somebody with great faith and trust. “It was as if his spirit was lifting above his own body.”

 

 

When Johnson went home for the first time, her mother noticed how she observed her new world. “I had never seen the sky. I had never seen a bird,” Johnson says. She remembers being mesmerized by the vibrancy of flowers and the feel of wind on her face. “If things are slowed down, you tend to notice [them].”

Much of her art today is inspired by observations of the world around her. This power of observation, along with her ongoing health struggles, have shaped Johnson into an artist with a deep love for community.

She recalls almost every healthcare worker who encouraged her, especially Mark Coventry, her orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic. He performed the first FDA-approved total hip replacement. He ensured she was treated with respect as a human being when med students observed her, not just a patient presenting a learning opportunity.

Coventry asked Johnson to make two promises when she was a child: “Only let those who honor you and respect you come near, and always remain an artist.”

Johnson has kept this promise. She obtained a bachelor’s of fine arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a master’s of fine arts from Rutgers University in New York City. She also received the competitive PS1 Fellowship from New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Bush Artist Fellowship.

It was after 9/11 that her art transformed into a cross-section of self-expression, social justice, and community. Johnson was in Minnesota when the Twin Towers fell blocks from her old Wall Street office, where she worked for a specialized courier service. Despite the distance, she felt the pull to create a project to address the nation’s pain and tie local community together.

She bought every roll of red, white, and blue ribbon at her local craft store. With the help of women in the weight lifting class she taught at the YMCA, Johnson tied 3,000 ribbons into the shape of wings. She gave these ribbons to local community members such as musicians, first responders, and Arab immigrants that she knew.

This was the first of many community-oriented artistic endeavors Johnson created to bring together people and artistic expression. She often creates art pieces in response to political events, along with organizing fundraisers and events to build community.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Johnson made paper cutouts of sunflowers and stars in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. She gifted the original artwork to a local immigrant friend and sold prints with all proceeds going to relief efforts. It garnered enough attention that Senator Amy Klobuchar and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey met Johnson and took photos with her.

While her art is often activism-focused, she still uses it to work through her own emotions. At one point, Johnson had to wear braces on both of her hands. But they didn’t stop her from creating art. “I had to work, that’s how I breathe,” she says. “Art is my breath and my wing.”

She picked up a wallpaper brush, the only size brush she could hold, and made gentle strokes back and forth across the page. In the end, she realized she had made trees. One of these paintings of trees now hangs at Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, which used to be Shriners Hospital for Children.

It felt like a full circle moment for Johnson. Not only is her art hanging in the hospital she lived in, but the paint she used sparkles with mica like the hospital floors she had observed on her way to surgery as a child.

Currently, Johnson is working on another paper cutout: daises on postcards in the colors of the Columbia Heights School District, blue and gold. Columbia Heights, like many places across the United States, has had an increase in ICE presence. Johnson plans to distribute them to all students in Columbia Heights’s school district. She hopes students like five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, well-known from an incident where ICE agents used him as bait to find and detain his father, will carry these postcards, knowing that they aren’t alone.

The people Johnson credits for encouraging her are people who saw her for who she truly is. Having been blessed with an artistic gift, Johnson aims to spread that ideology through her art. “When someone sees you, you get wings,” she said.

 

Catherine Johnson has an exhibition June 6 to August 8 at Burl Community Art Gallery.

Learn more about her here.

 

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