Internationally recognized artist d’Elaine Johnson hosts the 45th Annual Mother’s Day Weekend Art Preview from 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 7 and 8 at Mount Olympus Estate in Edmonds.
Johnson and her husband John, longtime Edmonds residents, dedicated Mount Olympus Estate in trust for the benefit of the Edmonds Community College Foundation to provide scholarships and special projects for the art and horticulture departments.
In addition to new paintings by Johnson, the event features music by the Edmonds Community College Symphonic Choir, tae kwon do and tai chi demonstrations and the estate’s gardens and panoramic view of Puget Sound. Johnson will also present a slide show about her work each day at 4:30 p.m.
From her first solo exhibit, as a first grader in Auburn during the 1930’s, Johnson’s work has always been inspired by the wonderment of the sea. “The greatest music to penetrate my ears is the sea symphony,” Johnson has said. This interest escalated in the late 1950’s when she became one of the first women scuba divers and dove with Jacques Cousteau. Despite the difficulties presented by her visual disability, she continued this pursuit through a Master of Fine Arts degree in the style of abstract expressionism at the University of Washington. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Education at Central Washington University, which prompted a 24 year career as an art educator.
Through the 1960’s and 1970’s Johnson continued to explore nature through her art, developing a water-base medium applied to rice paper stretched on boards to express liquid space. Her inspiration has been the world of sea cultures of the past and her marine icons are enlivened through documentation of ancient myths and lore. Joseph Campbell has remained one of her major influences for interpreting mythologies for her writings, which accompany her paintings.
“My paintings present the submerged history of humankind’s wonderment of the sea,” Johnson has said. “These are our roots, the vast body of water that only our minds can penetrate. My works reflect all those experiences and reactions of human’s total past; the seaman’s essence is his history, our history.”
In addition to painting, Johnson is a lecturer and writer who has traveled the world for her work. She a published illustrator and worked for more than 20 years as an art educator with the Seattle Public Schools. An award-winning artist, Johnson was in 2004 one of 12 artists selected from 60 countries to exhibit as a VSA (Very Special Arts) Fellow Arts Festival Award Winner at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Today, Johnson, 73, works out of her Edmonds based Pisces Studio. Johnson’s art is sometimes described as being on the “fringes of the Northwest School,” some reminiscent of Mark Tobey’s “white writing,” suggesting an oriental influence.
During her art career she has exhibited more than 600 times around the globe — from Seattle’s Henry Art Gallery, Frye Art Museum and Seattle Art Museum to exhibitions in New York, Washington, D.C. Paris, France, and the United Arab Emirates. More than half of her exhibits have been one-person, feature exhibits.
Johnson’s work is currently highlighted in a solo exhibition titled “Seas of Antiquity” at the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center on Pier 66 in Seattle. The 40 paintings, now on display through the summer, capture the magical suspension of time and otherness through the myths of the sea and all waters.
Mount Olympus Estate is located at 16122 72nd Ave. W. in Edmonds. For more information call 425-743-2902. For more information about the Edmonds Community College Foundation call 425-640-1274.
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