By JIM LUKSIC
The Progress
Local painter Floyd Johnson expounded on “Making A Living from Art” on March 5 as part of the Virgin Valley Artists Association (VVAA) Brown Bag Cultural Series.
Approximately 30 guests were on hand for the 84-year-old’s lecture, which took place at Mesquite’s Fine Arts Center on West Mesquite Boulevard, where Steve Dudrow served as emcee and handled the raffle tickets for prizes.
“Floyd is a terrific artist,” said Dudrow, a VVAA member who also co-hosts The Art Box podcast with Linda Harris. The duo had interviewed Johnson at this house (long before Johnson was invited to the latest Brown Bag event), which is described as a gallery-like shrine to his artwork.
“I’ve been an artist for all my life, though now I focus almost exclusively on acrylic painting,” Johnson told the Progress before standing at the head of the Classroom. Early in his career, he focused on commercial art, but due to personal circumstances ultimately drifted into the fine arts.
He quipped that “Making A Living” should be called “Struggling to Survive As an Artist” for his sake, because Johnson’s strategy was to eat less food and pay fewer bills.
Johnson was accompanied by friend and “personal chauffeur” Rita Fulmer, a fellow artist who serves on the VVAA Board.
“Floyd is a visionary whose work is special,” said Fulmer, who met Johnson seven years ago at the Mesquite gallery as part of its hanging committee.
She explained that her art – unlike Johnson’s – requires a specific topic: “I have to know beforehand where I’m going with it.”
As for his own vision, Johnson explained that “Every painting has a story behind it. I start one and it somehow leads to something.”
To that end, he began the one-hour speech by explaining a prodigious piece – which adorned the Classroom’s largest wall – based on the film Once Upon A Time in the West set in Monument Valley, Ariz.
As he proceeded with the project. The painter’s hands-on approach at the onset came across as counter-intuitive: “I started with the sky, then background buttes,” he said, prior to describing working his way to the middle of the image, before reaching the foreground. Johnson spoke of contrasts, shadings, and layers as part of the process, while attendees asked follow-up questions about his technique.
He went on to elaborate on another work: After seeing an image of a musician’s eye, he discovered it was musician Lady Gaga’s by sifting through CDs at Walmart. “The most gimmicky piece I ever did,” he said.
In addition, Johnson’s Brown Bag presentation included his depiction of a bearded, smoking cowboy pictured in National Geographic. The upshot was the first painting Johnson ever entered into a competition.
“It happens to resemble me,” the well-traveled Johnson explained about his faded, grizzled illustration. “This is who I turned into, except for the cigarette.”
Art has always coursed through his veins: Johnson’s two older brothers became artists, though their father finished only three paintings. His parents’ Scandinavian heritage reflects Johnson’s numerous designs of Vikings.
It comes as no surprise that he was the cartoonist for his high school newspaper and eventually attracted attention from college campuses.
“The University of Minnesota liked a painting I did after the Gophers football team beat Michigan, then a customer requested the same painting, so I created a similar one,” he explained.
One thing remained clear before, during, and after Johnson’s VVAA discourse: The man enjoys discussing his work.
“I have such a fondness for talking about art with other artists,” he said.
