Art Student: How long do you usually take to get your artwork done?

Megan Johnson: I can usually finish a piece in 4-5 days. There is a lot of waiting in my process- for glue to dry, for paint to dry between layers, etc. But once I’m rolling, the image tends to evolve really quickly.

I also frame all of my own work- which can take as many days as the painting itself. I save a lot of money this way, and have control over the details- but it’s time consuming.

AS: How do you sell work? Where do you find buyers?

MJ: The first thing to know is that I sell work by being patient and persistent: I start by having it out in as many different venues as possible: group juried exhibitions and art fairs; art guilds and art center events; art-making demos, open studio tours, and giving workshops. People do not always buy work right away- but they become engaged with me and stay connected via email updates or following me on social media. If they like my work enough to follow me, eventually there is a piece they like enough to buy.

I currently have work in the two John Kohler Arts Center gallery shops and a gallery in Cedarburg. Both opportunities came about because the owner/buyer had seen my work in other venues, and I had struck up a friendly relationship with them, so was easy to find when they had space for new work.

I participate in a few summer art fairs- and have had to do a lot of research to find fairs in places where I think the customers will be interested in actually buying my work. So far for me, that means people in more urban areas, with an appreciation for art and the income for purchasing art for their homes. (For me, large, well advertised shows in Chicago have been great – but I didn’t figure that out until I suffered through some very quiet, local, non-juried art and craft fairs).

Early in her art career, she fell in love with printmaking because she was enchanted by the way an image would evolve and build with each new layer of ink. Gradually work, family life, and relocations made access to printmaking equipment more difficult. Experimenting with new materials, she discovered that physically layering actual papers and bits of collected ephemera into paintings and drawings allowed me to make images with a depth that she had never reached with standard printmaking.

Her mixed media approach illustrates how a variety of moments define a total experience. The materials she uses carry the stories of learning, recording, and processing: vintage school books, ledgers, hand- written correspondence. The materials themselves each have a life and history, which is then woven into the stories she tells by adding expressive layers of paint and drawing media.

The notion of the meeting place between private moments and shared or universal experiences is her constant inspiration. She loves watching the wide range of personal responses as viewers uncover layers in her work, recognizing book pages or documents from their youth, or finding memories pulled to the surface by familiar patterns and colors. These very personal connections for each individual actually turn out to be common shared experiences, as viewer after viewer recalls similar memories and responses.

Megan’s recent work examines the notion of creating private spaces: places, both literal and imagined, that provide a sense of refuge. She is interested in how the creation of a personal space must be unique to each individual, while at the same time the experience of having or claiming these spaces is almost completely universal.