#sparkchamber 021521 — Mary Johnson
It’s the day after St. Valentine’s day, and #sparkchamber is still feeling the love as we welcome rock painter, Mary Johnson. Mary works as an Early Childhood Educator, and always brings creativity into the classroom, “Having a creative spirit is a big part of who I am, and I enjoy sharing this with the children.”
When she was a child, Mary liked to draw, taking the comics from the Saturday newspaper and improving her skills by imitating the cartoons. As an adult, she got into painting, dabbling in various forms over the years. When the pandemic hit, she found that painting provided her a needed outlet, a way to find some peace in the middle of all the stress and uncertainty. From there, it was a natural progression to begin rock painting — painting idyllic, inspiring, and fun scenes on rocks, then placing them throughout the community for neighbors and strangers to discover. The peace she finds in painting carries out into the world, bringing a smile to someone else, brightening their day. “At the beginning of the pandemic, our schools and daycares were closed and I painted a number of rocks with the children in mind.” But the unexpected discovery of a work of art brings cheer to anyone and everyone.
Mary paints in a variety of styles, inspired by the things she loves. “I love the ocean — walking along the shore looking for seashells or sitting and enjoying the ocean breeze is my happy place — so I find myself painting a variety of ocean scenes. I’m also influenced a lot by my childhood. I grew up in the country on a farm and enjoy painting old barns. I’m having some fun, developing my skills as a painter and, I hope, sharing some joy with others.”
Keep your eyes peeled when you’re out for a stroll, and definitely follow along on Facebook.
1.] Where do ideas come from?
The ideas for my rock paintings come from a number of sources. Many of the scenery paintings are the result of me practicing techniques and developing my skills, which result in ocean scenes [my happy place], old barns or country scenes [influences from my childhood]. Sometimes when I sit down to paint, I’ll challenge myself. I recently began painting pictures of some of the buildings in my community. Other times I’ll intentionally look online at pictures of cartoons, for example, and I’ll paint them on a rock.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
Painting on rocks is an outlet for my creative spirit. Placing the rocks out in my community for others to find and, I hope enjoy, is just my simple way of spreading a little kindness to others.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
I usually paint on the weekends, whenever I can carve out the time. Sometimes I’ll spend hours on one particular rock if it has a lot of detail. Other times, I may be painting 3 or 4 rocks at once if I’m creating fun little paintings. I try to always have a few painted rocks ready to place out in my community whenever I’m out and about.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
Most of my rock paintings come to their natural conclusion, I know that they are finished. Other times I feel I’m not quite done with a particular painting but I still let it go out into the community because it doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m still developing my skills as an artist and I want this to be a fun little project.
