David Johnson
David Johnson
David B. Johnson was born across the big river in Fort Dodge, Iowa. He went to public school, baled hay, was a busboy, janitor, liquor store clerk, and house painter. He picked apples in Washington state, built grain elevators on the Mississippi River, fell off the Christmas tree truck, and stacked boxes in the Sears catalog warehouse in Minneapolis. He studied printmaking with Virginia Myers at the University of Iowa, with Fred Hagstrom at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Robert Wolfe at Miami University. He has taught Drawing and Printmaking at Ball State University since 1988. He has shown his work in approximately 400 exhibitions since 1983.
I have great appreciation for the low tech aspect of Relief prints. I can make a woodcut or linocut easily on my kitchen table, on a desk in a spare room or in my basement. All I need is a glass palette and an ink knife, a gouge, a roller and a wooden spoon to print with. I am inspired by the work of my heroes; Erich Heckel. Shiko Munakata, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
