PRESS RELEASE

LINDA JOHNS TOUCHSTONE
Annual Solo Show of Recent Work
June 1 – 30, 2004

The 29th Annual June exhibit of recent work by Antigonish artist Linda Johns opens on Tuesday, June 1st at Lyghtesome Gallery. This year’s exhibit entitled “Touchstone” features yet another outpouring of new work from this visionary artist, writer and naturalist, all produced within the last twelve months including six acrylic paintings on canvas, three wood, stone and bone sculptures, five acrylic paintings on paper, two porcelain clay fired sculptures and seventeen ink brush drawings.
Linda Johns has devoted her artistic career to relentlessly probing what this life is about. With the natural world as the primary source of her inspiration, she works and reworks images, experimenting with interactive ideas in several different mediums, continually honing her technique and pushing the boundaries. A good example of this relentless exploration is Johns’ use for the first time of a partial basalt glaze on the two clay sculptures. The black glazing of certain areas of the porcelain enables her to emphasize the contrasting light and dark forces played out in the cycles of the sun and the moon.
She tackles an even more unusual combination in the thirteen small acrylic paintings with carved wooden frames that are also a part of the “Touchstone” exhibit. These “carved paintings” merge relief carving with a flat two-dimensional painted surface, each frame being sculpted by the artist to integrate and interact with the images and ideas explored in the paintings.
The title of the show, however, refers to what is the centerpiece of Linda Johns’ accomplishments this year - a self-published book of poetry entitled “Touchstone”, illustrated with reproductions of the seventeen ink brush drawings that are part of the exhibit. Lyghtesome Gallery has produced the intimate hand folded and bound volume with the artist in a limited edition of 50 combining the precision of digital computer technology with the inherent aesthetics of Japanese papers. A keen and vigilant observer, Linda Johns records daily both in drawing and in writing, insights and information she gains from her interactions with the surrounding landscape, with wild creatures, with birds and animals she lives with, with plant forms, with weather, and with the seasons. From these extensive notebook chronicles come ideas for her artwork and reflective insights to bring to her writing, which most recently has taken the form of poetry, a new direction for Johns. “Touchstone” is a small delicate integration of word, paper and drawing and is the fourth self-published collaboration between the artist and Lyghtesome Gallery and Linda Johns’ eighth book.
The Linda Johns exhibit runs from June 1 – 30 and will be followed by the Antigonish Area Artist Group Exhibit in July.