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Jimmie Johnson taught himself to
paint over 35 years ago. His only teachers were Ralph Mayer and other books
on painting techniques that his wife, Ione, borrowed from the "bookmobile".
His paintings are of remembered scenes from his childhood on a small farm
in Bigelow, Arkansas. His father, Skip, taught him to be self reliant by
gardening, fishing, and hunting. Skip was a utilitarian craftsman making
baskets of oak for harvest and tanning his own hides to make harnesses
and saddles. Jimmie recalls one Christmas when Skip made him a rocking
horse covered with critter hides.
Well known in Bigelow as the best
barber in the county, he is also a skilled craftsman and carpenter. He
built his own home on the spot formerly occupied by his family's corn field.
He plays several bluegrass instruments with great skill including the mandolin,
guitar, dobro and banjo. He decorates his instruments with mother of pearl
inlay harvested from mussel shells which he collects on the river's shore
while he's fishing.
Jimmie paints in the winter months
in the back room of his barber shop. His heavily textured landscapes are
settings for the animals he's glimpsed in the wild or figures patiently
hunched over their tasks. Though these genre figures are always prominently
placed to gain the full attention of the viewer, the artist paints them
in the colors of their landscape. Shaped and colored by their environment
they are in perfect harmony with their surroundings.
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