Windows of the Soul
Looking through my body of work over the last thirty years, I see that each piece is like a vignette of the best times of my life. Whether monumental or miniature, I stand back and see what I was going through or what I was taking in to my innermost center of being. When I started my career in art it was still rather fashionable to create disturbing views of all the angst and grief that can be expressed in art. I have been faithful to the idea that what I wished to express in my artwork was the absolute beauty that is everywhere: the crystal of purity that shines within each person and the sublime in nature all around us.
Fiber is all around us and I see it as a metaphor for the connectedness of things. My earliest work was deeply connected to dyeing the fabric, or for me “giving life” to the fiber by coloring it. I became enamored of viscose rayon satin because it seems to shine from within. Although I love the frayed edges, selvedges, ripped threads and tangled weavings of my experimentation, I found that I really love stiffening and manipulating the fabrics and layering the colors into collages of the imagination.
I create whole worlds in these collages which I see as windows of my being. The play of light and color across the layers of fabrics are like jewels which express joy, exuberance in the face of fear and the unfolding of life processes. Sometimes my work speaks of the charisma of my children or the grandeur of life in a loving relationship with my husband or the backyard of my home. When I create, I go to a place that is informed by the awareness of shape, form, line, color and space. But what I really do is go to a “zone” where fiber, color, light and experience shine through my hands. — Sandra McMorris Johnson
