Jamie Johnston
Jamie Johnston was raised in rural New Jersey where he built forts and tree houses in the surrounding woods. After college he moved to Down East Maine, established his first studio, and began making furniture. He now has an active studio in Portland where he makes furniture, sculpture and related structures.
He has taught woodworking and three dimensional design at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, and, starting in 1984 at the Maine College of Art, where he was the head of the Foundation Program and established and was head of the Woodworking and Furniture Department. He is now Professor Emeritus and grateful for the education he received as a teacher. Following more than 30 years of part time teaching he now devotes full time to the studio with an emphasis on wall hung constructions that are informed by, and incorporate, the subtle transitions and moments of color that he has long explored with his furniture.
Throughout his career as a maker he has focused on working directly and collaboratively with clients on site specific projects. His work is included in both residential and corporate collections throughout the country. With a deep appreciation of the design/make process he has engaged in a broad spectrum of commissions. In addition to his primary studio work he has taken on projects as diverse as designing an indoor miniature golf course, developing a line of children’s furniture for scaled production, as well as several zen gardens. His work honors the complex nature of simplicity, is informed by the design process, and aspires to a balanced relationship of material, technique, and idea.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Making objects provides a reliable framework for my thinking. It encourages me to find the space between mind and body, head and hand, to think without words and to work with focus and intention. I find problems to solve and hope to understand more than I did before. I investigate the obvious and try to uncover the inherent complexity in simple forms. It is the relationship of the parts…..the surface to edge….the inside to outside…..the color, the light and the shadow that matter to me. I want every piece to eventually be about the next.
