Fine Art Paintings

History of Chris Johnson's Art

    I started my career in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands where I painted and sold numerous landscapes, still lifes and portraits. I exhibited my work in the Old Custom House in 1977 as featured Artist of the month. I have also painted and sold scenes of Madison Wisconsin, Annapolis Maryland, Appalachian mountains towns and Canada countryside, as I always captured various scenes on my travels. I have resided in Austin for 14 years and have had an active studio in Austin for 7 years located at 1704 1/2 South Congress, where I maintain my Art Business, Sailaway Designs, in which I specialize in original fine art paintings, unique silk screens, and free form ceramics. I maintain a caribbean theme, but paint the Austin skyline and some other places in Texas, Kerville and the Guadalupe river.
    My work has been coined as "Primitive" by dealers from the Virgin Islands and New York. I paint from what I see and attempt to match the colors exactly, which can appear unbelievable to some. Some say this gives the pictures a storybook effect. I see them as a window into a time and place in the real world. I believe that my painting take on a historical value as they record "the way things were" and as the times and the scenes change they hold this record of the past. I have captured many fine details, as in my Austin scenes, which seem to "date" the paintings. Signs, buildings and streets change and soon they recall a history of times and places. My 3 Austin scenes record the old First Street bridge. My St. Croix Scene is a series of 6 paintings that all connect to form a 360 degrees circle of the view from atop a mountain on the east end of the island. This forms a sequence of landscape and would truly be unique displayed in a round room. Some scenes I paint again, a year later, to record a different mood of the day, time of the year and different weather conditions. They are the same scene but completely different paintings.

The Louie Story - A painted story by Chris Johnson

    It was October 28th, 1949, a rainy night in old New Orleans. Water trickled down the drainpipes and into the gutter. There was mist. Footsteps sounded. Light fused through the mist from candle lit street lights that lined the walk.

    Old Louie, coat draped over his knees, old gray hat, little yellow spectacles that rested on his wrinkled face, his mere appearance caused despair. He sat on that cold cement step, torn by life. He saw no solution to his loneliness. His only path lay with a bottle of booze.

    Loneliness is a strange thing to a man of 55. You seem to notice the surroundings more: look, listen, and think: of life - past and present, of times - good and bad, of future dreams. Louie was one of those lonely thinkers. Always moving to someplace new, breeding thoughts of places and times. Louie had just finished a job on a riverboat barge that carried him here to New Orleans. Now he was jobless again.

    When the depression hit the world hard, Louie didn't feel it. He had always been poor. He had been one of the first - light travelers, they were called - hoboes. He was use to walk'in the streets.

    He sat watching the rain. Notice the rain never really bothered him. He felt no regrets of life. Always took the times as they came. "Some must call me a lonely old man. Not for me though, I always felt that rain was one of the niceties of life. Makes for good drinking weather. Nothing like a nice warm pint of Seagrams on a rainy night."

    "There's one thing about work'en on a river boat: Your mind seems to float along with the river. Get another job? - seems so senseless. I work for what - just another drink, just to be free again to travel on. Yea, this bottle of booze will make me forget my troubles - stink'en hotels, weekend jobs, being pushed and shoved about with no place to go. 'Move on buddy', is what I'm use to: no compassion left in this world."

    Louie, faced with his age old problem, sat grudgingly on that cement step. His clothes, grubby and shoddy, told the story of his life - impoverished and indignant. He took another swallow.

    "I don't want to travel anymore - I'm too old, too tired, too lonely. It's like eating too much candy, - traveling - too much of a good thing. I have only one goal in mind right now: to sit, think and get drunk."

    He pealed down the paper sack just enough to unscrew the top of the bottle and to get a good grip on the thing and then took a swig. A couple shuffled by, umbrella overhead, each wrapped around the other.

    "Lovers: lovers in the rain. Caught in a dream, a pleasant dream. Dreams - I have so many. Yes, this rain makes one think. It must be the constant falling of the droplets or maybe its the repeating sound of the rain as it hits the cement, or maybe it's just the alcohol. It makes me think."

    "Maybe I should head up to San Francisco in a few days. See Molly. She was pretty mad when I left. I hit her, out of anger, hard. I'm not use to woman, that's all. I can see that old brown house, shabby wood porch. Two story place with an old dusty look. It was a dusty place. I can see Molly - man, she was a woman. She would sit at the vanity table while I would comb her long blond hair. Mak'en' love in an old iron bed. Boy, was she pretty... But no, she'd never take me back. Boy, after what I had done, she'd kill me first. No I can't go back there. Tore up the house being as drunk as I was. Dismayed and terrified, she told me to leave: to get out of her house and her life. For all the loving she gave me she deserved more than what she got: heart- break. She would never take me back, not after what I had done. No, I'll never see that pretty little face again."

    This was more than an excuse for depression: no one to love him and no one to love. When a person can't live with another, he must accept loneliness.

    He was beginning to drink a little faster now. His toes were starting to feel the chill; the same old chill that had been with him all his life. He took another gulp, cringed, and screwed the lid back on the bottle.

    Hitching that train to St. Louie after loos'en my job. What days were those. Shacks spread up and down the river shore: hoovervilles, hobo jungles - as they were called. Made of barrels and tar paper. Nobody had a dime. Beans & Bacon. ( he hummed a tune)

                            Beans, Bacon and Gravy
                            They almost drive me crazy
                            I eat them till I see them in my dreams.
                            When I wake up in the morning And another day is dawning
                            Then I know I'll have another mess of beans.

    I would look out at those smokeless chimneys and think of the poor. Things went fine in our shabby city in a city, till the police would come in and clear out that unsanitary mess and there I was again, back on the road. It wasn't so bad. When you don't have anything to begin with you don't miss much.

    An old train hopper once told me "Poverty stays at home; prosperity is out and about!" How true he was. We use to have it good - the travelers life. My friends and I use to ride the trains; saw it all - the poor farmer, the jobless migrant. Hard times had hit all. Depression - it was a look, a feeling, a fact - that's for sure - I never saw so many sad faces.

    The great train days. There I was, riding my way to Memphis. There was this little town just past Oakdale, Kentucky. Use to be my favorite little stop. Little old gal lived there who would fix one of the biggest feasts you ever saw. She would feed a whole crew of us. jump off the train at bum hill, walk down that path till we got to her little white gate. She'd be sitting on her porch rock'en away in her chair, as fat as ever. She'd smile when she saw us com'in and yell, "Yahoo! they're back for my cooking, put on the vittles cuz we're going to have a feast of a party."

    There were sad times too. Chicago, 1931- Sleeping in pavilion square - wak'en up in the morning just to look at those lonely streets full of idle men. All waiting, standing in that disgusting line: line of pity - bread line. Nothing to do but to wait with them - just for a bite to keep the old body mov'en. Sad, watching all the helpless, homeless, and jobless men clustered in bread lines. No hope of work. The sad faces - the hours of idle waiting.

    Upon chugging the rest of his whiskey, he threw the bottle into the street. It smashed. His mood grew from depression to desperation. His life became unbearable. He looked out through his yellow glasses at the rainy night. Whatever his excuse for living was, it seemed futile. Ordinarily Louie was passive and indifferent to life, taking the good with the bad; but tonight his load overburdened him, bringing out this state of agonizing gloom. On the steps above him stood a newspaper stand. He moved to reach it and got himself a paper. Headlines- "Grand jury Indicts Hiss For Perjury". Yep, Communists are taking over the country. They are all over, in the government, right on top. Country's going to hell, that's for sure. The War, Communism and Nazism: it's got the people so stirred up.

    Truman's trying to run the show. He's trying to save countries from communism, but he is giving all our money to Europe. Only one man, McCarthy, is trying to save our system from communism. Hate, crime, filth, corruption, civil disobedience; the people don't care anymore. Cities are going to hell. No decency for the human race any more. A man hopes to get out of life what he has put in it. The government corrupt, complicated, and disillusioned, is nothing but a pool of thieves. While the people have one mad goal - money. Everyone is on the take. That's the name of the game. American people themselves; there is no hope left. Nothings good anymore. Poverty, corruption, this is what we should be fighting today.

    What was I put here for. I have lived my life out, felt life's' joys and hardships, but where am I - no place. Life is nothing but a vicious cycle. When will this whirl-pool of life end. When will I see a new life, a new world.

    He bend his head to say a prayer; clasp his hands together tightly. I live through hell every minute. Enjoyment of life seems a never ending task. The path is blurred. The government: a filthy game. I see this little old city - it's busy streets, Lord I just don't want part of it anymore, just give me peace.

    He got up from the step and started to pull himself together. The rain had almost stopped. The empty streets were full of water puddles. He began to walk, staggering down that lane in old New Orleans. He trudged on in life: heavy in heart, weary of life, just moving on. It all happened so fast, Louie didn't realize that this very night his prayer had been answered. A sudden flash of lights, a screech of tires, he lay dead in the rain filled street. God had answered his weary plea.