Meet the 2023 Fellows: Eileen Johnson
Published on July 19, 2023. Interview by 2023 Summer Intern, Rachel McGinnis.
Eileen Johnson (she/her) is a visual artist who uses an intuitive collage process to translate her conscious and subconscious thoughts into physical representations. During her 2023 New City Arts Fellowship, Eileen used collage to reclaim soft spots as liberatory within a world that seeks control through hardening. She explored the shame, difficulty, and beauty in returning to soft spots.
First, the most important question: What food would you reach for first in a food fight and why?
Something super thick and slimy that you could sling at someone and it would be super satisfying and get everywhere like chili.
How did you interpret the theme “soft spot” and how do you see it realized in what you’ve produced for this exhibition?
Soft spots, to me, are parts of ourselves that society or someone in our life has made us feel shame about because they are dangerous to the status quo. There is nothing different about a soft spot than any other part of ourselves, other than the fact that our soft spots are often in hiding, because they are scared they won't be accepted. I think our soft spots have the potential to be liberatory and revolutionary because they alert us to the ways in which the larger world is not aligned with us. They call us to take action on their behalf.
The art I produced for this show tells the story of the past few years of my life, during which I enrolled in and then left law school. I am an abolitionist and had enrolled in law school because I wanted to become a public defender. During my time in law school, my soft spots were in open revolt to the environment around me. Going in, I knew I fundamentally disagreed with law as a system and was there to fight it, but I wasn't prepared for the ways being immersed in an environment that stood for everything I was against would overwhelm me to such a personal degree. For a while, I ignored my body's reaction and tried to keep pushing through it. The result of ignoring the message my soft spots were sending me was a shut down. I started to feel so disconnected from myself and everything and everyone I cared about that I barely recognized myself anymore and had almost no agency. It took a wake up call from someone who knew me very well to make the decision to leave. Ever since I left, I have been recovering from and trying to understand that experience and why it was so damaging. I have learned that my soft spots are my ultimate guides and that listening to them and not the systems around me is the only way I can feel okay. Over the past year, I have worked to recover my sense of self, my passion, my friendships, my care for others, my hope for the world, everything I had lost. And I am doing that in a world that looks and feels much different than it did when I started. I have learned that my hope will not come from engaging in systems that are built to generate profit by destroying the environment and policing and controlling the lives of its people. It is time for revolutionary change and our soft spots are the guides that will lead us in the right direction on our journey.
How would you describe your experience as an Artist Fellow with New City Arts?
This fellowship was great for me because it allowed me the space to grow and allowed me to see myself as a legitimate artist with something to say. I have been creating art since the beginning of the pandemic on the floors of all my apartments and my childhood home, and at a certain point, I think you need some type of support in order to be able to grow further. It is extremely valuable to have to sit back and describe your art or write a proposal, because it makes you intentional in a way you aren't normally and it makes you validate yourself and what you make. It encouraged me to invest a small amount in more materials, which was something I had been putting off for a while because I did not think my art was good enough to spend money on. I am really looking forward to connecting with people at the show and having conversations about the themes present in my work, because that is ultimately what is most meaningful to me about art: its potential to start certain conversations that are hard to have in everyday life and its potential to bring us together.
How has Charlottesville impacted your artistic work and life as an artist?
As someone who grew up here, I have a complicated relationship with Charlottesville. In some ways, I don't feel artistically my best here because there are so many layers of associations I have with this place, both good and bad, that feel stifling and lead to stuckness and overwhelm. In other ways, Charlottesville has been the place that has inspired most of my work, because it is where I grew up and formed my view of the world. Early experiences here in elementary school at Free Union Country School are what first ignited my creativity and taught me about the type of person I wanted to be in the world. So even when I am not in Charlottesville, my work is reflective of experiences I had here and people I met.
What motivates you to produce art?
What motivates me to make art is a part of me that feels very different from and defiant of the larger world. Art provides that part, a language to communicate that also feels beautiful and is extremely satisfying to put together. I like that art lets me communicate in a way that is more subtle and powerful than written words. It is a medium of subconscious communication that then becomes conscious when it enters the world. All of my pieces have detailed symbolic meanings to me that are my brain’s way of processing things. I like to make art because it is a way of making my differences and my viewpoint real and important and meaningful, first to me and then ideally to others. I want my art to inspire others to recognize their own creativity and unique perspective. I always feel encouraged and understood when I see other people speaking their truth through their art and I hope to provide that to others.
What have you learned about yourself as a person through the experience of making art?
I have learned so much about myself through art. Before the past few years, I was convinced I wasn’t an “artistic” person. When I found collage, I was immediately addicted and was creating everyday. It felt like the perfect art form for me and it was a huge rush in the early days. I learned to not put myself in boxes through this process and to recognize my unique creative voice. That permeated other parts of my life too. I had previously considered myself more serious and academic rather than artistic, and now I consider it the reverse. I also started to see how the things I was doing before were imbued with creativity and began to understand more why I always felt like I didn’t belong in those spaces. So finding art has been very validating to me as a person and has allowed me to see myself in a more expansive way and to get closer to the person I want to be.
What do you love most about your work?
I love the process of cutting. It feels therapeutic when the scissors just glide and things come out perfectly. When I was younger, I went through a phase where I would cut various things in the house: strings to blinds, couch cushions, and even my cat’s whiskers on one side, oops. My parents called me “cuttis.” I guess I have loved using scissors since then. I also love the surprise when things fit together in new ways and when concepts slide into place perfectly. I feel like collage is a lot about chance bringing things together in perfect, resonant ways and I am continually amazed when that continues to happen to me.
What is your dream project?
I really want to get together with other people who create art I resonate with and make things together. The art world feels so individualistic sometimes and I think things would be a lot better if people worked together more and taught each other new skills. I was traveling in Oaxaca, Mexico for a month recently and it was super motivating to see how many workshops people offer to teach each other new skills and how people often work together on projects. I got to learn airbrushing, wood cutting, painting, sewing, lots of things. While I enjoy making art alone, I ultimately see art as a way of coming together with others for change and I want to start getting together with other people around that to make big projects that can impact people and change perspectives.
The New City Arts Fellowship creates space, time, and financial support for Charlottesville-area artists to make work in response to an annual open call and proposal theme. At the conclusion of the fellowship, work created by each Artist Fellow is presented in a group exhibition. This year’s theme is entitled Soft Spot by Marisa Williamson. This open call invited artists to consider the ways their work reveals unseen openings, sites of ongoing growth, unfused structures, and delicate parts that require gentleness and care. Artists spent their creative fellowship developing their interpretations of their soft spots, and shared the products of that work in the group exhibition.
