I was born on a Sunday afternoon around 4pm on February the 17^th, 1985. And it wasn’t long after that, that my first steps would be symbolic of many first steps that would lead to my career as an artist. I was encouraged to walk by reaching for a pencil that my aunt was holding. At one year old, I believe I was motivated to walk from the desire of wanting to draw. So, as one might assume, I started drawing as a child, as most children do. Art class at the primary level was always one of my stronger subjects, as, I loved experimenting with different colours. As an artist today, however my main focus is portraiture. As a creative today, I am an artist and a writer and have an appreciation for all things creative. I became fascinated with portraiture as a teen when portrait drawing was introduced as part of the CXC visual art syllabus. The above portrait was done in High school. One of the greatest things that I love about portraiture is that you can capture the mood that the person is feeling. It’s a portrait of my cousin. Photography is in itself an art form too but I think it’s the job of the artist to really pull out certain emotions in a piece. This piece was a social commentary, I believe it was one of the pieces that went up for the ‘A’ Level examination. Each figure from this painting is actually a story out of the newspaper at that time. I can’t remember what all three stories were about but I do know that the child in the middle being held by her mother was crying because her father had just been gunned down. So, the barren tree in the background represents life being sucked out of these women and children with all the bad news. And there is so much bloodshed on the land that it is being represented by drops of red on the tree. While in High School, a year or two later after CXC, I would have started a portrait business called Perfect Portraits. My first commissioned work was a painting of an employee of Wolmer’s Girls as a gift for the then principal, Mrs. Pamela Harrison. We will later look at my work as a fairly established portrait artist. But in looking at my career as a Jamaican creative, I’d like to talk a bit about how I got the appreciation for writing. In prep school, my favourite subject was art and in high school however, I found a new love for another subject, English. This was so because I found that with words anything can come to life. And colour and possibilities were endless, all with words. I believe the best way to combat stress is to be creative, and that does not mean being creative in the formal sense, like a Van Gogh, but when we have productive conversation, that is just as good. Everything starts with words, God said “let there be light” and there it was – Light. So when I said you don’t have to be a specified creative like Van Gogh to be considered a creative, my point is, creation is everywhere, in the very words that we speak. So interestingly enough, I wrote stories fairly well in high school, and got decent grades for them too. But it was not before my late 20’s into early 30’s that I developed the gift of writing; I began writing mainly songs and poetry. Here is a poem that I wrote in the Spring of 2018:

The Nightmare

By Patricia Johns

Help Van Gogh Help He’s staring at me And he thinks I’m dead I’m dead to him Because he gave me no life A summer day passed Was it my father that went with it?

The irony of it all The first day after the spring equinox His birthday too

Help Van Gogh Help Illuminate this darkness that has befallen upon me On this the first day after the Spring Equinox A starry, starry night perhaps On this, the darkest hour before dawn

Darkness is never good The meaning of it, is never understood I’m alright now thinking about colours and brush strokes This poem has very profound meaning. It all started in a bad dream I had. In essence I had a bad relationship with my father, he died in 2009, and I had a bad dream about him. So, at that time, I was reading up on the life of Van Gogh. When I woke up, it was around 3am, and it’s as if there was this ethereal, dark feeling from the nightmare. Reading on the life of Van Gogh as I had previously been doing, I had a real appreciation for the life of Van Gogh and his work was truly inspirational. I know his most popular work is Starry, Starry Night and The Sunflower. However, one of the pieces that really struck a chord with me though was The Poor and Money. Van Gogh believed in art of the people for the people and the piece The Poor and Money was representative of that. In this piece, a group of people was standing outside a building, the feeling of doom and gloom is created. But the mere fact that he was able to capture that, showed that he cared. So, in the poem when I say “Help Van Gogh Help” it’s because I need his artistic prowess to switch my energy from negative to positive. It has been an incredible journey, and one I can say has metamorphosed my thinking as a human being and especially my work as an artist.  The butterfly also metamorphoses completely, in fact, we are so much alike, I will be highlighting the similarities between my stages of artistic growth to the butterfly’s stages of physical growth. The butterfly has four stages it goes through before its ready to flutter beautifully into the lovely adult butterfly, they are the egg, caterpillar, cocoon, and my favourite, the adult butterfly. As the adult butterfly, lays its fragile egg on the leaf of a tree or plant, so too I was placed in this world by the almighty. When this egg hatches into a caterpillar it must eat as much leaves as its body will allow. Nothing held me back when I was at the caterpillar stage, I was taking in as much knowledge as I could about the world around me. At this time I was in high school, doing art as a compulsory subject from grades 7 to 9. Then for CXC and A level exams, I had the option of choosing art and I did. The food that the caterpillar ate, was for me, the knowledge that my art tutor imparted to me.  The caterpillar stores the food for the following two stages, for energy and growth, so too I was storing the lessons learnt, for the love of it and a possible career down the line.

 After all that eating, the caterpillar, hibernates and the cocoon or pupa is formed. This stage involves growth and changing of the caterpillar into a butterfly. For me, at the cocoon stage of my career, I was building up my portfolio, experimenting with different media, honing my skills and practicing my craft. By this time I was at Edna Manley College pursuing a degree in fine arts. Here are some works of that time.

This was a huge piece (large cartridge paper size) that was done at Edna Manley. I thi  nk I was able to capture the intensity. There is a certain realness to the drawing though it’s not realism. The final stage is the emerging of the adult butterfly from the cocoon. The butterfly will now fly freely from plant to plant looking for a mate and somewhere to lay its eggs, starting the whole cycle over again, as it has beautifully realized its purpose. For me this last stage is more of a mental awareness of knowing what I definitely want to do after going back and forth with different options, including the sciences. So realizing that my purpose was art was a beautiful thing for me, as it continues to this day, to be a realization for me. With all the knowledge I’ve acquired and practice I’ve done I will say that I’m much more confident in my talent and craft today, than I was when I just started. When I sit down to draw an individual, whether live or from a photograph, I see it as an adventure but one that calms the mind. Earlier on I mentioned that I had a business called Perfect Portraits. The business is not yet registered so it is unofficially sixteen years old, for Perfect Portraits there has been its ups and downs. The dream for Perfect Portraits was to have a business that could meet the need of the art lover and anyone who had someone special in their life, including themselves, who they wanted to have a memorabilia of. So it would really make the perfect gift. As endearing as it is to have a photographed portrait, it is even more so authentic to have a portrait in the form of a painting or drawing. My aim is for Perfect Portraits to inspire people. Here are some of my commissioned pieces and work I have done lately.  

These days my work now has a much cleaner finish and boy am I ready to fly like that butterfly. For me to fly and emerge from the cocoon stage will mean me taking the responsibility to market my craft and taking risks. Like that adult butterfly, I have realized my purpose and I am definitely looking forward to the days to come.