Today we’d like to introduce you to Faith Johnson.
Faith, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I grew up in California with a split family, living mostly with my dad, stepmom, and five siblings in a somewhat privileged suburban environment. Both of my parents had religious or spiritual leanings: my father was/is Christian and my mother took an earth-based approach to spirituality. Both of my parents exposed me to the natural world on a regular basis, and in my very early adolescence I would spend summers watching my mother tend the earth in the mountains of northern California.
As a child, creativity, daydreaming, and imagination were sanctuaries; my doorways into universes, ways of coping, navigating, and communicating in a sometimes violent and unsafe world. It was my connection to All That Is—that place in the imagination where everything exists and anything is possible.
Early on in my art practice I was transfixed, because of my own experiences, with understanding death, loss, violence, and the way memory—particularly traumatic memory—reverberates as an energy cycling through the body and mind. These creative investigations guided me to performance art, which I took to readily during graduate school at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. I was drawn to performance art for its immediacy and direct embodiment of concepts unfolding in real time. I explored ideas through simple poetic actions and materials that involved physical endurance, stillness, shadow, dreaming, delicate impermanence, guided group experiences/interactions, and the ethereal. Meanwhile, I was investigating extrasensory perception, visiting local spiritual groups, going on silent meditation retreats, and eventually entering into a complex and problematic five-year relationship with a spiritual community.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Art practice for me has become about sanctuary: a healing catalyst, a contemplative individual and communal act. It is a mirroring and navigational tool – showing us who we are, where we are going, and what is possible.
My work continues unfolding in the realms between the physical and non-physical worlds. Through my performative/interactive installations and guided group experiences I invite dreaming and imagination. This flows both through my art practice and my community arts business Full Circle Arts; which combines my arts education background, spiritual research, and my love of dreaming and contemplative, meditative creativity.
My recent art projects focus on group connection and the technology and sentience of the natural world. For the past several years I have been developing a project called the Water Keepers’ Library. It came to me through a daydream just before the North Dakota Access Pipeline protests brought worldwide attention to the state of water and the continued destructive actions and expressions of corporate colonialism. The vision tumbled out like spring water pouring from the earth—complete with a mythological story of the beginning of the first water molecule forming in deep space and culminating in a planet made entirely of water. In this vision the water planet has a library of water containing samples from all galaxies, planets, times, and terrains. In a single drop one can access the memory of the land, the people, and creatures of the land. In order to assemble water for the library I invite people to become Water Gatherers. People from all over the world are invited to connect to and thank the water, gather it in a glass vessel and send it to be a part of the Water Library. During the exhibition the water is displayed and labeled with its place of origin. Participants are invited to take an imaginative journey with a drop of water from the library during a guided meditation. During the meditation I tell the story of water and guide those present to experience the wisdom from their chosen water. It is in this meditative space that we connect, we listen to the water, and we dream.
What is it to dream?
Recently I returned from a journey to Peru where I traveled with the open-ended intention of dreaming with the water and hoping to bring back water for others to dream with. I wanted to deepen my understanding of the Water Library project and what it means to commune with the waters of the earth. It was a journey of three mountains, three waters, three days, 37 miles of walking, and many dreams. I dreamt of the suffering colonialism has caused the people and I saw it in the waking world. I dreamt of a great mountain opening up to reveal a massive city from another time. I dreamt I saw a figure far below with a long white robe flowing behind them gliding through a never-ending forest of trees…turning into a dragon… into a snake…into water… only later to see my dream unfold in the waking world as I watched from a mountain top foaming white waters winding like a snake through the valleys below. On the last day with sore legs and blisters I stood overlooking Machu Picchu as mists completely concealed and revealed a city amongst the stars…. unveiling a deep magic. I felt that I could hear the mountains more clearly after having spent days to reach them. In exchange a doorway to understanding the sentience of the natural world was ever so slightly opened to a listening ear.
Most of us have forgotten the language of listening, of dreaming. That memory loss is one of the deep costs of colonialism. We have forgotten how to honor ourselves, each other, and the earth. This causes self and communal violence. We have forgotten the technology of nature and the greater universe. We have forgotten the power of dreaming together. We have forgotten our power to connect, to be human. We have forgotten our power. New technologies are created to replace what we no longer understand how to activate within ourselves. Those gifts are still in us, waiting to reawaken, to be nurtured back to life.
It is my hope that communal creativity and imagination can help us not only remember our interconnection and ability to listen, but also allow us to access realms beyond our physical space and linear knowledge, and ultimately activate us more fully in the material world. In my work as a community arts facilitator and artist, it is my hope that I can be a door keeper, holding space for sanctuary, to invite a remembering and to help us navigate just a little closer towards what’s possible.
Do you think conditions are generally improving for artists? What more can cities and communities do to improve conditions for artists?
I think artists today are deeply undervalued. Most artists I know work many jobs to support their “true” work in the world. We go to art shows and events and experience the labor and spirit of artists for free. It’s offered as a gift. I think cities can help by permanently earmarking truly affordable housing and studios for artists and support a culture of honoring and paying artists for their work. Artists bring value on levels that cannot be measured, and since we live in a system that looks for measurable things art is often seen as a luxury that we can’t afford. I think we can’t afford not to have a world flourishing with artists and dreamers.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone was supported to do what makes them light up? We would be able to see so much more clearly where we are going.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Donate to the Water Keepers’ Library! The library is a mobile interactive exhibition and needs support with supplies for water gathering kits, shipping costs, purchasing singing bowls, cushions, shelving, travel to bodies of water, and more. To become a Water Gatherer please visit the WKL Facebook page for instructions.
Send a donation through Venmo or PayPal with the heading “Gift for the Water Keepers’ Library.” Send your name and address and receive water meditation instructions and a small crystal for your kindness.
A mini version of the Water Keepers’ Library will be coming this fall to Practice Space in Cambridge. Keep updated on events through my WKL Facebook page or my website.
Support my community arts project Full Circle Arts and sign up for, or book, a meditation and art making workshop! Keep updated on events through FCA Facebook page, website, or newsletter.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.faithjohnson.net/ AND http://www.full-circle-arts.com/
- Email: Johnson.Faith@gmail.com AND FullOArts@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waterkeeperslibrary/?hl=en AND https://www.instagram.com/fulloarts/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FaithJohnsonWaterMuseum/ AND https://www.facebook.com/FullOArts/
Image Credit:
Water gathering image: Brittany Gravely, Water Keepers’ Library images: Sue Murad, all other images courtesy of the artist.
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