Grant Johnson’s brushstrokes capture more than images—they tell the story of a community’s spirit, echoing a time when life’s rhythm allowed for genuine connections. His series, “The Way We Were,” invites us to reflect on the bonds we’ve formed and those we’ve let slip away in our ever-evolving world.
Johnson, a Pampa native, has lived a life as colorful and varied as the subjects of his paintings. “I grew up here and went to school here,” he says, setting the stage for a narrative deeply rooted in the local culture.
After high school, his journey took him to the Northern Rockies’ untamed beauty, where he embraced a survivalist lifestyle. “I lived in the woods during that time. I was kind-of a survivalist,” he shares, recalling the years spent hunting and living off the land.
His adventures in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s were filled with the raw beauty and inherent risks of a life disconnected from today’s digital world. “Sometimes I’d be in the mountains for a month or more. It was hazardous back then, you had no communication or civilization, and it was before cell phones. So, you were just out there—but I loved it,” Johnson reflects.
One particular memory stands out, a moment so profound that it would later inspire an entire series of paintings. “I remember a time I was in the Sawtooth mountains going to hunt elk,” he recounts. “It just started snowing, and some low clouds moved in. You couldn’t even see the top of the trees, just heavy clouds, and snow was falling silently. It was those big flakes, and they were probably six inches deep on the ground already.”
Johnson continues, “Everything took on a monochromatic look, and you couldn’t hear anything. It was dead quiet. I was squatted down looking at the mules, and then I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked to see what it was and didn’t see anything. Then I saw another little bit of movement on the side of the hill, so I took my spotting scope and I saw a deer—just a flash of it. Then I saw another one over here, and over there, and over there.”
“It was a huge herd of deer coming down from high elevation to get out of the snow, but the way it was, they were in that cloud bank and looked almost like ghosts coming in and out. It looked like they weren’t even real, it was very surreal. And it was totally silent, not a noise. It went on and on for about fifteen minutes, just seeing these little ghosts of deer, and it just sent chills down my back, you know.”
This encounter, where nature and silence conspired to create a tableau both eerie and beautiful, became a metaphor for Johnson’s artistic philosophy. “I thought to myself, that means something. I couldn’t put my finger on it, it’s like when you have something on the tip of your tongue. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I was supposed to learn something from that,” he muses.
Before the conception of “The Way We Were,” Johnson embarked on a series of portraits that delved into the essence of individuality and expression. “I started painting portraits, and I realized that the whole thing that I saw back in the Sawtooth Mountains, about the veil, that it applied to us individually,” Johnson explains. “There’s so much behind a face. I did a whole series—40 paintings called ‘The Face Behind the Face.’ I did the whole thing chromatically.”
He describes his process with a passion that is almost palpable. “I would get people who would volunteer to sit for a portrait and I would talk to them for a little while and watch their face. I would look at their eyes and their gestures and their body movements, because most of our communication is not verbal.”
Johnson’s series was a journey into the human spirit, exploring the layers that compose our public personas and the truths that lie beneath. “So I did that for a long time, painted tons of portraits and I started making pretty decent money painting portraits,” he recalls. “I started getting commissions to where I wouldn’t have to run all over the country to sell paintings.”
In the current series he is working on, “The Way We Were,” Johnson not only paints the past but also holds up a mirror to our present, inviting us to ponder the true cost of our digital age.
In “Filler-up Earl,” a piece from the series, Johnson vividly brings to life the gas station of his childhood memories. Reflecting on the inspiration behind this painting, Johnson says, “This last one I painted was a gas station I can remember as a kid. We’d pull into the gas station, the attendant would come up and my dad would roll the window down and call him by name. The name of the painting is ‘Filler-up Earl,’ because I can remember hearing my dad say ‘filler-up, Earl!” We knew each other’s names because we knew each other back then.”
Johnson’s work is a call to rediscover the empathy and understanding that once came so naturally. “Having empathy with someone doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not, you can have empathy,” he says. “We’re getting to where we don’t even identify each other as humans. We almost just care about ourselves.”
“It wasn’t that way when I grew up. And so what I’m trying to do with this series, is make people stop and think for a minute about how we were even though you had to work harder,” Johnson concludes. “Yes, it’s harder to go over to somebody’s door and knock and talk to them than it is just to pull out your phone and send a text. It’s harder, it takes more time, but it’s valuable. Those things are valuable, and there’s a value to being uncomfortable.”
He passionately adds, “Life has a texture and a vibrance to it. So many people don’t get it. They don’t sink their teeth into it, you know? The great thing that we humans have in common is that we are truth-seekers—and it’s knowable, but you’re not going to find it sitting on your couch.”
Johnson’s series of “The Way We Were” will include 16 paintings in total, 12 of which are already complete. The Pampa News looks forward to seeing the rest of the series unfold.
