The following is an adapted exerpt from the autobiography, A Stepladder, a Paintbrush and a Dream: One Man's Quest to Bring Art to the R.V. by Jonathan J. Johnson:
I used to be embarrassed by my art. Exciting conversations with fascinating people would eventually reach the "and what do you do for a living?" section and I'd look for a rock to crawl under.
At one time I imagined notoriety and fame as a result of my groundbreaking art. I embarked on the experimental phase of my craft with a belief that what I was doing was new, exciting and revolutionary. And for a few short months in the early nineties, it was.
And then came the imitators. Phillistines with no sense of color balance or geometric principles. Unburdened by taste and the emotional sensitivity required to create true art, they began haphazardly copying my work. Without the soul that I added to my own avant-garde pieces, the evil painters foisted bad art onto an unsuspecting public.
The vision was diluted. The passion was lost. And the deceptively simple geometric works of art that adorned the motor homes I painted were turned into mass-produced "graphics" to be applied with no thought to composition or the needs of the specific motorcoach.
It's not like I started out with a vision of getting one of my swoopy designs on every RV in North America. I didn't even start out to paint motorhomes at all.
I was a junior in high school, with no discernable skills or goals, when my favorite uncle gave me his 1970 Chevy panel van. Uncle Leroy Lee (most of my familymembers use their first and middle names, after my great-grandfather's brother, Jeffery Jefferson Holdsclaw, who was a private in the U.S. Army and who would have been Pocahantas' first white husband had he not choked on a bone while eating raccoon stew. Poca, as he called her, referred to him as "Jeffy Jeff") was a house painter and used the van primarily to haul supplies from job to job. When I received the van it was covered in splashes of paint, with no discernable pattern.
Not wanting my friends to see the worker's vehicle I'd been given, yet totally siked that I got such a great gift, I decided to paint it.
I assumed that the task would be daunting, as the canvas was so large and the possibilities endless, but after just a few minutes I had a subject and several possible layouts in mind.
I painted the lone wolf standing on a rock outcropping, sillouhetted by a rising moon in less than an hour. Springing fully formed from my imagination, the image was surprising well-composed and captured my adolescent feelings of loneliness and aggression.
Driving my van around town, I received numerous compliments, but was unaware of the career that loomed large in my future.
Soon, I began receiving requests to paint the vans of my friends. My friend Harold, who claimed Iraquois roots, wanted something tribal, and a large Native American face surrounded by beautiful plumage burst forth from my creative mind. By superimposing the image over an airbrushed mountainous landscape, I was able to suggest the Indian ideal of being part of the land but not owning it.
The van of another friend, Robby, needed something nautical. Contrary to his desire for a "really cool green lizard," I whipped up an undersea vision of dolphins and reef formations in less than two hours.
I was on a roll. dropping out of high school, I started "The Painted Van-Vas," a rolling art studio (operated, naturally, out of the back of my van, which now featured a large beach sunset scene on the right rear panel), and hit the road.
Those were the glory years. Outfitted with shag carpeting and captain's chairs, the van became my home on the road and, in time, the "love den" that every young man dreams about.
But the life was also hard. I'd roll into a new town, park my van in front of some seedy bar, go in for a drink and answer questions about the van. Attracting potential clients was easy. Attracting their girlfriends into the back of the van was even easier.
The trick was getting the jobs finished and getting out of town before the clients figured out the sleeping arrangements.
Hundreds of vans and thousands of miles later (and at least five women whom I will never, ever admit to being with) I decided to settle down. A small ad in "RV Times" gave me a lead on a job doing portrait work on motorcoaches.
My first client was J.G. "Freddy Fingers" Harzwell, a business man from Racine, Wisconsin who wanted his family portrait (his wife, himself and his prized pug, Twinkler) painted on the side of his newly purchased Winnebago. Freddy was known in Racine for the successful cabinet molding company he owned. Nothing about the company was particularly exciting, except for the way Freddy turned high employee-injury risk into a small fortune. Freddy was smart enough to take out huge dismemberment policies on his staff, while replacing the more careful, high-paid craftsmen with lesser-skilled workers. Pretty soon, Freddy was making monthly claims and the insurance company was reviewing their policy qualifications.
Freddy cashed out of business when the eight- and nine-fingered employees began grumbling about their share of the insurance money. (In an homage to his business, the figure of Freddy in the portrait is missing a finger on each hand!)
That painting led to other work, and I'd have been painting portraits and still-lifes (scenery, animals, etc.) for the rest of my career, if not for a traveling exhibition of abstract art.
While I can't remember the name of the artist, I can still see the big geometric shapes and strong colors.
I never knew what the word "epiphany" meant until that day.
But now I'm stuck. My beautiful work, big blocks of passionate color, have been hijacked by talentless hacks who have no sense of art.
Sorry about that.
But the next time you see a motorhome with slashes of red and a wiggly silver line that moves you to tears, think of me.
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