Melissa D. Johnston Art

Blog

  • What Flow Sometimes Feels Like

    What Flow Sometimes Feels Like

    When you’re in flow, the spirit expands and the world becomes magically filled with possibilities. Playing or singing music is perhaps one of the most universal ways to enter flow. I don’t sing anymore, but whenever I’m taking photos, I almost always feel in flow. Ditto for the postproduction process. Perhaps that’s why I’m so Read more

  • A Little Fun with my iPhone on a Wet, Foggy Day

    A Little Fun with my iPhone on a Wet, Foggy Day

    There was a beautiful fog when I stepped outside work today. I love fog (see here and here). I will stop on the side of the road if needed in order to get a shot. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do that today.* The field behind the Y–right across the street–was beckoning with oh-so-many possibilities. Read more

  • David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green and the Precocious Jason Taylor

    David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green and the Precocious Jason Taylor

    I just finished Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (author of Cloud Atlas—which was a Man Booker Prize finalist—and Number9Dream among others). It’s a coming of age story, recounting one year in the life of thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, who lives in a small village—Black Swan Green—in Worcestershire in 1982. Cold War England. I came away Read more

  • 2015’s First issue of Creative Thresholds

    2015’s First issue of Creative Thresholds

    In November 2012 I started an arts-literary blog called Creative Thresholds in order to promote and (hopefully) inspire artists, writers, and other creatives. It comes out the second and fourth Thursday of every month. Today the first issue came out and it’s fantastic! Michael S. Church shares his masterful, provocative collages. aima peintar (Marcella Casu) invites us to Read more

  • Sunday Play: Digital Collage

    Sunday Play: Digital Collage

    Brain fog. The consequence of sitting for far too long at one Starbucks table reading about Lacan, Winnicott, and sadomasochism on a computer screen. My escape from brain fog: photographing the fountain nearby, in the rain, and playing with the images for the rest of the afternoon. Violà! Six digital collages. The collages started as Read more

  • No more BIG projects in 2015

    No more BIG projects in 2015

    Has a creative project ever mattered so much to you that you simply did…nothing? Or next to nothing in its pursuit? Has it ever mattered so much that what you did in every other creative area in your life—and maybe even every other area in your life in general—didn’t register as “counting” for anything at Read more