Diary Of An Artist In A New World

A Beautiful Garden On A 12th Floor Balcony

A Gypsy Garden Is Full Of Magic

 

It takes a lot of time to move into a place and the garden is often last on the list. Making my garden took a long time but I had to wait for the right moment. For a year I had been looking for a wagon wheel as the central motif for my garden. Some people might think a wagon wheel is out of place in a high rise building, but for me it holds deep meanings from my country upbringing and in Romani culture the wagon and horses hold a central place. It represents that need to be free to roam that space between earth and sky. I have always felt that need to be free and the wagon wheel allows my mind to roam as I please.

 

My goal was to create a rainforest feeling that would remind me of my youth in the jungles of North Queensland. There were beautiful places there I would escape to and my favorites were rocky ledges on mountain sides where I could look out into the sky with the forests far below but surrounded by that wet smell of ferns and rainforest greenery. An apartment balcony on the 12th floor is a surprisingly good place to recreate that rainforest mountainside experience. To do it though would require careful planning and selection of plants.

 

The wagon wheel is the focus of the garden. Tropical looking plants such as a large leafed variety of non-variegated devil ivy, mother-in-law tongue, boston fern calathea, rex begonia, and parlor palm give a rainforest feel. The French window boxes will be filled with spider plants and ferns as the garden develops.

 

A small umbrella tree and a non-variegated happy plant give a rainforest feeling while very hardy plants like mother-in-law tongue and yucca at the edge of the balcony act as a wind break to help protect the plants inside.

 

 

Gardening on the 12th floor is very different to gardening at ground level. Firstly the relatively small size of a balcony means careful planning to get the best effect. Secondly winds are much stronger up high than near the ground meaning that plants have to be very hardy types. And lastly light can be problematic. Some apartments face the sun and experience baking heat, while others face away from the sun and can only support plants adapted to full shade.

 

My balcony is south facing, and being in the southern hemisphere that means away from the sun. During mid summer part of my balcony gets some afternoon sun after 2pm but during mid winter I get six weeks with no sun at all. I chose wind resistant plants for the outside considering light requirements for the exact placement of the various plants.

 

No garden is complete without a gnome. Mine is named Raphaël. I named him after Amelie's father in the French movie Amelie. In the movie his garden gnome is stolen by Amelie who loans it to a friend who is a flight attendant. Raphaël subsequently receives polaroids from exotic locations all over the world with the gnome in the foreground. Raphaël is perplexed by the situation but eventually decides to pack his bags and see some of the world that his gnome has enjoyed. The fact that Raphaël is also the name of an artist is just an added bonus. Keeping Raphaël company is a meerkat and a cupid. Coincidentally this cupid is based on a cupid painted by the artist Raphael.

 

 

There is something magical about sitting in the garden enjoying the sky and the forest of skyscrapers all around. Gardens bring a sense of peace to the city, and tending a garden brings a sense of peace to the psyche. People may go into space and live in busy metropolises but there is always a part of us which belongs in a wild natural place. A garden reminds us of that natural world we ultimately come from. There is a special feeling I get from living with my plants and letting my mind wander off with that wagon wheel.

 

 

 

A New Painting

Gypsy Nights by Tony Johansen digital painting 2013

Gypsy Nights is a digital image painted in Photoshop. It started life from my need to create an image that I could use on my Twitter profile. My first inspiration was the paintings and etchings of Gypsy's dancing by John Singer Sargent and Lionel Lindsay from a hundred years ago. I then found a painting from the 19th century depicting a daytime scene of a Gypsy woman dancing for a local lord which formed the actual starting point. For my picture I wanted a fire, more people, and a caravan

Even though it is a hundred years later I remember many nights under the stars with a campfire raging and caravans gathered around the edge. I have spent many years living in caravans. For a Gypsy it is the most natural thing in the world and it is the living in houses that seems a bit strange. As a result the sort of scene depicted here is very real to me.

Gypsy Dance by Lionel Lindsay (Australian) Etching 1919

Tony Johansen: Up Close And Personal

This is my journey as an artist, the context within which my creative world thrives.

There was a time when all an artist did was paint or sculpt, mostly for powerful people who used art to cement their place in religion and history. Now we make art for reasons of our heart. That feels better but it sure don't pay the bills and being an artist is as much struggle as it is joy.

Now we have the internet and the artist is free to connect with people outside the bubble that culture becomes when elites control it.

This digital flux mixes inside me with my Romani Gypsy heritage. I experience a cultural soup full of rarely combined flavors. I have traditions reaching back into time that speak to me every day and are as real to me as the technological here and now.

Opportunities online and in software are matched by new problems. Some see it as a crazy art world that bears little similarity to what comes out of an oil paint tube. The computer is a creative medium that calls into question the traditional ideas about what it means to be an artist.

I love the new ideas. I love that you and I are sharing the journey that is life for an artist in the early 21st century. Thank you for coming with me these few steps.