Weeknights
Weeknights
- Creator: Clare Johnson
- Date: 2023
- Location: Boise City Hall, 1st Floor, Arts & History, Work Room, Unit C, Shelf/Drawer 1
- Types: drawings (visual works)
- Materials: ink, paper (fiber product)
- Collection: James Castle House Artist in Residence Works
Clare Johnson's ink drawings rework imagery that comforted her as a child - trees, homes, people curled up in cozy, protected beds - while evoking the loneliness and vulnerability she often felt. When Johnson started making them, she was often homesick. They are a repetitive effort to soothe and calm, through various means - expression of anxieties, imaginative re-creation of favorite environments, sometimes just the invention of humorous details or secret spaces. The fantasy of a safe location is enacted over and over again, as if drawing these places could make them real. Each fanciful creation, however, is balanced with the reality of its isolation and impossibility. Fears are both conveyed and soothed by the act of drawing. Hand-written words connect the drawings to the present moment, sharing brief related thoughts or experiences from the time she was making each one.
