Fantasy and Whimsy

Two visionary artists bring their worlds together in an exhibit at Ellarslie.

By: Ilene Dube
   When Carmen Johnson stands in front of the blank canvas on the easel in her Bordentown living room, she sees a world that doesn’t exist outside her window. In her paintings, women wear vibrantly colored, richly patterned dresses and big fancy church hats, men are in snazzy suits, and they may be walking into or out of church, sitting on porches, or jazzing it up in a nightclub.
   Her trees suggest apples dangling or the gnarly trunk of an old sycamore. She calls them all "Carmen" trees, meaning they are not based on botanical genuses but come from her imagination. The artist, who first picked up a paintbrush after her grandmother died in 1985, does not use models or photographs, but paints strictly from her imagination. And what a rich imagination it is.
   The Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion is exhibiting the paintings of Ms. Johnson through Jan. 7, along with the sculpture of Susanne Pitak-Davis. Both artists use color in a way that might cause the timid to squint, and while Ms. Johnson creates patterns in dresses and upholstery fabric, Ms. Davis creates texture with beads, pottery shards, buttons, old jewelry, and ladybug figurines embedded into her sculpture.
   Ms. Johnson, 52, is self-taught, and her work exhibits an original vision that can be lost when an artist studies technique. Her view encompasses distorted perspective and faces without features. "Making Poodle Dogs," one of her earliest paintings in the exhibit, is painted from memory, but it is like a snapshot of Ms. Johnson’s childhood. Six ladies are sitting in chairs on the porch of a wooden house, wearing hats and scarves and aprons over their printed dresses, crafts on their laps; a fan in the window provides relief from a hot day in the South. The front door is open, the mat says "welcome," and a sofa covered with a bright orange, squiggly striped slipcover continues the welcome.
   We hardly need to be told this was the artist’s grandmother’s house in Gould, Ark., where, as the children of an Army officer and a nurse, Carmen and her three brothers spent summers. The ladies on the porch "would come over and make poodle dogs, quilts, crafts and eat and talk about the neighbors," says Ms. Johnson. The poodle dogs were crafted from a wire armature, wrapped with rags and plastic bags, and flowerets would be sewn on "until it looked like a poodle," she says.
   "My grandmother also sold chickens, butter and eggs. They were poor people who did what they could," she continues. Poor, perhaps, but rich with their big open hearts. Trenton City Museum Director Brian Hill says his introduction to Ms. Johnson’s work was her painting "Chit-Chat and Apple Martinis" — even Paul Gaugin would be jealous of her use of color, he adds: "I should have purchased the work when given the chance." Mayor Douglas Palmer and his wife, Christiana Foglio-Palmer, beat him to it.
   There’s another painting of two front porches, folks settled into their chairs with cats alongside, reading newspapers. The sidewalk in front is a brilliant earthen red. Like many of Ms. Johnson’s early paintings, it gives a sense of the South, of people who are at ease in their neighborhoods, chatting and gossiping. "That’s how people did things, you couldn’t go past a porch and not speak to people. Here, I have to say good morning three times in order to get a response," says Ms. Johnson, who substitute teaches at Florence High School. "Here, people don’t know how to speak. In Arkansas, if you don’t speak it gets back to your grandmother."
   Ms. Johnson herself is soft-spoken, and when asked how she gets kids to mind her in the classroom, she says giving frequent time-outs and trips to the principal’s office does more than a loud voice.
   Sometimes "you look out the window and see people doing things and think it will make a good painting," she says. Other times, "It’s fun to just make stuff up." A painting titled "After Sunday Service," with churchgoers in their finery spilling out on the grass-lined sidewalk, is a little of both, with children sassing each other as their parents talk and talk. "People tend to everyone’s business but their own," she says.
   There are paintings set in her grandmother’s kitchen, minding the family business — cooking, washing dishes, gathering around a table laden with food. The kitchen sparkles in 1950s glory: a speckled pink linoleum countertop, trimmed in chrome, and turquoise mosaic tile.
   In contrast to the homey Southern scenes are paintings of young sophisticates in urban, nightclub settings, bedrooms and living rooms. One of these, a study in blue, calls like a siren. Titled "That Night," it is one of the few paintings in the show where the main subject actually has facial features. A thin young attractive woman with velvety brown skin is surrounded by electric blues. "Whatever happened that night, whatever it was, I don’t know… maybe she lost her virginity," says Ms. Johnson. "I wanted to do blues and capture the moonlight."
   Just across the wall is "That Turquoise Moonlight" with a couple making love in their bedroom, the moonlight streaming in through glass doors looking out onto a brick balcony. She says she doesn’t know where the ideas come from, but she writes them down when she gets them; some of the ideas come from songs. Ms. Johnson says she’s still stuck in the ’70s, when it comes to music.
   A frustrated musician, Ms. Johnson always wanted to learn to play piano and guitar and has two guitars gathering dust. Her daughter, Desmin, plays clarinet and tenor saxophone. The next two rooms of the exhibit have musical instruments in just about every painting. Some contain disembodied, Picasso-esque distorted violins, guitars, trumpets, saxophones and keyboards, others have jazz musicians that seem to melt into their instruments as they become one with the music. Singers holding microphones stand in the spotlight as sophisticated folks gather around bars and nightclubs. Whereas the earlier paintings have a quilt-like, Argyle-patterned innocence, these paintings are knowing, sexually provocative, with figures touching each other, embracing, kissing, and beyond. There’s an intimate scene with the grandmother, alone in her bedroom, fuzzy slippers kicked off, surrounded by homespun antiques and chairs with antimacassars, having a solemn moment because it’s just too darn early to be waking up.
   Also in the wee hours, there’s a younger woman in a diaphanous white gown, awakened at 2:43 a.m., peering into the fridge. The appliance’s fluorescent glow backlights her so her silhouetted rear is visible through the gown.
   Ms. Johnson says she likes to get dressed up when she goes out, and recalls a time she and her husband put on their finery to see a performance of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. "People were there in their blue jeans," she says with disappointment. "In Arkansas and Kansas City (where she grew up), people dressed up." Pause. "It could have been the times."
   She recalls her son’s 8th grade prom, where the boys got dressed up and the girls wore gowns with corsages. They all went over to a friend’s house and played video games in the basement. "It cuts down on teenage pregnancy," the artist says with a wink. She responded by painting the scene.
   Ms. Johnson describes the world in her nightclub paintings as one where "the kids are fed and put to bed and you can dress up and socialize with grownups who don’t mean you no harm." Does Ms. Johnson live in this world? "Oh, right."
   Susanne Pitak-Davis knew she wanted to be an artist at age 5, when trying to make an Indian maiden out of clay. After much work, she gave up in frustration, but when her mother rescued the project with toothpicks and the young artist took it back, she felt as if a living creature was in her hands.
   She studied art education, and after reading Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell returned to school and earned a master’s degree in art therapy from Pratt Institute. When her twin sister was fighting cancer, Ms. Pitak-Davis’ work took a new direction. She began making angels to help her sister and herself through the healing process.
   "Susanne’s work is an exploration of the concept of ‘art as talisman,’ where energy is embedded in an object to impart a sense of the divine," writes Mr. Hill. "In doing this, her art incorporates fragments of memory and myth woven together in a colorful cacophony in which joyous, whimsical beings celebrate the rich complexity of life."
   In "Lusting for Light," a female form wears a crown of red Christmas lights. Her breasts are made of light bulbs painted in swirling patterns. "Bovine Bell" is half cow, half woman. In "Circe’s Ride," a gypsy woman is riding a bejeweled pink pig, and "Hootchie Mama Angel" is a winged woman dangling hot peppers and a cigarette from her mouth."
   By day, the artist works at New Jersey State Prison, running art therapy groups. "I ask them to do a drawing, and then we talk about what it means," says the Lambertville resident. "In prison you’re stripped of your identity and art is a way to keep your identity and establish a connection and express feelings and cut down on isolation."
   The hardest part of working within the prison system, she finds, is working around the rigid rules. For example, she is not allowed to use blue paint, because that is the color of the officers’ uniforms, and could compromise prison security.
   The work is rewarding because many of the inmates have never painted before, and it is satisfying for Ms. Pitak-Davis to see them learn new techniques that bring out their talents and evolve.
   The found objects come from everywhere. People know she collects "junque" and give her old jewelry, among other treasures. "And beads. I love beads," she says. Sojourner Beads in Lambertville is her source.
   The angels begin much the way Ms. Johnson’s grandmother’s lady friends began their poodle dogs: with a metal armature. "I’ll find something interesting like a metal display with curves in the garbage," she says. She’ll bring it home and build on top. "The sculpture creates itself, triggered by dreams and memories that evolve, and it is suggested from (the original metal find)," she says. "Color is the unifying element."
   She uses a clay compound to mold around the armature, implants the beads and objets, and sprays a glaze over the piece.
   Ms. Pitak-Davis says she’s happy when people put her work in their homes, because they are meant for healing "not only physical (ailments) but emotionally and spiritually. They help with the big challenges in life."
   But one doesn’t have to need healing to delight in Ms. Pitak-Davis’ work: "It’s upbeat and joyful," she says. "I look at it and it makes me happy to see others who feel the same way."
Artwork by Carmen Johnson and Susanne Pitak-Davis is on view at the
Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion, Cadwalader Park, 319 E. State St., Trenton,
through Jan. 7. Museum hours: Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sun. 1-4 p.m. For information,
call (609) 989-3632. On the Web: www.ellarslie.org