i t
’
s
e a s y
t o
i m a g i n e
t h e
response H arriet Johns got
w h en she w alk ed into a m anu-
facturing plant in the early 1970s
and described w h at she intend-
ed to create using the facility’s
equipm ent: large-scale art.
T h ere she w as, a small w om an
in a ve ry male, industrial en vi-
ronm ent w h ere enam el-on-steel
h igh w ay signs w e re produced.
“ W h e n you com e in and
y o u ’re 5-foot-3, and a w om an ,
you need a little salesm anship,”
Johns relates w ith a sly smile.
“ W h e n y o u tell them you w an t
to create panels for a 40-foot
wall, they have a fe w questions.”
A s it turned out, a determ ined
personality and hair-trigger
sense o f hum or - w h ich still
define the artist at age 87 -
helped get Johns in the door
and plant w orkers on her side.
W h a t ultim ately w e n t into
the large, high-fire kilns w ere
h eavy steel panels, generally
4 feet b y 3 feet, covered w ith
abstracted designs in ground
porcelain enamel, w hich melted
and fused like glass onto the
steel. W h a t came out w ere bold
paintings w h o se vitreous sur-
faces g lo w w ith saturated colors
that never lose their radiance,
indoors or out.
F o r decades Johns w as co m -
m issioned to create her brash
pieces for private and corporate
collections, including a m ulti-
panel piece w ith intensely hued
circuit-board im agery that co v -
ered a curved, 6o-foot w all at
I B M ’s Silicon V a lley research
lab. She doesn’t m ake the big
pieces anym ore. A g e has made
that too challenging, not to m en-
tion her distance from an enamel
plant - in the 1990s she settled
in the rem ote foothills to w n o f
Crestone in southern Colorado.
But Johns is also k n o w n for inti-
m ate pieces as small as a fe w
Johns with one o f her
many untitled works at
her Colorado home.
