We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful John Strother. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with John below.

John, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was a senior in college at PSU in the architecture department my professor pulled me aside at the end of the semester and said that I had to decide whether I would be an Architect or an Artist. I thought it was an interesting question but I have never made that choice. I have pursued both to the best of my ability.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m currently a retired Architect/artist working and living in my art studio in State College PA. I grew up in an artistic household with an artistic family. My 95-year-old Mother is a realistic painter focused on portraits and landscapes she is still painting to this day. My Father was an amateur illustrator and pastel artist but his career was a bio-physics professor at PSU. My older sister is a full-time abstract painter and graphic artist living in Spring Mills Pa.
While I was growing up at State College my sister and I would attend Saturday morning art classes at PSU. I believe these classes helped forge my interest and artistic sensibilities.
In 1976 1 was accepted into the Architecture department at PSU. I graduated with a BS in Architecture in 1980. During my last two years in college, I started taking numerous art classes on campus. Most notable was a papermaking course where the process of making the paper was uniquely integrated into the creative /artistic process. I took this idea of integrating the process into the creative realm and during my senior year, I started building 3-dimensional foam core layered relief studies of building elevation. Layering colored foam core to develop 3-dimensional relief models represented as a 2-dimensional image.
Throughout my 40-year Architectural career, I continued in my off time developing free-hand compositional sketches ( always keeping the layered concept in the back of my conscience) I then developed these sketches into 3 dimensional layered and then eventually fully modeled wall art and some fully sculptural mixed media artwork.
I currently consider myself a compositional artist using multiple mixed mediums to continue exploring the visual components between 2 and 3 dimensions. My latest works are derived from freehand sketches developed into colored graphic compositions using color pastel and Photoshop to manipulate images through multiple colors as a process to a final 2-dimensional Image.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

When I was in college I wrote an essay for a class on visual compositional analysis. The premise was to try and establish parameters for a successful/artistic visual composition. Part of that analysis was focused on how your eye perceives and interprets a creative composition. My analysis was that if your eye keeps moving through the composition without resting on a component of that composition then you have a balanced/successful visual playground through that composition. I still use this process to analyze my own works of art. I find it very rewarding to develop a work that keeps that sense of visual motion constantly at play.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have had mutable personal relationships during my lifetime and each has provided a different set of limits and constraints related to developing and working on my creative process. Working as an Architect all day and then trying to squeeze in a few hours at night/weekend for my art has always been difficult.  I have come to realize that the price you pay to explore your creative side can sometimes be very tough. At the end of the day, my artwork will be my legacy.

Contact Info:

• Website: Strotherstudio.com
• Instagram: johnhaywardstrother
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
All images are the property of John Strother