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

Quinlyn , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I think my family has always been pretty queued into the fact that art was going to be a really defining part of my life. From a young age making things and being creative was something I was particularly engaged with. Silly as it is to refer back to, I think one of the first pivotal moments of my life and my career in the arts, was in middle school. It was the first time students were able to choose elective programs that suited their interests rather than the standard music, art, and gym required for all elementary students. I mean, give a twelve year old the option of taking a rock climbing class and that is probably what they are going to go with. I took my elective sheet for my dad to sign off on, visions of pulleys and carabiners in my head, and my dad wouldn’t sign it. He has always been a really grounding presence in my life, and someone I have always respected deeply, even when I was young. He sat me down and we had a whole conversation about why I wanted to take rock climbing and didn’t want to take art. I think it was the first time someone really talked to me like art was something academic and not just an interest. We talked about how passions can be careers, and how it was really special to have something I loved so much, that not everybody had something like that. We still reference this conversation quite a bit actually, in a remember that time you tried to derail your life sort of way. My parents consistently viewed my love for art as a form of academic success. They made it clear that pursuing art intentionally, with the same dedication as any other academic pursuit, was not only feasible but also commendable. They started taking me to portfolio days for colleges as early as ninth grade, long before I needed to apply, which allowed me to engage with schools and begin building my portfolio.

Everything they did reinforced the idea that my passion was an achievement, not merely a pastime. I am forever grateful to them for supporting me along my unconventional career path and for providing countless opportunities in building a life I find so much joy in living.

Quinlyn , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My love for the arts has been long withstanding. In many ways I think my art practice informs my career more than it defines it. When I was in college my idea of success in the arts was entirely defined by the work I was making. I was lucky enough to have two big opportunities right out of school that captured two different areas of the industry that I had very little knowledge of at the time. The first of which was a job making props for museums, it was a fabrication studio and I landed in the art department. It was a form of making that was so contrary to what I had done in school, it gave me a lot of technical skills and the opportunity to work with a lot of diverse materials. I also got an internship with Seattle based artist, John Grade, who I would go on to work for full time for the next four years. John was amazing in that he really allowed me to take on more responsibility in the studio over time. It fed part of me that I think neither of us particularly expected in that I really fell in love with the management aspect of the job. I loved seeing really large scale work come together and found so many aspects of the job outside of the making itself extraordinarily satisfying. I have since transitioned into a job where I oversee the production of many large projects at once and am no longer a fabricator myself. The process of getting to where I am now has inspired a lot of reflection as I am so deeply satisfied with my work, and yet my day to day is not making the work myself. I maintain an art practice outside of my career, but my vested interest in the arts is seeing that work from my community is able to be made.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Purchasing and engaging with art is the best way to support this community. Art comes in many many forms and supporting artists is easier and has a lower barrier of entry than many people think, a refrigerator magnet can be art as much as an oil painting can. Patron side walk sales, pop ups, local shops- art isn’t exclusive to galleries and museums and can often be found where your community is already gathering.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I love the community centered around art. Having a love for art is really capturing a diverse set of interests, art speaks to history, culture, politics, the human experience; and it doesn’t even have to do that to be great, it can just be fun.

I think there really is something to surrounding yourself with creativity, there is so much structure and regimen to modern living that I genuinely believe a good dose of fun or thoughtfulness makes us better people.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @quinlyn_art

Image Credits

“Flowers in the Park” in collaboration with Lindsey Champlin