Red Bull Skate Show

Here is the info for the show I will be in Sept. 12th! I also am going to be putting up work in two new galleries: one in Columbus, and one in Chicago. Yay!

Illustration Friday Theme: Wrapped

Here is my submission to this week's Illo-Friday theme, "Wrapped".
Cheeky, I know (or maybe ballsy for that matter, teehee!) and I definately don't expect to get a job from this piece, but my god I laughed out loud while doing this one! I mean, c'mon, who hasn't thought of this already??? So, at least it was time well spent, and I got to use my anatomical knowledge about genitals! What a fun day!

LA Johnson

LA Johnson – Listening to mellow folk music

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My work is being shown on The Little Chimp Society, which is a news-reel style Illustration site, that I found through some college friends who post there regularly. Check it out!

New-t

"The Dancin' Henchmen 5"

What now, bitches?

Cleveland Museum of Art

I went to the art museum here in Cleveland and I have to say I was impressed. The museum has been under construction for several years now and the new East Wing has just opened, which contains many new collections, as well as the old standbys. Also, they had several bands playing, and food and booze as a way to bring in some money and generate a crowd. Good job, museum, I am proud of you.

I didn't make it all the way through yesterday, but out of what I saw, my favorite was this one...


by french artist Jean Lecomte du Nouy, titled A Eunuch's Dream.
First of all, the painting is just breathtakingly beautiful-- the hyper-realism is dead on and convincing, and secondly, the story is so sad and familiar (not the castration part, but the unattainable dream part, haha) it makes me want to jump in there and curl up next to him, smoke a little opium, and see what visions my own mind would conjure up. Sounds like a great Saturday night...

My other fav was Still Life with Rayfish, by Chiam Soutine, a Russian painter.


This gruesome spectacle caught my eye (of course) and I instantly fell in love with it. I loved it even more after reading that Soutine created this piece as his own interpretation of Gustave Caillebotte's Still life with Crayfish. Soutine took a calm and sophisticated scene from an upper class meal and DESTROYED it, hahahaha, a-mazing. I guess I like this sort of thing because it is usually what I do with my artwork; I mean, as an artist I inherently want to recreate and depict my own version of life, beauty, perfection, and emotion, so when I see something nature did right (as She usually does) I don't want to simply copy it, but rather depict it as the right now (or the wrong now for that matter). My love for surrealism and abstration stems from this way of thinking, I imagine.

Also, some guy in Germany contacted me about doing work for an Italian pop band that he promotes, which I was excited about for days, until he told me he couldn't pay me... thanks a lot, jerk.

AND I am currently working with some artists in LA who are trying to put together a new Illustration magazine called Super Cool Magazine (inventive name, I know) so we shall see if that follows through, which I hope it does and I will keep you posted!

WTF, Yacht?

(I found this image of YACHT, a Portland band, on Lost at E Minor, a site I go to daily for art related news)

Ok I'm usually not that paranoid, but when I have a new great idea and suddenly see, oh, a few weeks later, that same idea done by someone more famous than I, the wheels in my head start turning... Is this coincidence, some cosmically woven universal plane of thought that can be reached by many at the same time--the sharing of ideas without being verbally or visually inspired???? Or is it just theft, the stealing of intellectual property from some unsuspecting nobody... that has led the band YACHT to steal my creative GENIUS and use it for their own mediocre artistic endeavors????!!!
Whether it be the universal ebb and flow, the Tao if you will, or just some random awful chance that an idea formed in my own little head, transformed through my little obedient fingers into a paper image that holds an entire train of thought in the form of squiggly ink-drawn lines could have been stolen and duplicated, slightly modified, by someone with a larger fan-base, nay, a fan-base at all and therefore rendering my own idea as unoriginal! What am I to do??? Is there any justice? It may not be a big deal to anyone else, or even to my own career, but the principle of it all just baffles me. How can anyone ever get proper recognition of having an idea "first".... I mean, we all know the tragic story of Tesla's uphill battle with being taken seriously, only to have his ideas be realized and produced once he was 6 feet under the ground! And if there is no way to claim an idea as being the first of its kind, then why do we give recognition, why do we seek recognition at all? Shouldn't the thought of someone else having the same crazy idea as you be a comfort and not a burden-- a reinforcement of one's own sanity?
This could mean that I really am a part of something greater than I can comprehend, and that any fame I acheive during this lifetime is really unsubstantial when it comes to the meaning of life! Or, it could just mean that no matter who you are, famous or not, some other jack ass will come along and take what little pride you may hold on to, "I won first place in the spelling bee in 1984" "My old boyfriend dedicated his novel to me" or even "I make a pie that no one else can top", that jack ass will sweep down to your little circle and snatch that tiny molecule that you hold on to as "a great idea" and show you that you are not unique, you are not original, and any dumb sap who thinks he or she is a god full of untouchable genius, will one day find out that he/she is actually the same as Boris from Russia or Susan from Mexico or John from 300 years ago!
Well, as you might recall from a post a few weeks ago, I find this image to be eerily similar to my own... and yet, I ask again, what can I do but sit here and gripe about on my blog?

(Censored Eyes, copyright LA John-- oh what's the f**ckin use...)

Maybe I should stop putting my work on sites like Threadless and Illustration Mundo until I am rich and famous and have a lot more power than I do today.... but that obviously would do more harm than good in the long run. I will simply shoot them an email confronting them about the ordeal and asking for an explanation. Maybe I function on the same brain wave as them, because as I am realizing more and more I am not original, and neither are you.

Lakewood Artwalk and new stuff stuff

Well, since I'm stuck in Cleveland right now, I decided to participate in the art "scene" so I am going to be selling originals and prints Saturday August 8 from noon to 8pm in Lakewood, OH. Not sure where I'll be set up yet but somewhere along Madison Ave.... haha. Besides that I am also in a show coming up in September at the Pop Shop Gallery. This one will be fun! It is sponsored by Redbull, with several artists and bands showing work and having a good 'ol time.

Other than that I finally got a bartending gig so I can now start saving money and planning my San Francisco adventure.

I also did a piece today which is my homage to sad music, which I love thiiiiiiiiiiiis much. Enjoy.
New site is finally underway (thanks to my man)... I will let you know as soon as it is ready!

They seem to be getting weirder...

"Ding! Ding! Ding!"
Rapidly becoming one of my favorite bands of the moment, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs rock pretty hard.