Experience Mel Johnson

Mel Johnson is an oil painter I first met while living in Bothell.

I used a framer in Lake Forest Park to frame pictures I liked. Knowing I was a reporter, he said that I ought to do a story about Johnson.

He had a couple of Johnson’s paintings hanging in his gallery. 

They looked interesting so I called Mel and set up a time I could go over to his place and talk with him.

That’s when I came to say “experience him,” rather than just meet him.

It may seem cruel to say he was strange. But he was strange.

It appeared that his paintings revealed that he was really two painters.

On one side he painted frivolous characters, many of them clowns, but also crusty individuals from the West. They would put a smile on your face.

The second Mel Johnson painted very dark pictures that would put fear in your heart.

We got along pretty well and I decided to write a story about him. 

I got him to talk a lot, a trick many writers use to get people to reveal things about themselves.

He must have thought the story was okay because he wanted to get together again.

The next time I saw Mel it was at the framer’s place of business. I often visited with the framer about art and related subjects.

I had a nice visit with Mel again.

In a few weeks the guy who ran the frame shop said he had been talking to Mel and they were planning to have a one man show of Mel’s paintings.

I don’t know how it happened, but Mel and his wife and kids found out where I lived.

On a Saturday morning, fairly early, Mel and his family showed up. They spent the entire day.

The next couple of Saturdays the same thing happened.

That’s when we started planning Saturday outings away from home.

Things turned normal until I got a call from the framer asking me to drop by.

He had a couple dozen of Mel’s paintings, and he was trying to figure out how many he would need for the one-man art show. And, of course, he wanted me to write a story about the show.

So I did and wondered how the event would go. Over the evening art show, Mel had a good crowd and sold several paintings.

I thought he was getting a little pricey on his prices on some of his paintings. I did like his work and ended up buying four of them. I bought two of his clown pictures, one of his characters, and one of his dark pictures.

I seldom keep anything very long, so most things end up somewhere else.

I was pretty busy as a reporter and I didn’t think of Mel again until I saw some of his paintings in an art gallery in Wenatchee.

I don’t want to create a wrong impression of Mel. He was a very funny guy. He didn’t mind people watching him paint and he could paint quite fast when he wanted to.

My mother gave me a large oil painting she bought at an auction. It now belongs to my oldest daughter, Kathleen, who  immediately liked it and got her name on it.

My mother bought it from a banker was retiring in Palouse and selling his household items by auction. No one bid on the painting, so my mother got it for $5. 

My mother was the only kid in her family and she liked nice things, but the Great Depression got in the way.