Peter L. Johnson : The Nature Paintings

	The Nature Paintings Bringing nothing but my watercolor paper I paint in and with bodies of water in the Upper Mississippi River watershed. This art immersion deepens my love of the ecosystem and creates direct community with our troubled environment as I create new ways to work with the plants, currents, and mud in this version of the ultimate open-air studio.



	The Sediment Paintings		The Sediments Paintings are being created on the land at the glorious, grass-fed beef, perennial polyculture Moonstone Farms in Montevideo, MN. A culvert brings sediment from their monoculture neighbor's tiling runoff into their stream. This is where I paint. The richness and energy of the land and people are as much a part of this process as the sediment that finds its way onto my watercolor paper canvases.




	The Antidote Paintings		The Antidote Paintings were created in a to remain anonymous trout stream that feeds Lake Pepin (Mississippi River). Working in this healthier ecosystem (I have seen gasoline floating on the surface unfortunately here too) was a needed Antidote to my Hazardous Alchemy Painting Series where I had to wear a home-made haz mat suit to stay reasonably safe to work. I simply bring my thick watercolor paper to the stream and paint with the creek's vast bounty. Algae, native flowers, pointed creek bedrocks, and mostly the current of the water formed these paintings.




	Hazardous Alchemy		The Hazardous Alchemy Paintings were created in and by the Mississippi River in the gasoline-invested mud I have discovered in Father Hennepin Park in Minneapolis. The juices from the berries of the invasive species buckthorn I found in the park were also used. These paintings are just part of my ongoing project to get someone to take responsibility and clean up lead based gasoline that has been seeping into the Mississippi River there for the three plus years I have been working in the Park.