Art show pays tribute to a fragile life

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In Craig Johnson’s work, art explains life.

Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and a traumatic brain injury, spent much of his life creating vibrant watercolors and intricate pen-and-ink drawings of Bangor’s cityscape, the sun, clouds, the seashore, flowers and other subjects important to him. A whimsical self-portrait shows the young Holden artist in a rakish eye patch, bow tie, cummerbund and smoking jacket. He’s smiling as kinetic and geometric shapes billow out of his head.

For Johnson, who took his life at age 36 at his Holden home last September, art was a vehicle for literally getting out of his head. His surreal landscapes and other work express joy and humor despite his daily battles with mood swings and partial vision.

Bangor artist Lisa Raven, who has a brain tumor and sees art as a therapeutic tool, was close to Johnson. To pay tribute to her friend, she organized a show of her friend’s artwork on view through February in the Stairwell Gallery at the Bangor Public Library.

“He was definitely different,” Raven said last week. “But if you could let go of your stereotypes, then you couldn’t help but love him.”

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression, is a brain disorder that causes extreme shifts in a person’s mood, energy and ability to function, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Manic-depressives suffer from severe mood swings, which can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance and suicide.

More than two million American adults have the disorder, which typically develops in late adolescence or early adulthood. The disease, known to have a strong genetic component, often affects creative people.

Dr. Paul Tisher of Acadia Hospital in Bangor, a neuropsychiatrist who worked with Johnson for years, declined to speak specifically about his patient, but said bipolar disorder is often treatable.

“An awful lot of people have a form of bipolar,” he said. “In fact, [the artist Vincent] van Gogh probably had bipolar.”

Johnson’s mother Karen Megathlin, who lives now on Cape Cod, comes originally from Lisbon Falls. She met her first husband Keith Johnson while she was attending Colby College and he was based at the Brunswick Air Station. The two moved to his home state of Minnesota. Unbeknown to his spouse, Johnson was manic-depressive. He completed architecture school and became a licensed architect, but bipolar disorder dominated his life and led to his suicide at age 42. By then, the couple had a son and daughter.

Like his father, Craig Johnson had artistic talent. At 18, he was accepted into the Rhode Island School of Design, but left after one year. By then his bipolar disorder had been diagnosed and was a disrupting force in his life.

Johnson moved to Maine to be close to his mother who had remarried and lived in Holden. He attended art classes at the University of Maine, married and worked as an aesthetician in his wife’s beauty salon.

UM art professor Michael Lewis taught Johnson in the early 1990s. “He was very enthusiastic, very motivated, and he had a lot of technical skill,” he recalled. “He had a very lively imagination.”

In 1994 Johnson’s life changed irrevocably when, during a manic episode, he jumped from a 25-foot-high deck and landed head first on the pavement below. A severe brain injury compounded his condition. He also lost much of his sight in one eye.

“When Craig jumped from that roof, it was not a suicide attempt,” Megathlin said emphatically. “He thought he could fly … probably the reason he lived was because he wasn’t tense. He was flying.”

After the accident, Johnson was in a coma for one week. He woke up with two severed optic nerves and a traumatic brain injury.

“He [had been] an organized, very capable person,” his mother described. “But after the head injury, he couldn’t remember anything anymore.”

Johnson painstakingly re-taught himself how to draw. He covered his bad eye with a patch or with sunglasses with one lens removed.

“He had depth perception problems,” Raven remembered. “His drawings were very simple. Just flat lines.”

Johnson was often at Acadia Hospital to have his medications fine-tuned. He told his mother that taking the drugs was like pouring sand in his head.

“It made him feel dull and not like a whole human being,” Megathlin said.

Four years ago, Johnson and his wife decided to divorce. After that, he lived alone near a small but dedicated network of friends.He spent hours every day drawing or painting, and playing the guitar badly but enthusiastically. He spoke daily with his sister, who lives in Belfast, and did errands and went to the supermarket with a caregiver.

Johnson found holding down a job impossible.

“He sold pieces of art at different times,” Megathlin said. “But he couldn’t market his art.”

Without his own transportation and dependent on others, Johnson found refuge in his artwork. He was proud when he won two awards at the 2003 Bangor Art Society show.

But nothing could take his darkness away. “In the end, of course, I suppose it was the depression that ultimately took his life,” Megathlin said.

His mother is candid about her son’s suicide and mental struggles.

“I think the more people understand, the more likely we are to help people,” she said. “Mental illness is such a tough thing to deal with.”

Abigail Curtis can be reached at abigail.curtis@umit.maine.edu.