Episode 175 | Johanna Mueller

Published January 31, 2023

Transcript

Miranda Metcalf  00:22

Hello, print friends, and welcome. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. This is a bilingual podcast. So if you subscribe to us, you'll be getting episodes in English with me, as well as in Spanish with Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. Together, we speak to people from around the globe about their practice and passions in the fields of print media and multiples. Hello, Print Friend is brought to you by Speedball Art Products, who've been offering a diverse range of high quality products to your practice since 1997. But we all know those products do not use themselves, and that's why Speedball works with a fantastic lineup of contemporary printmakers who make up the Speedball team of demo artists. Artists like Myles Calvert: this cheeky Canadian uses his wit and whimsy to make every demo as educational as it is fun. In his personal practice, major bodies of work have included massive installations of screen printed pieces of toast and the idolization of British celebrity culture. So if you want to learn a few tricks of the trade and expand and improve your practice, head on over to Speedball's YouTube channel and see how it's done. There's a link in the show notes. My guest this week is Johanna Muller, artist in the upcoming Five by Five Exhibition taking place during Print Santa Fe. For more on Print Santa Fe, you can go to www.printsantafe.org. We talk about drawing inspiration from the natural world, building a physically sustainable practice as a wood engraver, a bear burglar, and creating an artistic community outside of the big city. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and prepare to bring this podcast to bear with Johanna Mueller. Hi, Johanna, how's it going?

Johanna Mueller  02:11

I'm fantastic. How are you?

Miranda Metcalf  02:13

I'm really good. Thank you for taking some time on a Friday morning to meet with me and being a little flexible with the timing. And I'm just really looking forward to having a chat about you and your work. I've known it for quite a few years, and I'm really keen to learn more.

Johanna Mueller  02:31

Thanks. Yeah, I've been listening to the podcast for a while. So I'm also excited to be on it, which is awesome. Thank you.

Miranda Metcalf  02:37

Yay! I always love that. It's always fun when people have listened so they know a bit what to expect, which can make my job a little easier, too, for sure. So given that, you probably know that I'm going to invite you to tell the world who you are, where you are, what you do.

Johanna Mueller  02:56

Yeah. So my name is Johanna Mueller, and I am currently in Greeley, Colorado, but I split my time between the eastern plains of Greeley and the foothills of Bellevue in Colorado. And I am a printmaker and entrepreneur. I make my artwork and run our studio, which is called Wonderhand Studios in Greeley, which is a communal print shop.

Miranda Metcalf  03:24

Wonderful. And then where did you grow up, and what role did art play in that part of your life?

Johanna Mueller  03:30

Yeah, I grew up in Denver. I have always been a creative kid and I loved crafts, but it became present early on that I really loved meticulous things. When I was a kid, I would get the pack of beads from the store, like the seed beads. And you could buy them in individual colors, or you could get the mixed bag, and a mixed bag was cheaper and more beads. So I would get the mixed bag, and then divide out the colors using a needle. As, like, a six year old. I was totally nuts. So then my parents encouraged me to draw, and they were great. And I also got really into entrepreneurship at an early age. I was painting rocks and selling them in front of our house instead of lemonade, and walking dogs, and then in high school started doing more things that I would make and try and sell, and I was part of a couple young entrepreneur fairs where I had my wares for sale. And so I don't know, I started doing that at early age, but in my eighth grade yearbook, what I wanted to do for a living was own a luxury hotel chain.

Miranda Metcalf  04:50

Oh my god!

Johanna Mueller  04:51

Which, I had no idea you had to be Paris Hilton to be able to do that. But I just had big dreams of entrepreneurship. And they were all dashed when I went to college. I found printmaking in college, loved it, and kind of went from there. I went to college at Metropolitan State College of Denver, which is now the Metropolitan University, and had a wonderful professor mentor in E.C. Cunningham. But my journey into the printmaking room started in the drawing classroom, where they were giving overrides to take print classes, because they needed more enrollment. And I needed more higher level classes. So I thought, well, great, let's be one step closer, and I thought I was going to be in the graphic design program since Hotel and Restaurant Management was not my thing. I took the print class, and it was really apparent really quickly that I loved it. I loved the process. But just like so many other people, it was the the community around the print shop that really drew me in and kept me there. And my mentor, who was one of the first people to actually tell me, as a young person, 'You might have a future in this and you should keep going with it.' And he always kind of floated this line between criticism of the art and what you're doing, and just that much praise to keep your feet in the game.

Miranda Metcalf  06:18

Yep. Keep you wanting more. Yeah.

Johanna Mueller  06:21

Yeah. I feel like without that type of encouragement, I very easily, probably could have been a jeweler or ceramicist, or anything else that had that wonderful meticulousness to it that I knew I loved and enjoyed. But I found printmaking and I found people, like, all the cool kids were in the print shop, and I had lots of different friends, too. Metro, at the time, I think the average age of the student was like 27 years old.

Miranda Metcalf  06:50

Oh, cool.

Johanna Mueller  06:50

And I was just out of high school, but my best friends were like 40 and 60. And they were great. And I just really started blooming and learned a lot about life. So I was really glad that I made the decision to be in the print shop.

Miranda Metcalf  07:11

Yeah. And what a wonderful experience, to be able to be exposed to different generations of people. I think that... I went to community college for two years before I went to my four year university, and that was just so valuable, to not be among kids who have pretty much the same story that I did, you know? Like, most of us were middle class, upper middle class kids, had parents who also had degrees once I was at the four year university, you know, very similar mindsets and backgrounds. And at the community college, I just remember we had returning students, we had students who had recently emigrated, it was an amazing experience. And I think, as you speak to, one that really can open your eyes and give you a broader worldview, and I think appreciate the privilege of getting an education as well.

Johanna Mueller  08:08

Oh, it did. Yeah, that was huge. And I worked, I had a job at a gallery. And then I also did faux finishing and mural painting with this woman inside of really big fancy houses. But I was still going to school, and most of the people in my classes had jobs or second jobs or families, and so I think it really did instill a sense of work ethic. And that was the thing too, with the print shop, I feel like all hours of the day there was someone in there working, whether there was a class or not. And it definitely showed you the power of what that space can do when you have access to it. And it's such a privilege to be able to be there, for sure.

Miranda Metcalf  08:54

And so did you know what printmaking was before going to college? Was it at all on your radar, or was it just brand new walking into the shop?

Johanna Mueller  09:03

No, it was brand new. But it was kind of funny, because I feel like there's a certain breed of person that's super drawn to prints and printmaking and the graphic arts, and I was totally that person, but I had no idea what they were. And I remember walking down the halls of the school, and they would put work in the cases for everybody to see, as they do. And when the printmaking students had their work in the case, I would just stand there and drool over them. And, you know, it was all these words the ended in -graph. Lithograph, serigraph. And I was like, 'I don't know what this is, but... I love it.' And so I didn't even know really what I was looking at. And then once I got in the shop and the semester started, we dove in with monotype, and then most of the rest of it was intaglio. And I was finally like, 'Oh, I'm doing it!' Except my work was so horribly bad most of undergrad. I just really loved it. And that was the thing with my professor. He always had to challenge what I was doing, what I was making work about, and then also my technique. And I loved him, because I really feel like he knew there was something inside this girl. And he was trying to find it. But he also was such a great mentor because he had the wherewithal to say, like, 'You need to try something else.' And so I actually ended up going to Frogman's, because I think he was just so done with me. He was like, 'Go learn from someone else!' But that was such a great lesson, too, to know that one person doesn't hold all the answers for you when you're in school. And so branching out, I went to Frogman's and I took a wood engraving class. And that changed my life of print for good. And then - Frogman's, actually, is a workshop in Omaha, or it was in South Dakota, and now it's in Omaha, and I think it just is now switching again. But it's an all print workshop in the Midwest, and it's really a fantastic mecca, and was a place where I started to meet a lot of people and try new things. But it changed my life multiple times. And so that first time, I tried the wood engraving and came back and showed my professor, and he agreed with me that, 'Oh, something just clicked for you.' And it did. The best way I could explain it, it was like being fluent in a language immediately. Where it was like, everything that I'd been trying to do with intaglio, I was struggling and saying the wrong words constantly, and lithography... my lithos were just kind of black all the time. I'm a horrible lithographer. And I tried linoleum and woodcut, but it just wasn't the same, something just wasn't quite there. And so I went and took this class and came back with these little baby 2 x 5 and 3 x 5 prints. And my professor said, 'You got to just keep doing it. But I don't really know that much about it. So you're gonna have to really take the reins and teach yourself more about this method.' And so I actually went back to Frogman's the next summer and took a class in letterpress, not really knowing that wood engraving had a letterpress element. And so I took the class in letterpress, but next door, Karla Hackenmiller was teaching a class on "fantastic plastics." And it was a survey of plastic materials that you could use for all sorts of different things. And this guy who was in my wood engraving class the year prior ran into the room, and was like, 'Oh my gosh, you gotta try this plastic! It's called high impact polystyrene, and you can engrave on it!' And he gave me this little swatch of it. And I tried it. And I was like, 'Oh, it's great. But how much does it cost?' Because of course, as a student, the wood and resingrave was so prohibitively expensive that when you were making a block, I would take weeks to plan my drawing and make sure everything was great, because this material was so precious. And he was like, 'It's like $1 for this size block.' And it was! So I got back to Denver and bought a 4 x 8 foot sheet of this plastic. It was like 50 bucks at the time, for that big of a sheet. And just started hacking it up and using it. And having that as a student, being able to not have that uber preciousness, again, opened up my world, as did the plastic. And then I ended up going to grad school after that. And I hated most of grad school. I don't really like to talk about it. But it made me learn how to talk about my work. But I really pushed through with this material, lots of happy accidents, started carving on both sides of it, started shaping my plates, and then got the Graduate Scholarship at Frogman's, went back, and met my husband there. So that's my Frogman's story, of all the different times it's changed my life. And still, I've been back to teach a couple times, and it's always so magical. And to know that other students are having those same experiences where they're really finding their medium, it's just very exciting.

Miranda Metcalf  14:24

Yeah, yeah. And I really appreciate, with your story, these points and these really pivotal moments that you're speaking to that happen outside of a traditional academic setting. That happened outside of the undergrad, graduate school, that sort of thing. Because, as I'm sure you know, as a print person, so many of our stories are so interwoven with really academic ivory tower kind of experiences, in part just because of accessibility to studios. You know, that's just how people get exposed to it. And I just really appreciate that in your story, it's happening in this other place. It's happening at Frogman's. And it's introducing you to your medium, it's introducing you to your husband. And then the more winding and diverse path through printmaking has more rewards, as well, is what it sounds like.

Johanna Mueller  15:22

Yeah, I think I took... I very much was cognizant of taking the alternative path in terms of being a non-academic. And I, when I graduated from undergrad, like I said, I worked as I was going through school, so I had this little chunk of change. [And] I knew when I graduated that if I didn't buy a printing press, I wasn't going to make prints. And even going to grad school, I just had this thought. So I tracked down this guy who is like a press broker, he collected very particular types of printing presses, but he'd buy entire shops too, to get the one that he wanted. These presses that they don't allow out of England anymore. They're so special. And so he bought this huge shop in Utah, and he had a couple presses, and I was looking for, like, a proof press. And I got my first press, which was a Vandercook proof press, which, they're fairly rare. They don't have the self inking rollers on them, but still a heavy press, and it lived in my parents' garage for years. But I eventually was able to make work on it. I made work on it whenever I came home through grad school. Because in the back of my head, I just knew that this way of me speaking to the world, again, finding your voice and your fluency in this artwork that was actually saying what you needed to communicate... I couldn't let that go. I couldn't just paint, or I couldn't just draw, because I still... like, it's just not my language. So I got my first printing press after grad school from working. And students are often like, 'How did you do it?' I was like, 'Well, I don't know, I saved like $600 because I was working part time.' And still got lucky. I mean, rent was cheap in Denver at the time, no longer. But I think there's a really great element of hard work. But I definitely had a lot of, like we were saying, even just being able to go to college is a huge privilege along the way.

Miranda Metcalf  17:27

Yeah, it's interesting in part of your story, hearing this really early affinity for small work. Like, the meticulousness. That image of you as a six year old, separating out the beads, is so powerful. And so I guess I'm not surprised to hear that maybe kind of originally on the path, you were drawn to intaglio. Because that's, again, can be small and fiddly. And then, as you say, when you found wood engraving or relief engraving, it really sort of lit you up. And I'm just wondering if you know exactly kind of what that mechanism was. I mean, was it the working in reverse? Was it the tools? You know, it's such an interesting distinction, because I think as someone who's interested in the small fine work, it seems like intaglio and wood engraving, relief engraving, could both scratch that itch. But for you, it was definitely the relief process, sounds like.

Johanna Mueller  18:31

Yeah, I think my brain thinks in line. And in the value scale that you get with the relief prints where everything is black to start, and then you're gradually making those textures and patterns happen by taking out the surface - I loved intaglio. Like, some of my favorite prints are intaglio, a lot of them. But I was just never that good at thinking in intaglio. And I loved soft ground and the look of it. And it's something that I've always wanted to revisit, at a residency or something, to really immerse myself in it again and try it and see what's changed. But it was definitely the ability to make these little marks, but I think the relief style also has a graphic quality that just really spoke to me. And there's also, with relief - you can work in intaglio forever, but relief, when it's done, it's done. And I kind of liked that. You have all these little square inches on your block, and once you're kind of done carving it, you can't rework it that much. You can keep carving and it's just gonna turn white. But intaglio you can burnish out, and you can keep doing it. And I really liked the finalness of the relief engraving as well. But definitely, my drawings are really loose, and the way that they translate to engraving is so different because of the mark making of the tool, that you can't get the same marks with a pen or a pencil or a brush. And yet, the mark of the tool is also what makes my work my work, I think. And so that's also part of it.

Miranda Metcalf  20:24

Yeah, that's such a significant distinction I've never heard anyone say before, is that there's that ability in intaglio to probably drive yourself crazy, of saying, 'Well, maybe I can do this a little more precise,' or, 'Maybe I can get that aquatint just a little more perfect.' And I would definitely take, seen through that lens, a huge comfort in the finality of doing relief, where it's just like, 'It's not gonna get any better!' Yeah, that's so interesting.

Johanna Mueller  20:58

Yeah, you just kind of have to call it. And I like that about it. Not everyone probably does, but for me, it just works. I like finishing things. And so I think with relief, it just worked. And now, I've been able to branch out and really use my blocks in so many different ways, which has been my new challenge, and is why I shape a lot of my blocks. And I carve on both sides of a lot of my blocks. So I get the symmetrical compositions that I like. But they also become these pieces of a puzzle, or almost like part of a poem that you're then able to add to, when they're placed with different blocks or printed in a different color, they totally change and morph, and depending on what they're talking to, or who they're next to, the mood of the piece can drastically change. And so I really also liked the ability that the blocks themselves give myself, like, a visual library of pieces that I'm able to work with. And I'm also hyper aware of my body and not maybe being able to carve forever in my life. So having the ability to have this arsenal of imagery that I can then make work about, and using those pieces, is huge. And is part of my challenge too. And kind of where the relief engraving is taking me now.

Miranda Metcalf  22:35

Yeah. And being aware of the finite time that we all have to do our craft, I think, is really powerful. And really insightful to work that into your current practice. Because printmaking, and a lot of artmaking, but a lot of printmaking is so physical, and so taxing. I have only ever done one print, as an art historian. And it was just a linoleum cut. And when I was doing it, I was asking my husband, Tim, who's done tons of large scale relief blocks, things that are six feet wide, he's just carved and carved and carved. And so I'm asking these different questions. And I'm saying, 'Well, how do I get this texture?' Or, you know, 'How do I know if my tool is sharp enough?' And this sort of thing, and then I eventually was like, 'How do I keep my back from hurting?' And he was like, 'Oh, tell the rest of us when you figure that one out.'

Johanna Mueller  23:43

Yeah, it's really true. Part of the reason why I have such bad memories of grad school is because I got an inflamed tendon, my tendon was hitting my collarbone because of so much repetitive motion. I overworked myself preparing for a critique. And then we had, actually, Karen Kunc as a visiting artist, and I was like, tapping out all her ink. And so it was the same little baby shoulder motions. And I couldn't carve for a year! My last year of grad school, I painted and did sculpture and other stuff. So my thesis was a little more, it wasn't just prints. And it was terrifying. But I also started, I went to a - very lucky, because as a student, I had no way to heal myself - I took myself to Georgetown Medical in DC, which was like this huge medical center! And all they could tell me was, 'Well, just don't do what you're doing. Just take Advil or ibuprofen and just get over it,' basically. And I was like, 'No, you don't understand!' Like, 'I'm getting a degree in this, I want to do this for the rest of my life.' And then I, on a whim, took a little tag for a chiropractic study on creativity that they had around the university campus, and went to this chiropractor, and you had to fill out a survey of before and after, your creative thoughts. But I walked in there, and they first thing they ask you in the chiropractic is, 'Well, do you have any existing conditions that we need to be careful of?' And I said, 'Yeah, I've been having a shoulder issue.' I couldn't take my shirt off over my head, it was so painful every day. And the chiropractic took one look at me and was like, 'Oh, well, yeah, it's because your bone is resting - like your back is at a diagonal, basically.' And so he just took my shoulder and - pop - just like put it back in place. And it was like 98% better immediately! And I also thought, if I had never taken the chance on this creativity study and seen a chiropractic... And so it got me on to chiropractic and acupuncture and lots of alternative medicine that is super helpful if you work with your hands, if you work with your upper body muscles. And it's so important. And I teach my students how to carve ergonomically, and how to sit ergonomically, it's like the first thing we go over. Because you can kill your back and your neck in seconds if you're not careful. So yeah, it's terrible. But having had that so early on, I'm hyper aware of it. And it's just always sort of in my immediate [thinking], is how to be better to my body so I can keep doing it as long as I can, but I know I won't be able to do it forever.

Miranda Metcalf  26:37

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a such an important story for people who are just starting on their journey to hear, because you feel, I'm sure, as a young student, or even someone who's starting out, you just are so excited about what you're doing. You're not thinking about, can I do this in 20 years? You're just so focused in the present, which has its benefits, too. But yeah. How interesting. So when did animals start appearing in your work? You know, now they're animals inside of animals on top of animals. But was this a subject when you were in grad school? Was it a long term thing, or more recent?

Johanna Mueller  27:18

Yeah, I've always loved animals. Oh, my gosh, yeah. When I was a kid, I loved animals, I loved tiny animals, I collected little glass animals and had stuffed animals. I was a bit of a tomboy, I hated dolls. So all my toys were animals. And the irony was my parents - I was one of four siblings - and my parents were like, 'There's no way any of you are having pets, because we just can't handle it.' So I had to really, really fight to get an animal in the house as a pet. And so again, like, I was such a weird kid. At an early age, I was doing research on dogs to find one that didn't shed, that was good with kids. Because I really wanted a dog. Instead, I got a hamster. And that was such a letdown. And then finally, we got a family dog, and I saved up all my babysitting money. I was probably like 13 when I was finally able to have a dog in the house. And my parents ended up loving this dog, we found a great rescue at a shelter. And one of the only times I've seen my dad cry was when we had to put the dog down. It was really sad. So anyways, my parents came around, loved the dog. But in my work, I've always drawn animals. Like when I was a kid, I did these animal mashups, where it would be like the head of a lion and the body of a zebra and the legs of a giraffe or whatever. And then, going forward, though, I was raised Roman Catholic, and there were all these biblical animals. And then I was totally obsessed with the Egyptian mashups of the gods and goddesses with the animal heads and the human bodies. And I started really finding a lot of animal outlets in art history. And so, in terms of academically when my art started changing - because for so long, and that was part of why I was making horrible work, was because I was trying to draw humans or do abstract, and I just was really bad at it - because it wasn't real from my soul. And working with animals was. And so in grad school, I really boiled down the essence of what I was trying to say, which came a lot from my own upbringing and history, and looking at Western art in the biblical tradition, and then juxtaposing that with native or Aboriginal or ancient societies. And people know it, it's in all the art history books, but how the Judeo Christianity tradition just changed so many symbols. And a lot of the animals that were associated with goddess worship were turned into very evil animals in the Bible, just to draw that line. So finding those similarities and differences and getting into some of the animal's symbology, but then also looking at what the animal is actually doing in a biological, scientific sense, and how it relates to its own pack or species, became really important in my work, too. So there's a mix of all that going on, where there's some personal narrative and symbolism and the juxtaposition of that very rich icon tradition that we see with saints in human form. And then kind of figuring out ways of elevating the animal to make it as if it was the icon, but really preying on people's own experiences as well of what they might associate with that animal. As I know, [for] a lot of people, the wolf can be a very negative form, because it's an animal that eats cattle, and we have it in all these stories where it is very detrimental. And yet, we have dogs from the wolf, and they're our closest companion, and that whole morphing of the wolf to the dog has forever fascinated me. And so a lot of that has shown up in my work as well. But the way that we tell stories as humans involves a lot of animals, and in those allegories and moral stories - whether it was Aesop or even George Orwell with animal farm - and then again, the symbols that are used in in the Bible and associated with each of the Gospels, and Christ as the lion or the unicorn - there's all sorts of richness in there. But breaking it down, and then separating it out to kind of make people see it, but then also question it, and then realize that we all have our stories, and it's part of what makes us human, but also part of what makes us good on this earth. I think when we are able to fight over so much and have war over so much, but everyone has their creation story, everyone has these myths that make their traditions so rich, and when we are able to see that and honor it, it just makes for a really special human connection point. Because I think we need more to connect on and less to not connect on.

Miranda Metcalf  32:45

Yeah, using animal as allegory is so universal, as you're saying. And I actually went into my Master's in art history with a particular interest in animals and art. And I came from a philosophy background. So I didn't really realize that in art history, you can't just get a degree in "animals in art." Like, it's really quite big. That's a really big topic. And so I ended up finding someone who is recently retired, but is the foremost scholar in horses in 16th century prints. And so I ended up being a scholar of 16th century prints, but I just am really connecting with what you're saying about animals and their presence as symbol and reflection of humans. And the way that we tell stories through them is such a rich vein to mine. There's so much in there, as you said, it's cross cultural, it's through history. Even if you look at contemporary politics, like, elephant and a donkey, right?

Johanna Mueller  33:59

Yeah, exactly.

Miranda Metcalf  34:00

We use them because we think that they represent, through their physical and behavioral qualities, something that we connect with. And it's just a very powerful tool to reflect something about being a human.

Johanna Mueller  34:19

Yeah, I think so. And there is a wonderful spiritual presence that animals have because they are so present. They don't live in the past, they don't live in the future. They're already sort of these, in one way, perfected beings, which... as humans, we are constantly compare things to ourselves as how smart they are. Or how - which is why dogs, we consider them on that smarter plane, because we're able to communicate with them. Where really, any animal is just really good at being themselves. And not perfect at being a fish, or a bird, or whatever. And so when we, even in science, find those similarities of like, oh, a crow can play, or a dog knows to sniff out cancer, which is important to us, then they get stepped up on that scale of importantness, when really, everything has its place. And I think that's where the science is also pretty interesting. And finding those interrelations of where things fall with us as humans, versus just how they exist in nature. But you're right. My parents are both like philosopher theologians, which is also where... I had a lot of that in my periphery. And in art history, like you're saying, the animals show up. But it was because they were important, too. We make art about what's important to us as humans. And so, from those early cave paintings with the hunt and seeing the animals on the wall, to again, pairing them with symbols throughout our history, animals have this importance. In a world where we are going through so much habitat, there's definitely still a call to maintain and bring in some of that environmental - what am I trying to say? - environmental justification to let these animals have a part of our world, because they are important to us, we just don't always know it, it seems like. And in my work, I often have the animals inside of animals to illustrate that. Like, having the silhouette of a bear. You'd see him sitting on the hillside, not something... like, no one's really going to approach a bear. You shouldn't. And yet, we have teddy bears, we have these Brother Bear myths, we have all of these bears in our stories. And so inside that bear might be other bears, or other animals, to kind of represent that... what we imbibe on the animal or project upon it is all of that rich history. And then there's their outer form, which again, is just like a big stinky bear in the wilderness.

Miranda Metcalf  37:17

Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting balance between everything that we project on animals, the nobility, the wisdom, the presence, and then also that reality that they smell bad and are dangerous, and sometimes do things that we wouldn't consider honorable, like eating another bear's cubs so they won't be competition later on. And the complexity of them, and how much they add to our human experience seems to not be as present as I would think it should be with a lot of people, I think. You know, every once in awhile, I'll meet someone, and I'll say something about animals because I'm obsessed with them. And they'll be like, 'What, really?' Or like, 'There's a difference between crocodiles and alligators?' Like, they just won't know something that clearly shows that like, they just have never been super interested in animals. And I'm like, what do you do with your life if you're not interested in our fellow beings? That are the most interesting thing here, in a lot of ways?

Johanna Mueller  38:33

Yeah. And there's really something to say about being on an equal plane with them. We're mammals, they're mammals. They have as much right to be here as we do. And so I think lately, my work has also taken on a little bit more of that environmental feel. And in working, also, I started carving a bunch of blocks with really tropical plants in them. As kind of that symbol for injecting a false reality into our wildernesses, and invasive plants, but also like when we tear down and just have blue grass or whatever, that the animals, they don't know what's going on. We're confusing them and messing with their habitats and messing with their migrations. And it's really a hard time to be an animal, I think, in the wild right now. But yeah, they're still out there. And that's been the lovely part about living in the foothills part of the time. We have bears. We had a bear, actually, break into our house up there.

Miranda Metcalf  39:47

Oh, my gosh!

Johanna Mueller  39:48

So talk about like how, you know -

Miranda Metcalf  39:50

With, like, a balaclava and a shotgun? Yeah.

Johanna Mueller  39:54

Yeah, he ate everything! Literally everything!

Miranda Metcalf  39:56

Were you home?

Johanna Mueller  39:58

No, we were out. I was actually at an art festival, and my husband went up to check on the house, and he thought, 'Oh, I'm just gonna check in and water the plants and then come back down,' because we have family in town. And he got there and was like, 'Oh, this isn't good.' I mean, it... Yeah, we had a pretty well-stocked fridge and pantry, and he ate everything except the coffee and a thing of garlic. But all the flour, all the sugar, 40 pounds of dog food, let alone a freezer full of meats and tofu and sauces, like, everything that you could think of. And then there was...

Miranda Metcalf  40:40

What time of year was this?

Johanna Mueller  40:40

It was the first weekend in August.

Miranda Metcalf  40:43

Oh, kind of during the fattening season for the animal?

Johanna Mueller  40:47

Right. Yep, totally. But they're so smart. Apparently, this bear went all around the house, we had bear prints on every window in the house, until he found the weakest one. But it was also the one where you could see the fridge. And so bears know that these big boxes have all the treats in them. And so he literally just pounded on the window until he broke it. And then came in and ate everything in the house and left out the same window, thank God. Because a lot of times they'll go out another window. But yeah, there was like a crystallized line of sugary drool to the door, and it looked like someone had poured out like 50 pounds of birdseed and then poured syrup over it. Because it was all the dried stuff, like rice, dried beans, and quinoa were all over the floor with broken glass, because he just tore through all our glass safe pantry stuff. It took us three days to clean it up. And we were like, but you're a bear, so we're gonna have to forgive you. But there was a bear in the area, there are other houses within a 10 mile radius that were also broken into. So we didn't feel that bad. But after that, we put up bear mats, which are pieces of plywood with roofing nails stuck through them that act kind of like a bed of Legos. Because if you have ever stepped on Legos, you can't - like, ah, got to move. So anyways, we now have bear mats out from May through September-ish. Or actually, November. So, yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  42:24

I feel like I would... I don't know. I feel like I'd feel kind of honored if a bear broke into my house.

Johanna Mueller  42:30

Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's cool. Because it is an experience that... I love knowing that they exist still. And we saw two other bears, two different bears, after the break in, and we were able to kind of chase them off. You make a lot of noise and wave your hands and stuff. Because really, that keeps them safer.

Miranda Metcalf  42:52

Black bears?

Johanna Mueller  42:53

Yeah, we have black bears, which again, I need to read up on my bears because apparently like... black bears and brown bears are the same species? Maybe? Or vice versa?

Miranda Metcalf  43:06

Or I think it's something that like, you can't... I remember this, because I did a lot of bear reading before a long trip in Yellowstone. And it's that you can't look at a bear and be like, oh, you're brown, you're a grizzly. Oh, you're black, you're a black bear. Because you're supposed to act differently around them. You know, you're safe climbing a tree from a grizzly, but not a black bear, that kind of thing. So apparently, it actually, that's really a misnomer to try and use the color of their fur as a way to identify them. You have to look at their shape. And then someone said you need to look at their claws. And I was like, do I, though? Is that really how I need to identify this bear, is get close enough to see their claws?

Johanna Mueller  43:51

Yeah. I believe in our foothills in Colorado, we have black bears, which are different than the grizzly bears of Yellowstone. They top out around 350 pounds, I think.

Miranda Metcalf  44:03

That's a lot of bear.

Johanna Mueller  44:05

It is a lot of bear. This one, we talked with the forest warden guy, because you're supposed to report them so that, again, if we were able to get them on camera, or if there's evidence of fur left behind, they can know a little bit more about the bear so that they can relocate them. And so we talked with the warden guy, and he thought that it was about a 250 to 300 pound, probably younger, like a juvenile-ish two or three year old bear. Probably, that was our culprit.

Miranda Metcalf  44:40

It's like a wanted poster, I'm imagining it, with the way you describe it.

Johanna Mueller  44:46

Yeah, yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  44:48

Oh, that's so wonderful. And yeah, I wish that... I really wish that people could connect their love for animals with environmental action. It seems like a real disconnect. Again, during that trip in Yellowstone, you'd see just these backups on the highways in Yellowstone, of people just scrambling on top of each other to look at a mom bear and her cubs, really, really far away. And everyone's thrilled, and everyone's smiling. Or like, these wolf spotting trips that you wake up at 5am for. And then you like... burn down a bunch of forests. It really seems like a disconnect there. But yeah, I do want to make sure that we have a chance to talk about the studio, the Wonderhand Studios.

Johanna Mueller  45:43

Oh, yeah. My husband and I had started, kind of from that first press that I bought, I bought that when I was done with undergrad, and just sort of always knew that if you have a press, you share it. That's kind of the way it happens and how you build community. And my husband was very much on the same page. So we were living in Fort Collins, and we started - he had an etching press, and I had my Vandercook - and then we just started collecting things, and started getting more type for letterpress and all sorts of different equipment. Always with it in the back of our heads that we wanted to do some sort of a communal studio. And so, of course, Colorado real estate exploded in that time. And as much as we would have loved to have done something in Fort Collins, we ended up moving to Greeley where we could still afford to buy a warehouse. And after my experience in Austin - I owned a gallery with a friend, but the rent's just, they're so high in any great neighborhood. And it became prohibitively expensive really quickly when you're trying to sell art. And so I knew that if we ever attempted anything again, we had to be able to own the building. And my husband and I are very do it yourself-ers, we've rehabbed a couple houses that were the worst house on the block. And so we've been able to kind of finagle some of those purchases in real estate to make this warehouse happen. And so we bought the warehouse in Greeley. And it's about, the print shop is about 1500 square feet, and we have seven printing presses, and three private artist studios. And so folks come in and either rent the studio space, or they come in as a print member with 24 hour access whenever they want, once they get checked out on the material. But we kind of had a slow open, we opened January of 2020, and then promptly closed.

Miranda Metcalf  47:53

Oh, wow. Congrats.

Johanna Mueller  47:55

It was really great. But we could take that time to really reevaluate what we wanted in the kind of year and a half after, during COVID times. But it was funny too, because out of the woodwork, people just started finding us without really doing a ton of advertising or anything. It was just mostly word of mouth. Which has been really great. And I think it's a great reminder to us, and anyone really, that even in your small towns, you find your people. You don't have to be in a big city to make a splash. And so we have the studio, and we actually just were in Oaxaca for Day of the Dead. And we're so inspired by some of the print shops down there and how they were doing this incredible outreach and classes, and just spreading the ink and teaching people without the bells and whistles, like college level classes that we were kind of used to teaching. It was just like, here's your thing of wood, and here's your tool, and this is what you do, and go for it. And so we're gonna start doing some relief classes this year. And we also are doing, we do some networking sessions. So we have a monthly meetup for artists and then a monthly meetup for a critique session or work in progress night. And those are all free. And then the relief class is like 30 bucks for a two and a half hour class, where you just get to come and carve and then print a couple. And it's a great thing that people get into, and they can try once, or they can come back as many times as they want. But I think because we have the space and we're very much into trying to find some equity and encouraging people to make art and be a part of the community as well, we are able to do that because we own the building and it's subsidized by another set of tenants in the other part of it. So we're able to rent control our own space to keep it very economical for artists, and hopefully for a long time, that no one's going to be priced out on the rent there.

Miranda Metcalf  50:03

That's great. Yeah. What you were saying about how even in smaller communities, you can find your people and you can make a splash, I really love that. Because I think in some ways, it's almost easier to make a splash in a smaller community. And I think a lot of the narrative in the arts is, well, you need to be in Austin, Chicago, LA, New York, to make something happen. But my experience in smaller communities, even in something like Santa Fe, which is quite an artsy town, is the enthusiasm that you get when you try to build something is so much higher, because it is something that people can see you're directly adding something to the community. And you do get that support. And so I always hope that people know that your people are gonna find you, your community will find you, and just go build what you want to see where it's possible to build it. Because it's not really easy, with the insanity of real estate in the US now, to do that in maybe what are considered more traditional "hubs" of arts and art making.

Johanna Mueller  51:15

Yeah, it's really true. And we have people that travel from all over the Front Range to use our space, too, which is crazy. The way that it's structured, if I'm there, you can do drop-n hours and schedule that with me. And we have a waiver release for people to sign. But a lot of other places, if you're not a part of that community, you can't just come for an afternoon and print. But you can with us. So yeah, it's a little different model. So a lot of people do their carving work at their kitchen table, or however they make their work, and then they'll come and print it. And we mostly specialize in relief, and then we have a handful of letterpress type, we do have a litho press, but it's mostly used for monotype and plate litho. We don't have access for stone at the moment. And then we're getting some silkscreen set up. So it's a lot of people who are doing their carving at home, and then they come in when they need a good press to use and rent a little bit of time. But yeah, I think those experiences for myself and my husband, when we were really - you're a student, and you don't really know you're poor, but you are, because everything is a hurdle when it costs money - so to have a couple really inexpensive opportunities, and/or free for people, was just really important for us, to be able to give back. I no longer teach at the college level, university level, I did that on and off. And these teaching positions kind of fell in my lap, I got really lucky with some of them. But I just absolutely was not into teaching. I've always been much more on the entrepreneurial side. So be able to give back in that way instead of at the college university level has been really great. And we do teach, I teach workshops out of this space, and then travel to teach workshops elsewhere too. So I still have some opportunity there.

Miranda Metcalf  53:11

Very cool. I love that the entrepreneurial young Johanna is fulfilling the dream while marrying that to arts, because I think one of the things that people don't get told is that if you're going to be a working artist, you have to be an entrepreneur, too. You know, you have to know about profit and loss and self promotion and investments and returns on investment and all of that kind of stuff. It's a weird thing. But it's just, you are a small business owner, and you are the business, and you have to figure out how to make it all work.

Johanna Mueller  53:46

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I really love having those conversations with young artists on like, taxes. How do I pay my taxes? And yeah, profit and loss, and what can I write off, and how to price your work. And my full time job is being a studio artist and then finding venues to show and sell my work. I make a living off of the sale of my work. And I'm lucky to be able to do that, I do that in lots of different ways. But having a studio is just sort of a secondary thing right now. It was never made to be a moneymaker. Which is a really freeing thing when you can do that, and I'm really lucky to be able to do that. But you're right, being a full time artist, it is truly a full time job. And unless you treat it like that, it's really hard to reap the success and the rewards. I always had the saying of, I had to put my whole ass in, because if I half-assed anything, I wasn't going to make it. So my whole butt is in making art now. And it's not half in adjuncting or teaching, or half in this or that. It's really all there. Which is pretty great, because it took a lot of years and a lot of U-turns and a lot of false starts to get there. But it's definitely come around to constantly trying to make better work, and make work that connects with people, and make work that's a reflection of my soul and what I think I have to say to the world, which is hopefully valuable. And it's hard, I've always had a moral dilemma with being an artist and not, like, a social worker or a doctor or somebody who you think would make a difference in the world. But being an artist, I feel like I've had plenty of shows where people literally break down and cry in front of my work. And it's always such a compliment, because you're moving them in a way that they're now connecting with the work and having this experience. And I remember the first time I cried in front of a piece of art, and oh my gosh, it's like, if you haven't cried in front of a piece of work, you really need to start seeing more art.

Miranda Metcalf  56:08

Absolutely!

Johanna Mueller  56:11

And it's great. So I feel like I've come to terms with actually saying I'm an artist, and I make a living on my art. And that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing on the earth, which is being an artist/entrepreneur, and hopefully making a difference in whatever ways I can.

Miranda Metcalf  56:36

That's beautiful. Well, before we close, I'd love to just take a brief moment - because we've managed to talk our way through time way, way quicker than I anticipated, but you can get me talking on animals and art anytime -  but what sort of brought us together here today is that you've got pieces in the inaugural Print Santa Fe Five by Five Exhibition, which is five artists, five pieces, it's going to be showing at the Form & Concept Gallery here in Santa Fe. And maybe just give you the floor a little bit to talk about the work that's going to be in the show, and why you picked the pieces that you did?

Johanna Mueller  57:19

Yeah, I am super excited. I've always loved Santa Fe. And so to have work there, especially for a print celebration, is awesome. Thank you. And the work in the show is a lot larger than what I'm kind of used to working with. But I am using images of a lot of birds in the work, and they're multiple plates, and they're each carved on both sides. So I, again, love the symmetricality that they give. But the birds were part of my COVID year that came out of wanting to have freedom and wanting to just like... be able to fly. It was like you're in these cages of houses, like a bird cage, and wanting to be able to break out and just fly and go visit friends or go do things and see things. But also a sort of chaoticness, when we were able to finally get out, of the world was just, like, this totally different place. And so I have a couple pieces... there's a diptych called "Falling Apart." And then it's in two different colors, so it's "Falling Apart: In Red and Orange," and then "Falling Apart: In Turquoise and Gold." And thinking about how much change there's been in my lifetime, both with the environment and the political atmosphere, and there are things you can't say anymore. And I'm happy for so many of those changes. But it just leads to this other sense of chaoticness and polarization. And so in those pieces, there are birds flying about. But then there's a very deconstructed landscape as a symbol for sort of this floating world, unlike anything that's come before, that's really just a cacophony of images put together that might not go together. There's jungle, and cacti, and other things in these weird environments with animals that also wouldn't necessarily be next to those other animals. And so there's a symbol for that disconnect. And then the birds kind of are trying to figure out what's happening, just like I envisioned, wanting to get out of my space, being a bird and flying away. But then also kind of that... what do you see when you're flying above? And it's not all about you and finding the freedom, it's about sort of coming to terms with how the world around you is becoming different, both environmentally and politically and all these other things, and then how to deal with that. And there's a few other pieces that also take that turn with the environmental bit. Because living in Colorado, we have had multiple summers where you can't go outside, it's so smoky from the wildfires. And I know folks who live in California have experienced the same thing, and Oregon. And we feel lucky every year that we don't have massive fires. The back of our property in Bellevue is totally burned. Before we bought it, there was a huge fire that came through there. So we have burned forests behind us. And it's always just a striking reality. So the environment and the view of nature here is changing drastically. There are areas where it was beautiful hiking trails a few years ago, and now there are burn scars. And so I found a bunch of topographical maps, and I've been collaging on top of them and printing on top of them with animals that are native. And then also adding sort of that tropical landscape as the reference to the change that's happening, and seeing the maps - and a lot of them are kind of older, like 25- or 30-year-old maps. And so even in that time, there's been changes, there's been roads built, there's been houses developed, but there's also been floods and fires. And so, again, in my own personal world, it's coming to terms with my environment and how fast it's changing, and how there's still these stories and very human elements that are in them. One of the pieces has my fox in it, which is sort of my reminder to be present, he has a raven in his heart zone, sort of that symbol to keep connected with the powers that are bigger than us. And yet, stay rooted. So he has these little shoots of corn coming down his legs into his paws. And that for as much change, and as much craziness, and as much as we all maybe want to get out and protest, or become an environmental warrior, I still feel like I need to make art. And making art about these things - and again, what I was saying before, really feeling like that's my place. And that somebody... I mean, all of us have something to be said. And even though a lot of people see my work, and they might not think immediately that it's political or environmental, I think whatever you're making work about, you're interpreting the things around you. And I definitely am still processing many things that have happened and are happening in the news cycles. So hopefully, there's lots of different layers and ways to see the work. I always think it's fun for people to be brought to the work and kind of bring them halfway, with the symbols and the imagery and their impression of the animal or the mark making, and then I sort of let them off the leash the last half of it, where they're still open to interpretation, but hopefully the mood and the gravity of the piece comes through.

Miranda Metcalf  1:03:29

Beautiful. That's lovely. Well, and then where can people find you, follow you, see your work, all of that good stuff?

Johanna Mueller  1:03:39

I am on Instagram. I'm @johannamuellerprints on Instagram. And then I have a website where I've got my process and work for sale and archives of all my old images. And that is johannamuellerprints.com. And that's it. I don't do a lot of other social media anymore.

Miranda Metcalf  1:03:59

I think that's all you need. Honestly, I think that Instagram and a website is enough to keep up with. Awesome. Well, it's really been wonderful talking with you. I feel like we could do a whole podcast series about animals and art together. I really had to pull myself back from that train of talk, because I was like, 'Oh, I've got other questions!' But yeah, thank you for the work that you do. And I'm excited to see your work in Santa Fe in just a few weeks now, really. April will be here before we know it.

Johanna Mueller  1:04:34

Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time.

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:40

If you liked today's episode, we have a Patreon where you can help us keep the lights on and get bonus content, like Shoptalk Shorts, where our editor Timothy Pauszek digs deep on materials, processes, and techniques with past guests. Also, if monetary support isn't in the cards right now, you can leave a review for us on your podcast listening app of choice, or buy something from one of our sponsors and tell them Hello, Print Friend sent you. But as always, the very, very best thing you can do to support this podcast is by listening and sharing with your fellow print friends around the world. And that's our show for this week. Join me again next week when my guest will be Sam Davidson, director and owner of Davidson Galleries in Seattle, Washington for nearly five decades. Davidson Galleries houses 18,000 works on paper dating back to the 15th century, and an extensive collection of contemporary prints. The name Davidson Galleries might be familiar to dedicated listeners, as it often comes up as the very first place I worked in contemporary printmaking. We talked about Sam's early days driving around the United States selling prints on the road, selling work which spans centuries, highlights from the last 50 years, and what he's going to do next. You won't want to miss it. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing by Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you next week.