Alison Bergblom Johnson, Artist
A photograph of Alison Bergblom Johnson, a white woman with short, asymmetrical blonde hair wearing a shiny, pink shirt in front of a light tan background.

What I Was Doing Recently

I was inspired by this Now page to make my own. I also like Sarah Blackstock's, and Marva Jackson Lord's. Learn more about Now pages here, and, maybe even make your own.

Updated August 21, 2022

This is an archived version of a past Now page. For up-to-date info about my current doings please see my current Now Page.

Access Work, Teaching, Work of Art Classes

  1. With Springboard for the Arts I've facilitated several events centering artists with disabiliites in the last year. The most recent event on June 14, 2022 focused on daily practice, and featured Christi Furnas, Nancy Kingbird, and Michael Grace and Hannah Staats speaking about their work with Cow Tipping Press. Events for fiscal year 2023 will be announced in the next few weeks.
  2. Naomi Cohn and I facilitated a workshop in June 2022 for fellow COMPAS Teaching Artists on informal and formal access.
  3. I edited an anthology of visual art, poetry and prose by artists who practice at Avivo ArtWorks as a culmination of their work with COMPAS Teaching Artists.
    • From an email from COMPAS: The text reads 'This past year COMPAS partnered with AvivoArtWorks to bring a series of creative workshops to their community. As a culmination of these creative experiences COMPAS teamed with Avivo staff and artists to compile a powerful collection of writing and artwork entitled Inspired, edited by COMPAS writer Alison Bergblom Johnson. The anthology features full-color textile and found object assemblages, photography, poetry and personal narratives. For example, My Art, a poem by Ruth Lais, takes the reader through her journey as an artist. The image is of a fabric assemblage by T.L. Reeves entitled Sailing Away. Using color and shape it is suggestive of a sail boat on a lake with a sun behind it in addition to trees.'
  4. I am a 2022 Minnesota Historical Society Legacy Research Fellow. My project concerns letters written in the 1890s by a patient at Rochester State Hospital. Rochester State Hospital provided treatment for patients experiencing mental health difficulties.
    • An archival box containing many, many slightly yellowed documents. A pink insert reads 'Please remove one folder at a time.' One file is labeled 'Patient Letters.'
  5. I also continue to facilitate Work of Art business skills for artists classes for Springboard for the Arts in a variety of settings, including for college students, Native Artists, in libraries, and for Minneapolis College of Art and Design alumni.

Creative Work

  1. I have a zine for sale!
    • A silhouette of a fat figure with her hair in a short bob cut into yellow and orange marbled paper. The silhouette is on a blue painted background. Below the collage is the zine title handwritten: 'Bodies Living this Present' and Alison Bergblom Johnson's name. The zine rests on a green cutting mat with yellow markings.
  2. I've been back on stage recently with stories at Strike Theater and in Wordslingers Way at Convergence, both in Minneapolis.
    • An empty stage with a microphone and a pool of light
  3. I'm exploring a podcast idea or two.
  4. I'm still writing.
  5. I'm still collaging, for instance:
    • collage with Herbert Hoover behind a dye cut of classic bikini briefs
  6. I've been reading Saidiya Hartman's Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
  7. I'm still having epiphanous aftershocks from Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, where are you?

Life

  1. I attended a memorial in early July for a good friend who died nearly two years ago, having lived with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis for more than a year.
  2. I continue to be a very private person, who also sometimes talks about my sex life on stage.
  3. I continue to avoid migraine triggers, and to adapt in a multitude of ways. I have significantly reduced the number of days I experience migraine per month, and am back to experiencing episodic rather than chronic migraine. I also successfully navigated the reasonable accommodation process in getting Zoom.us to make it so I could access their product without seeing any video.
  4. I am grateful that I can throw a small party now and then, and that people attend, and I'm grateful for my friends, for those I have standing time with, for the ways I continue to make my life something I'm at home in now.

Enthusiasms

  1. Decoder Ring's recent episode on Mae West's sex scandals.
  2. Austin Castle's Northwoods album, which I like for being country without being bro country.
  3. Fellow Twin Cities Collage Collective member allison anne has really amazing zines and collage originals for sale.