Kathryn Johnson, "Yucca Sunset" - El Paso, TX

Kathryn Johnson was born and raised in Great Bend, KS. She studied art and mathematics at Fort Hays State University in Hays, KS, where she received a BS in Education in 1971. After moving to El Paso in 1973 so that her husband Jerry could enter the graduate program in Biology at UTEP, she continued her teaching career, specializing in mathematics. They have 2 sons and 3 grandchildren with whom she enjoys spending time.

After 33 years of teaching, she retired from EPISD and resumed her interest in art by taking several art courses under "master" Anne James Massey, the late Catherine Kistenmacher, Clarissa Adair, Julie Caffee-Cruz, Atalo Mendez, Rosario Ponte and Ruben Rodarte.

Her primary media include acrylic, oil and watercolor. She enjoys painting a variety of subjects, including animals, colorful desert sunsets, flowers, old trucks and buildings, and aouthwestern scenery. She is grateful to her family and friends who supply her with frequent photographs, from which she obtains much of her art inspiration. She strives for realism in her work and often takes several weeks to achieve the details portrayed in her paintings. She is kept busy because many of her paintings are commissioned pieces; mostly detailed pet portraits that are often mistaken for photographs.

As a working artist, she is a member of the El Paso Art Association, the Grandview Artist Group, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UTEP. She has shown her work at Framing Concepts and Gallery and the Sunland Art Gallery.