The Positive and The Negative Version                                                                      JimJ10

The Wishing Tree                                                                                                                 JimJ10

Snow Trees                                                                                                                            JimJ10

POETRY

WILDNESS: POEMS and PHOTOS (44 pp., softcover)

This book is a collaborative effort between longtime friends Charles A. Haislet and James E. Johnson. Haislet is a Minneapolis doctor of Medicine, while Johnson who enjoyed a 35-year career in art and design in Minneapolis, now lives on a Brown County Ranch. Johnson’s photos taken mostly on the Pete and Mikki Caspers ranch south of Hecla, served as inspiration for Haislet’s poems. The result, Haislet writes, ” is a book where the poetry and the image are so intimately connected that they create a third body that is more than either alone ”

A photo of a snowy trail ( pictured above ) led to the poem ” Cold Cabin ”

Day after day I awoke
in a cold cabin
lit a fire and
looked out at this road
Each day the same

But once after lunch
I walked out,
and walked and walked
and just kept walking

CH

Cover

Sample inside spread

This is the first Book published by WILDNESS B O O K S – our new publishing company.

We will be looking for other books on WILDNESS to publish in the future.

For books – $ 19.95 wildnessbooks@nvc.net

Jim & Charlie at their POETRY READING & BOOK SIGNING

October – The Red Rooster Coffee House – Aberdeen, South Dakota

OUR BEST REVIEW

” Jim, I love this book that you and Charlie have done! The photographs completely amaze me. I’m thinking of the baby ducks and that snowy road through the trees ( I have a big copy of that in my study) and the winter scene next door and the lone tree and the moon up above the prairie. Beautiful, beautiful ! ”

Robert Bly – Poet Laureate, State of Minnesota

Collage is so spontaneous and lightning fast. Its like a spark of creative crazyness. I started doing collage when I was working at the Walker Art Center, I had about two or three going on the wall that I would add to between design jobs. Now I do the same thing between photography, drawings, design projects, ranching and farming.

Heres an example of that creative crazyness. And I guess its that WILDNESS I look for in Nature in my photography

only here it comes from inside me – what a revelation ! Ah Hah

Wildness With A Twist – Photo collage and prisma pencil 11″x 17″ JimJ08

Prints available at – jamesjohnson@nvc.net

The Land
The People
The Animals
The Plants all the Living
The Breathing
The Moving Wonder of IT ALL

IT takes my breath away

JimJ

Caspers Ranch WILDNESS - Photo collage & prisma pencil 11″ x 17″ JimJ08

Prints available at – jamesjohnson@nvc.net

I have been doing a series called me and my shadow.

Theres something about the shadow and how it changes with light-

Self Portrait, Lost in Wildness – Ibsen photo print JimJ08

Prints available at – jamesjohnson@nvc.net

“By digging deep into a wellspring of WILDNESS one finds the energy for new life, connections, images and moral imagination by which change happens in a deep, not superficial, way.”

As Paul said in his latest email-

It doesn’t matter where you find your spiritual path. We are all fundamentally spiritual beings and the essence of that lies in knowing one’s true self and finding a peace that comes from within rather than the outside world. It is in remembering this that we awaken to our personal path. The spiritual path springs forth from a daily routine that reaffirms our personal connection and purpose.

Recently I read that there are:

7 SOUL WOUNDS that are widespread in American Culture.

They are:

1. Separation from Nature

2. Separation from personal creativity and perception

3. Separation from dreaming and the visionary capacity

4. Separation from the ancestors/spiritual worlds

5. Separation from the body, deep masculine and deep feminine

6. Separation from the Essential Self /Purpose

7. Separation from the Cosmos

The journey of integration of all the parts of the Soul into a whole is called INDIVIDUATION

My Son JOE JOHNSON – who gives me great Joy, Pride and Love -

As perhaps – DaVinci’s modern “Man the Designer” on his path to INDIVIDUATION – - October 2008

Spencer taking me for a ride.

On our way to the rodeo.

Babies abound
mother cow bellows with the pain of the new calf
her calf struggles to breath through the afterbirth
some don’t make it
others struggle to stand as the herd moves forward
mother sheep groans a out shoots a white furry missile
predators await

Gray Drakes patrol the nesting area with there
heads and neck bent down mouths open hiss – s- s-s-stay away
big wings spread and flapping
they fearlessly attack any thing that moves
protecting the gander on the grade AAA eggs

Clouds of blackbirds swarm with wings of red, yellow and white
they move with UFO shap and speed through the cattle

There are fresh aromas in every step I take
It is time for cowboys to sing
and say ” ha-ay babe, walk on the Wild Side ”

JimJ