Artist, musician takes inspiration from everyday life

By Leticia Gonzales

By day, 34-year-old artist and musician Cam Johnson builds, fixes and tunes pipe organs at the Hendrickson Pipe Organ Company in St. Peter.

But Johnson spends more hours of his day juggling his band, Algo Underground, designing album covers and painting oil canvases. And that is what he is primarily known for.

“Am I known?” said Johnson of Mankato. “If I am, it’s due to making more artwork than I can store under one roof and word of mouth.”

Art is something that didn’t evolve for Johnson until adulthood.

“I’ve been drawing all my life but never really was serious about it until college,” he said. “I’ve been oil painting for 15 years now.”

Johnson was a musician first, having received his first drum set at age 4.

“Word has it, my mom got sick of me banging on her pots and pans, some of which remain dented to this day,” he said.

In 1996, Johnson and his longtime friend Wes Schuck formed the band OneFishTwoFish during a summer break from college. After working all day, they would meet in the concrete bomb shelter under his parents’ garage and “multi-track original tunes,” he said. Schuck played guitar, bass and saxophone. Johnson played drums and keyboards and covered vocals. The two averaged one new song per night.

Johnson said it sparked Schuck’s interest in recording and led him to open and operate Two Fish Studios in Mankato.

From music, Johnson said he turned to art as his new medium because he was bored with the recitation that is present in most of today’s music.

“Playing the same songs you already know over and over would be the equivalent of me painting the same painting over and over,” he said. “Likewise, I was uninterested in playing other people’s music. So I made the decision to go through college as an art major, where such recitation and mimicry is frowned upon.”

Since earning his master’s from Minnesota State University, Johnson has painted hundreds of oil canvas pieces and has designed dozens of album covers.

“I like complex visual imagery that can’t be taken in at a glance,” he said. “I like new ways of looking at familiar scenes, like distorted screen shots from a long lost film.”

Johnson said he gets most his works’ inspiration from everyday life.

“Life, music and the friends that make it worthwhile, the intangible passing moments that define who we are, along with fleeting glimpses of the occasional muse,” he said. “The key is not to wait on inspiration, though. If you dive in, eventually, a deeper, more profound inspiration and meaning will surface.”

He doesn’t put a lot of planning into a piece, unless it’s commissioned, but will spend anywhere from two months to several years on a piece of art, depending on the size and complexity.

“I generally just dive in, improvise and attack the canvas until something catches my interest. It then enters a more analytical phase as I attempt to rein it in,” he said. “My favorites tend to be spontaneous ones I couldn’t have planned for.”

Music still plays a large role in Johnson’s life. Not only does he still play the drums, he also plays the piano, the keyboard and the guitar and can also sing. He said his initial transition from music to art made him a stronger musician.

“It also made me focus on myself as a solo artist, without team or bandmates to either help me out or hold me back,” he said.

Music and art share many similarities, such as “improvisation, rhythm, syncopation, contrast, balance, composition and the basic drive to outdo myself, despite myself, and grow every time,” said Johnson. “They also both hinge on the ability to allow and recognize fortunate accidents and capitalize on them accordingly.”

For the past 10 years, Johnson has played in Algo Underground, an “industrial/jazz/funk” band.

“It consists of a rotating cast of musician friends who gather monthly and chip in to record our improvisational outbursts,” he said. “I then go in and loop, edit and compose the dense material into cohesive songs for our own enjoyment. The best of which is eventually to be released.”

Johnson’s art studio is located in the same old church building on South Second Street in Mankato that houses Two Fish Studios, so he often works on both his music and art on any given day.

He is working on an album cover for San Diego-based singer/songwriter Nicole Torres, who is recording her new album at Two Fish Studios. He will also be backing her up on drums, while Schuck plays bass.

His studio also started production on both large and small size canvas prints that are more affordable to his clients. His Web site, artbycam.com, includes more than 130 of his original pieces.

He also has his artwork on display across Mankato, at places such as MSU, Two Fish Studios, Blue Bricks and Emy Frentz Arts Guild.