Doug Johnson
By Kathleen Downey
Doug Johnson has been an unpretentious personality in Newburyport since the early 1970s, when he and his musician pals drove to the Port one late summer night to check out Hoot Night at the Grog. “We had just finished playing a summer gig on the Vineyard,” the vocalist/guitarist recalls. “And we were looking for another . . . so we played our first set at the Grog, and we got hired.” Not too long after, Johnson took over the booking of this weekly music show. He held that role for 25 years; today, the event continues as Open Mic night. “Oh, and I hired Parker Wheeler,” Johnson casually mentions, referring to the front man for the Grog’s Sunday Night Blues Party that is still going strong. Johnson can still be found at the Grog every Friday and Saturday night, when he takes up the role as affable barman in the downstairs cabaret.
But when he is not behind the bar, Johnson can be found ensconced and hard at work inside his unassuming High Street Bead Bunker, his studio. Johnson is an acclaimed bead artist, having been featured on the New England-themed television program, Chronicle. Of his Chronicle debut, Johnson jokes, “The producer of that segment wanted to highlight unusual things. And I guess I fit right in.” Johnson clearly enjoys the double-entendre. Although he is self-deprecating, Johnson has won several awards for his beaded creations. His works have been displayed at art shows in Boston, Cape Cod, and across the country. Locally, Johnson’s beaded art hangs in the Riverwalk Beads Shop in downtown Amesbury.
“I started beading in 1970, when I was living in Boston as a musician,” the Connecticut native says. “A woman in my band—the bass player—had some beads with her one day when we were together, and she showed me how to weave.” What began as a creative way to pass the time soon grew into a hobby, ultimately becoming what Johnson describes as his life’s passion. “My first creation was a guitar strap that I wore while on stage,” he recalls. But Johnson yearned to make wider creations of landscapes and buildings, so, he says, “I built myself a big loom.” Fashioned out of Plum Island driftwood, the humble loom has held various intricately beaded depictions of Newburyport scenery, including the Bartlett Mall, the Superior Courthouse, March’s Hill, and Plum Island’s marshes. A work-in-progress of Joppa awaits Johnson’s finishing touches. But it was a beaded rendition of Fenway Park, titled “View from the Green Monster,” that received attention in the Chronicle segment. Thousands of colored beads capture the spirit of the famed ballpark.
During the mid-1980s when Johnson’s bead making turned earnest, his pieces were typically comprised of “only” 50,000 beads. Today, Johnson’s larger creations can be comprised of 300,000 beads. “I am attracted to color,” Johnson says. “As I found more sources of beads, I was able to integrate more colors into my pieces.” Inside of Johnson’s bead bunker, the drawers are crammed with grays, pinks, purples, and every color hue.
“A million beads—that’s what I think about,” Johnson says of a future artistic challenge to himself. With no formal training (“As a kid, I liked to draw,” he remembers), Johnson now accepts commissions for his art. “I probably spend 60 hours a week, beading,” Johnson shares. “It’s just ‘bead, bead, bead, bead.’ I can’t stop doing it,” he softly laughs. Johnson sometimes sketches his ideas for the renditions he creates; for a highly technical piece, he will map out his idea on bead graph paper. Or he might take a photograph of a scene that he wants to recreate in colorful beadwork. “I just enjoy doing it,” he says of his craft. “The endless possibilities appeal to me.”
The city that he says he “stumbled into” almost 40 years ago for a Hoot Night still appeals to Johnson, too. He leaves his cramped bead bunker—with its drawers of colorful beads, a dusty piano, and an old roll-top desk—at least once a day for a long walk through the city’s neighborhoods and along the seawall. “I like Newburyport,” Johnson says simply.
He also likes how his weekend barman position at the Grog offsets the solitude of his “beaded life.” “Being around lots of people who are talking and dancing, with a band playing on stage . . . it’s a nice contrast,” Johnson says.
Johnson divulges that he recently completed a beaded piece commemorating the Grog’s Sunday Night Blues Party. Richard Simkins, proprietor of the Grog, commissioned Johnson for the artwork. “Seventy-three people, including band members and dancers, can be seen in the piece.” Johnson adds, with a sly smile, that although the physical characteristics of the crowd are deliberately imprecise, people will be able to recognize Blues Party front man Parker Wheeler. The beaded artistic rendition is intended to grace the stairwell leading downstairs to the cabaret—melding Johnson’s two worlds.
To see more of Johnson’s work check out his website http://www.douglaswjohnson.com/index.html
——————————————————————————————–
Kathleen Downey is the Features Editor for Newburyport Today.
She can be reached at Kathleen@Newburyport-Today.com
