Brush with fame

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Thanks to Ken Johnson, thousands of people around the country are seeing “Wytheville, VA” and thinking “There’s Nowhere I’d Rather Be.”
Johnson, 62, won a national contest when his painting was selected by AARP members to appear on the cover of the AARP Foundation’s 2010 calendar.
The foundation is the charitable arm of the national advocacy group for the elderly.
“On the front of the calendar it actually mentions Wytheville, Va., which I think is kind of neat,” Johnson said.
The longtime Wytheville resident and owner of a local art gallery and frame shop had his painting selected from more than 1,500 entries by a panel of esteemed art judges as one of 14 to appear in the calendar.
AARP’s 40 million members were then invited to vote on which of the 14 paintings best embodied the 2010 theme of “There’s Nowhere I’d Rather Be.” Johnson’s work, “It’s a Beautiful Day,” claimed around 60 percent of 90,000 votes cast to earn the coveted cover spot.
“I didn’t know what the competition was going to be like,” Johnson said. “I just thought it would be a nice little painting to enter.”
Johnson said the landscape depicted in his winning work is a fictional setting combining elements of the coast and the mountains of Southwest Virginia.
The painting was done with oil paints on canvas, Johnson said, and was finished in 2002.
When he got word of the AARP Foundation calendar contest earlier this year, Johnson said his old painting immediately jumped to mind as being fitting of the theme.
“It just had that kind of ring,” he said. “It seemed like it would fit pretty good with it.”
Johnson recently received his copy of the calendar and others began being shipped around the country earlier this month.
His painting was also exhibited last week at a national AARP event in Las Vegas.
In a description of the painting inside the calendar, Johnson’s work is described as “perfect for this year’s theme.”
“Ken Johnson’s painting hearkens back to simpler times in small-town America,” states the calendar write-up. “The setting isn’t unlike his own community in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains ….”
On Nov. 12, Johnson and his wife, Phyllis, plan to attend the Virginia AARP’s Diversity and Aging Forum in Richmond where Johnson will be honored for winning the calendar cover contest.
According to his Web site, Johnson has been painting since 1974 when he had a “life changing” religious experience with Jesus Christ.
In addition to running his gallery, Johnson also pastors Wytheville’s Morning Star Outreach Ministries.
The 2010 AARP Foundation calendars are available at http://www.aarp.org/foundation for $10.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .