Snails Under the Moon
Invisible ink snail tracks & Italo Calvino
Most days I water our rosemary plant outside in the morning, and when the water seeps from the bottom of the pot sometimes I get a special treat: snail tracks left behind from tiny ancient visitors, visible only once the water beads up around the paths they’ve travelled. I’ve idly wondered if you could make a trail of some kind of snail snacks for them to follow to guide them into slowly writing words, visible only immediately afterwards or with water, their tracks the original invisible ink.
Serendipitously, Brooklynn Johnson, the artist I’m writing about this month, recently made a beautiful painting titled Snails Under the Moon (see it in this email). There are many bizarre and interesting things about snails, but my knowledge until recently was mostly limited to trying to avoid stepping on them while running and feeling guilty about not helping my son care for the snail terrarium we bought him for Christmas (it became a deathtrap for maybe 30 snails…twice). It might be short-sighted of me to think about making snails write words, since there may be a deeper meaning to their paths that I’m unaware of. Regardless, there is no sound or feeling worse than the crunch of a snail underfoot.
Studio snack & song 002
(also on Apple Music)
Conversation with Brooklynn Johnson
What made you want to be an artist?
I recently read this Italo Calvino story called Love Far from Home, and there’s a passage in the story that resonates in regards to this question:
“When I was a boy…everything was a strange symbol, the spacing of the dates hanging from the tufts on the stalks, the crooked arms of the cactuses, the strange patterns in the gravel of the paths. Then there were the grown-ups, whose job it was to deal with things, real things. All I had to do was discover new symbols, new meanings. I've stayed that way my whole life, I still live in a castle of meanings, not things, I still depend on the others, the ‘grown-ups’, the ones who handle things.” - Italo Calvino
This quote does have a very self indulgent edge, but I relate to the way the narrator is distracted by this world under the surface, asking “why” and “how” about broader questions and struggling to just “do the thing”. There’s this compulsion to draw connections between things to make meaning. But the truth is, also, that as a very small child I just couldn’t stop drawing. My mom would read me a book or I’d watch a movie and I would just want to draw every scene that came to my head with every character and detail. Then I would make up stories from those and spin them into this new thing. I just loved creating–I was also that way as a teenager, and when I was going to college I knew I wanted to apply to an art program. I just couldn’t really see any other way to be from a young age.
What spaces do you work on art in?
This summer I’ve been trying to paint outside more. I also have a room in my house that functions as my studio.
What kind of materials do you use when you paint outside? Are you hauling oil painting stuff with you?
I haven’t used oils to paint outside quite yet. Instead I’ve been using golden slow drying acrylics on those occasions, sometimes acrylic gouache, and am trying to figure those out. I'm not very good with acrylics. I want to relearn how to use them after working in oil for so long.
This is part 2 of 5 of Brooklynn’s studio visit—read part 3 next week and be sure to follow Brooklynn on Instagram or visit her website to see more.
Artist bio
Brooklynn Johnson is an artist and educator working across multimedia painting, sculpture, and performance. She received an MFA from the University of California, Davis, and has participated in residencies including Casa Lu in Mexico City, Ali Yousefi Projects in Sacramento, and most recently, the Artist in Residence program at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work has been shown in California, Oregon, New York, Utah, Washington, and Mexico City. Based in Salt Lake City, Brooklynn teaches children’s art classes through Summer Squash Studio and oil painting at Weber State University.
Artist statement
When I paint, I pull imagery from a personal lexicon of symbols. Shells, plant forms, hearts, volcanoes, and infinity signs emerge as familiar anchor points, each carrying layers of memory and meaning. As compositions develop, these images overlap, change color, stretch apart, and become hybrids. The resulting forms are mere suggestions of what they once were.
Like collecting fragments from sand, painting becomes an act of interpreting a whole that can no longer be seen in its original form. The paintings are an attempt to understand what remains when familiar things change, and to observe the new connections, meanings and messages that emerge when their edges blur.
Things I’m excited about:
8.14.26 Migration through the eyes of a Rufous Hummingbird at Books & Supply
8.29.26 99.9 Gallery one year anniversary show
9.2.26 Craft Lake City Contemporary Rarely Named show
9.4.26 Maddison Colvin show opening at Alma Gallery