If one factor outlined Micah Johnson’s early years, it was his obsession with baseball.
“From actually 3 years previous — which is after I first began taking part in baseball — till I retired, baseball was my focus,” Johnson mentioned. “I did not care about the rest.”
That dedication paid off. He was drafted by the Chicago White Sox after two seasons on Indiana College’s baseball crew and finally performed for a number of major-league groups, together with the Atlanta Braves, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays.
Johnson’s singular give attention to sports activities was a part of the explanation he was as shocked as anybody else when he found a expertise for high-quality artwork in his 20s.
“Even in my highschool, I had no concept the place the artwork courses had been,” he mentioned. It wasn’t till a team-building train led by Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts throughout spring coaching in 2016 that he each started to noticeably discover his curiosity in artwork and to let his teammates find out about his creative aspect.
“He had this routine the place he’d ask folks to introduce themselves and say what they love to do, after which he’d make them do it,” mentioned Johnson, who occurred to have taken his first portray class just some months earlier than. Whereas he additionally had expertise taking part in the piano, “I did not need to play piano in entrance of the entire crew, so I mentioned ‘portray.'” After he completed his first portray — of Corridor of Famer Maury Wills — he began to turn out to be identified on the crew and all through baseball as an artist.
Quickly after, Johnson started taking commissions and exhibiting his art, together with debuting an set up on the W Resort in Atlanta in 2018 and making a mural that includes a portrait of Jackie Robinson that was displayed on the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, in 2017. He additionally started often creating works for his fellow baseball gamers, most notably a portrait of Ken Griffey Jr. for Rays pitcher Blake Snell and a tattoo design for Milwaukee second baseman Jace Peterson.
Johnson’s burgeoning artwork profession was additionally instrumental in serving to him make the transition into post-baseball life following his retirement in 2018. Whereas {many professional} athletes wrestle to regulate shortly after retirement, Johnson mentioned figuring out that he had the abilities to start out portray and creating professionally made the leap simpler.
“Once I retired, it was like I had no different possibility. I by no means made a résumé in my life. I by no means had an interview. I haven’t got a university diploma. I simply was enthusiastic about artwork,” mentioned Johnson, who turns 30 in December. “So I mentioned, ‘Let’s go.'”
Maybe stunning to some, Johnson’s post-baseball artwork not often focuses on sports activities. As an alternative, he often explores themes that middle Black kids and social points. After one in every of his younger nephews puzzled aloud whether or not there have been Black astronauts, Johnson was struck by the shortage of illustration of Black Individuals in visualizations about science and area.
Astronauts are additionally a significant a part of Johnson’s newest main work, sä-v(ə-)rən-tē (pronounced “sovereignty”), which was created in collaboration with the blockchain-based artwork platform Async Art. The blended media artwork piece follows two real-life younger brothers named Jacque, 7, and Rayden, 8.
Sä-v(ə-)rən-tē is an interactive artwork set up utilizing pictures. The picture will evolve to inform the story of Jacque’s and Rayden’s coming of age over the following 11 years.
The boys are depicted in a area standing earlier than what Johnson describes as a “door of alternative” that has a friendly-looking astronaut standing on the opposite aspect. The door will slowly open up yearly on every kid’s birthday till finally the youngsters are nose to nose with the astronaut, who serves as a visible illustration of their desires.
One of many parts that makes the work distinctive is that viewers will have the ability to make Bitcoin donations to varsity funds for every youngster on their birthdays, because the show additionally modifications on these days to disclose what they need to be once they develop up, together with a QR code linked to a Bitcoin pockets. Every youngster will then have the ability to entry his faculty fund when he turns 18.
Jacque’s and Rayden’s 18th birthdays are additionally when every will disappear from the picture, as their journey to maturity will then be full. Sä-v(ə-)rən-tē lately bought at public sale to a personal collector for $120,000. As a result of the artwork is programmable, its new proprietor can even management whether or not or not the astronaut is revealed to the general public.
Guests to Los Angeles will have the ability to view the work from Dec. 7 by Jan. 10, when will probably be displayed on a billboard exterior the Courtyard Marriott lodge in downtown Los Angeles.
Johnson mentioned creating one thing that integrated blockchain appeared like a pure match. “Bitcoin is that various to a monetary system that traditionally has been oppressive in opposition to the Black group. Bitcoin is owned by no one,” he mentioned. “You do not have to go ask for permission to do something. You are in management.”
As Johnson continues to advertise sä-v(ə-)rən-tē and his different artwork, the eye on his second act has not been misplaced on his former teammates.
“I’ve loads of teammates which are like ‘hey, I need a portray,’ they usually first requested me some time again,” he mentioned. When he explains how a lot his work prices now, “they’re like ‘I had no concept.’ They’re like ‘I ought to have gotten you in spring coaching.'”
