Geri deGruy's blog of art, musings, and inspiration

This is a difficult yet fascinating and hopeful story.

Lonni Sue Johnson---61 years old, renowned professional artist for 30 years, pilot, musician, organic farmer. She has created illustrations for the likes of the New York Times (6 cover illustrations), the Boston Globe, zillions of books, technical publications, the list goes on and on. This woman was prolific and in demand.

Then in late 2007, Lonnie Sue contracted viral encephalitis which is an inflammation of the brain. The disease destroyed the parts of the brain responsible for forming and storing new memories. She initially also lost her ability to talk, walk and eat. 

Her amazing mom and sister, along with therapists, helped her regain walking and eating and talking and steadily encouraged her to create art again.  But nothing happened with art for quite awhile.

She received some word search puzzles from a friend, the kind where you find special words hidden in a grid of words. She absolutely loved them! She started making her own word lists and grids which eventually also included pictures.  

Now, her evolving artwork uses words as the central focus. This is amazing because some of the parts of her brain that had been damaged were thought to be responsible for language.  But her vocabulary is strong and growing.

"Clothes That Hang Up in the Closet"

Here's how her memory loss affects her. She has almost no memory of the past. And even harder, almost as soon as something happens, it is gone from her experience.  It just disappears from her mind. She frantically writes and draws ideas immediately to try to hold on to some part of the moment she can use later.

One of the most astounding things about Lonni Sue's story is that her creativity doesn't appear to be dependent on memories or even on a sense of past personal identity. She has lost most of that and yet the will and desire and ability to create is still alive. Her art is distinctly different than is was pre-illness, but it is still an expression of herself that is recognizable as Lonnie Sue. That is fascinating! It seems that what we know and remember about ourselves isn't absolutely essential to creating art. 

Today I'll walk downstairs to my studio with ideas in my head and heart, ruminating on things past and present, and start making art. And I will be more thankful than ever for the relative ease with which I can do this. But also, I take with me Lonnie Sue Johnson and her story of creating art in the midst of so much loss. And like her, I have only the present moment. Nothing else is real. Yes I can remember the past, but in truth I only have NOW and from this now comes my life and art. 

Artworks by Lonnie Sue Johnson, pre and post-encephalitis, are currently in a show called,"Puzzles of the Brain: An Artist's Journey Through Amnesia" at the Walters art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.