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R.I.P., Rose Johnson

posted Thursday June 18th, 2009

rosej

I’m not sure which time it happened — whether it was on the occasion of Sophie’s first open heart surgery, when she was four months old, or the second, when she was four years old. We were ushered into a tiny exam room at Phoenix Childrens Hospital — a pre-surgery check, it’s where they put your baby in a gown and give you some time alone with her before they saw her chest open — and the image above was hanging on the wall. I lost it.

The hospital is filled with bright art, created by local artists and children. It’s lovely, but this image took my breath away – because of the content, obviously, but also the artist. I knew instantly whose work it was.

Rose Johnson was a favorite of mine from the early 1990s, when I arrived home in Phoenix, looking for something bright to focus on. She illustrated stories for the paper and I went to all of her shows. I didn’t know her well but when Ray and I were married, I hired her to do some details for our wedding program. On her own, she drove up to the spot we had the ceremony and sketched details of the Royal Palms hotel. She also did woodcut-esque drawings of both Izzy the cat and Rosy the dog, which we included on the program. And a beautiful image with our names — including cactus for Ray and roses for me. I had that made into a stamp and went crazy with it. I got the stamp out to show you — here’s a not very good example:

rosestamp

Rose moved to Bisbee a long while ago, and for years I’d get occasional postcards when she’d have a show, and I think she still did work for New Times from time to time. She was off the radar, but came back on it suddenly at the end of May, when it was learned she’d passed away in Bali after drinking tainted rice wine. She was just 48.

You can read all about Rose and her art and what happened (or might have happened) in Bali in a terrific cover story we ran this week by Kathleen Vanesian. What amazed me about her passing is the patchwork of people I know who knew and loved Rose that emerged — largely thanks to Facebook — and taught me yet again what a small town Phoenix is.  

I always meant to write to Rose and tell her about finding her image with the nurse and the heart, but I never did. I’d like to say I think that somehow she knew anyhow, but that’s too hokey even for me, so I’ll have to leave this with some strings untied….

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3 Responses to “R.I.P., Rose Johnson”

  1. Isn’t it amazing when those little serendipitious things happen? What are the odds that you would see Rose’s work in Sophie’s room at the hospital? And that the main image was heart?! It’s wild!
    But it just reinforeces my belief that there IS some kind of reasoning in our crazy little world.
    So sad to hear that such a talented person died so young. What a loss. Thank you for sharing her story.

  2. Horrible- that is so horrible. Thanks for the expansion of my world and introducing me to her work. While it is a fabulous cover story the tragedy of her death was striking. She sounds like a super cool person and why is it that she had to be taken so young?

  3. Rose died a poetic, awful death.

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