Molly Johnson
Molly is a printmaker by nature and training and is proficient in silkscreening, woodcut, intaglio and lithography. She brings the skills of patience, planning, and problem solving she learned through this training to all of the work that she does as an award-winning teaching artist in the state of New Jersey. She opened her printmaking studio, Social Animal Press in Ocean Grove, NJ, in 2006. There, she makes work for gallery exhibition and commercial purposes in all manner of media, from woodblock, silkscreen, and mixed media large scale fine art to textile printing for clothing and installations. Most recently, she has been developing a body of work from observation of her favorite spots at the Jersey Shore. Images of local parks and hiking spots have found a home on display at Main Street Gallery in Manasquan. At this location, she also began Sketchy Pets…another opportunity for her to connect to her community and practice her skills at life-rendering, but from much more challenging subjects!
A transplant to the Jersey Shore area, Molly moved in late 2002 from Alexandria, Virginia where she taught Printmaking at Virginia Tech’s Graduate School of Architecture, an international consortium; worked at the National Endowment for the Arts; and worked in the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Museum Education Program and as an adjunct faculty member at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Her career devoted to the arts in such a variety of ways gives her first-hand perspectives on the arts in America from all levels, which enriches her teaching, her artmaking, and makes her a passionate advocate for the arts in society.
She has been recognized with a New Jersey Governer’s Award as an Outstanding Teaching Artist, awarded a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to develop a public art project, Table Talk, and received a Graduate University Fellowship and an MFA in printmaking at the Ohio State University. She received her BFA in printmaking and a BA in art history from James Madison University. Producing primarily print-based and mixed media works on paper, she has exhibited regularly in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In addition to Sketchy Pets, she teaches art history, painting, drawing and design at Ocean County College.
