about cameron.
Cameron Johnson is a visual artist, writer and freelance designer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She studied French Language, Poetry, Printmaking and Sculpture at the University of Virginia, Photography & Painting at the Savannah College of Art & Design’s abroad program in Lacoste, France, and Graphic Design at the Santa Fe Community College.
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At the center of her creative practice is a distinctive voice and style — where aesthetics are championed and placement, juxtaposition, and editing is everything. To make is a sacred act — in any form. Within each of us is a luminary putting a voice to what is inherently our own.
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Cameron is a dreamer, a maker, a mover and a shaker.
In the words of poet Seamus Heaney during his PBS interview, “When it comes alive in a way that you feel it’s your own utterance, then I think you’re in business.”
where you’ve landed.
This website is a virtual showcase of Cameron’s work. The name for both the space where she produces and the collections of her various projects is softground studio.
By day, she is a freelance graphic designer, dreaming up and assembling visuals for the little entrepreneurs of the world. She is honored to do this collaborative work with her inspiring community, and gets especially jazzed by branding and book-making. The portfolio shows a selection of favorite design projects.
By night, she makes. The shop currently showcases her airy collection of jewelry, named strands, inspired by the clover flower chains of her girlhood — translated into heirlooms — informed by the changing seasons and a sense of place. The collection is available for purchase on Etsy and locally in Santa Fe.
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If what you see resonates as you navigate, please take a moment to join the mailing list or follow along on instagram to stay up-to-date as new work is released and collections expand.
”Attention is the most sacred resource we have,” said author Tess Gunty, the 2022 winner of the National Book Award for fiction. In a busy, information-saturated world, thank you for visiting.
the story of softground studio.
softground
\ sawft - graünd \ : (soft) yielding readily to pressure + (ground) to fix firmly, settle or establish
Additional meanings and implications:
Printmaking. First and foremost, soft-ground was Cameron’s medium of choice during her study of Printmaking (namely Intaglio) at the University of Virginia with professor Dean Dass. The soft-ground etching technique, or vernis mou, uses a waxy acid-resist that is rolled onto the surface of the artist’s metal plate which remains soft and sensitive to pressure; it is typically used to replicate the quality of a soft pencil line. For Cameron it is like raking a finger through the dirt — with beautiful, rough-edged lines emerging. Pulling her first print off of the press was a moment of magic.
Creative Fertility. Digging into the soft ground after a long monsoon rain and planting seedlings of ideas.
Correspondence. The logo design for softground studio was inspired by the “Par Avion” correspondence stock Cameron used while she lived in Switzerland as a girl, combined with the concept of the “birdie bracket.”
a. The envelopes were thin, light and delicate with distinctive markings for routing via airmail. She imagined birds in flight delivering scrolls to her friends and family. The images on the stamps she selected were little scenes from her new life overseas.
b. The birdie bracket symbols { } are typically used in mathematics, music and computer programming (more commonly known as curly brackets or braces). In prose, they can be used to create a list of choices, for example, to provide a selection for which color to paint a wall: { blue, white, mint }. Cameron used the brackets to create the image of a bird in flight, which also joins the 2 “s” letters from “softground” and “"studio” in a mirror image. The additional brackets behind the bird undulate out giving a sense of forward momentum.
Oxymoron. As defined above.
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An artist’s studio is both an arena of activity and an index that reveals all parts of process.
Softground Studio is the culmination of the concepts listed above, as well as what Cameron has named the space where she works. More than just its beginnings and location — this sacred space is also defined by a lifetime of input and output specific to who Cameron is.
So this brings us to identity, production, and voice. Dean Dass describes the alchemy and significance of this process below — words that Cameron continues to work by.