Jul 17, 2018
My guest is Calina Mishay Johnson. Calina, or Cal, has been doing some amazing work as an artist in Texas. She's been painting since she was a child, growing up in a small town in West Texas, with a population of 600. That's right, 600 people. After years of life-dealt hardships, Calina Mishay Johnson artistic style started to blossom as she gave herself permission to paint with reckless abandon. Her professional art career began back in 2012, as she started to focus on one-of-a-kind commissions. Then a few years ago, Cal expanded her work and started tackling urban street art, making these huge, amazing, freakishly cool murals all throughout Texas. She's also infusing new life into these small towns where she's doing these murals. Heck, her next big dream, which I can totally get on board with is to complete murals on walls all around the world. So, maybe we DREAM THINK DO-ers can help her out with that. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Website: streetartbycal.wixsite.com/artist Instagram: instagram.com/Cal_calinamishayart INTERVIEW: Cal, welcome! Hi Mitch, how are you? That was an amazing intro – thank you. Let's talk about how this mural thing got started. Let's go back, and let's talk about when the art started. Were you an artistic kid? I was a weird kid. I loved nature; I loved being outside. Like you mentioned, I grew up in a small town. So, we had a lot of freedom. It's like being the last of the Mohican's before anyone had to worry about their kids playing. We were all over town. We built tree houses; I had animals growing up. It wasn't so much that I knew I was super creative, it was just that I would get sticks and make potions in my room. I was always building something. My dad says, "We'd wake up and then we wouldn't see you until it was time to go to bed." My grandmother saved a painting that I did, like an abstract painting when I was probably four. She had it professionally framed; she still has it professionally framed over her bed, until this day. She had that insight to see that I had that creative mind, it's pretty overwhelming. I love featuring weird people. I love that you said that. I'm so with you. There are so many people that I've talked with that whether it was a grandparent, or a parent, that saw something. And it probably didn't dawn on you fully back then, but to think about the seed that got planted when someone would take something that you did and put a frame on it, to honor that. How cool to think about that seed that got planted right there, and look at where it's gone now, is really cool. Calina Mishay Johnson was the first to say, "Hey, this was worth investing money into." It could have been a $10 frame from Hobby Lobby, I don't know, but at the time, now looking back on it, I think, "Wow! That's really special.” That's cool. I also liked to doodle, and I liked to draw, and I liked to make things, but it wasn't my everything. It wasn't like I was fully immersed. I went to a small school – no art department. It wasn't until a bunch of drama in my later years of high school when I dove into that gift more and more. http://instagram.com/Cal_calinamishayart That's amazing. I'd love to talk about that a little bit too. I saw a little bit of your story. I know that you tried to take some art in college, and you'd been experimenting with all kinds of stuff, your grandma had framed something, but you go to take a class in college and it didn't go so well. Tell us a little bit about that. Oh, man. Okay, first off, I was the first to go to college in my family. So, I went off by myself, I have an older sister, who has a gene disorder, so, used to run and play when we were younger, and then it slowly gets worse, and worse, and worse. Now she's in a wheel chair. Then my family situation fell apart a little bit. I left at a very volatile time to go to college, and I was doing it on my own.