CLARKSVILLE — Soon after her youngest child began attending kindergarten, artist and muralist Carrie Johns made a choice: Go full-time as a working artist, especially creating murals throughout the Kentuckiana area.
“I’m gonna try it for a year. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just get a job somewhere,” she said when she made the choice at the time.
Johns, who lives in New Albany but is from Georgetown, has been painting murals in the area for around 25 years, but has been working full-time as an artist and muralist for around three years.
Johns has painted murals and designed logos across the Kentuckiana area for restaurants and businesses including New Albany, Jeffersonville and Louisville. The last mural project she did was in Corydon.
She has also been, and currently is, involved in the Gallopalooza in Louisville where she and other artists paint horse statues in the city, which benefits the Brightside Foundation. She has painted 30 of these statues total over the years.
Since March 25, Johns has been working on a particularly large commission at the Nicholas Landing Apartment Complex in Clarksville.
The property owner, Beacon Properties, reached out to her about this project, which she designed and is painting herself, a total of six murals. So far, as of Thursday, she has completed one mural and is working on the second.
Each of these murals are connected, telling a story of a boy throwing a paper airplane in the first mural, traveling across the murals and then becoming a real airplane in the final mural.
Johns said she was told that the piece of land where the apartment buildings are used to be an airstrip.
The murals also change colors in the order of the color spectrum as well. She said those commissioning the murals have given her a good amount of creative freedom.
“It’s really fun to paint something that I really love to paint,” she said.
The murals are big enough, they’re about three stories tall, to be viewed from those traveling south on Intersate-65. They will also be lit at night.
This current commission, she said, is the largest single project she has taken on so far. The largest one she has completed was more than 3,000 square feet. This current project is more than 6,000 square feet.
Since she began work painting the apartment complex, she has been getting compliments and comments from those who live there.
“They love it,” she said.
Johns’ next project will be a mural at the Floyd County Token Club building in New Albany which is about 3,000 square feet.
“That one’s gonna be fun because it’s about a block from my studio,” she said.
Johns said she’s booked with commissions for the rest of the year, however, people can still reach out to her with inquiries through her Instagram account or Facebook page by searching “Carrie Johns.”
