Kris Johnsen and Weird Fears

I recently mentioned the great work that Kris Johnsen does. One additional noteworthy fact is that he's responsible for the full vinyl etching that appears on the b-side of Mount Sharp's latest release, Weird Fears. I caught up with Kris to find out more about his history, his process and how he made that beautiful piece that appears on the record.

Can you provide some background info on where you're from, how you got started, what got you going in the first place? You know, you're origin story.
I'm from a small town called Barrington in New Hampshire. I moved to Maine in 2005 to go to school at Maine College of Art. I graduated in graphic design and just never left Portland. I eventually got my own small studio to work out of and started interning at a local music and arts venue called SPACE Gallery after school. While working there I started booking smaller shows and making flyers and screen printed posters for events and eventually started liking making art and promotion for the shows rather then being in charge of booking them. I also worked as event staff and got to meet lots of touring bands along the way.

Your work involves a great deal of texture and hand drawn elements - what are your primary tools? What's the optimal toolset for any particular job?
I've always loved doing everything by hand and only using a small amount of the computer to create imagery. To make posters and album art I generally draw everything by hand and use to computer to put it together before building it to be a screen print. I always enjoyed printing my own items rather then deal with print shops. Also living in a smaller city I found it quite hard to get exactly what you want it print form so I just taught myself different ways.

Do you prefer to be doing gig posters or more album art and alternate client work?
I've done a lot of gig posters the past few years and I would say I enjoy doing them the most but have broadened out to album art and other jobs. I also like creating imagery that is not for a certain client and just for myself. That is most of the work I have done the last year.

How do you know the folks in Mount Sharp?
When I started working at SPACE Gallery Bryan Bruchman, the guitarist in Mount Sharp had also started there maybe a year before and we eventually started to learn that we had the same interests in events, music and art and worked really hard to make the events that happened at the venue the best we could! We've remained friends ever since. Through him I've met the rest of the band and seem them play live when they are in Maine.

What was the inspiration behind the etching used on the b-side of Weird Fears?
The inspiration for the etching was through talking with Bryan and Sarah Wood. Sarah had the idea of a certain machine where the repeating pattern and dots came from and also used elements of personal projects I was working on at the same time. I draw the whole thing as one piece on a wood panel and scanned it in without editing it very much. So what you see is what was initially drawn. I made the piece have a circular shape to see on a record player and see if any interesting shapes or designs would come out when it was spinning.

Where can we find you on the Internet?
You can find me a few places. I have a personal website called www.KrisJohnsen.com. a process blog here. and use my Instagram feed for mostly art related things, and pictures of my pets.