Freeform Studio

About Rose

Rose with her two daughters by the water.

Rose is an artist exploring aliveness, fear, and joy through painting, printmaking, sculpture, and installation. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in studio art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before attaining an MA in Counseling and Psychological Services from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.

Rose creates art related to the experiences of children. She feels it is important to speak of both the joys and the unspoken pain of children. Snapshots found in the work reference a child's experience of worry, shame, and longing. Rose's artwork rests at the tipping point between joy, purity, and vulnerability found only within a child.

As an artist and helper, Rose trusts the youthful experiences of aimlessness, play, and mess-making as antidotes to pain and suggests that they are integral to life. Making is a mess. Mess is letting go. Letting go is transformation.

For Rose, the quickest route to playfulness is to use materials and processes that can be guided rather than controlled. She gravitates toward working with large-scale items and industrial materials often related to domestic spaces. Through manipulation of objects and materials, spaces shift from beautiful and calm to dark and unsafe and back again.

Like a worn and broken toy cherished by a child, like the human heart, the artwork simultaneously breaks down and evolves.

At Freeform Studio, Rose facilitates both individual and group sessions, working directly with children and teens in the studio.

View Rose's studio art practice at rosejohnsonart.com

Credentials

Education

  • Master of Fine Arts — School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  • Master of Arts, Counseling and Psychological Services — Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota

Select Exhibitions

  • Minneapolis Institute of Art (Solo Exhibition)
  • Kathryn Nash Gallery
  • Chicago Urban Arts Society
  • Fernway Gallery
  • Highpoint Center for Printmaking

Grants & Residencies

  • Jerome Foundation Residency
  • Acres Residency
  • Oxbow Residency

Continuing Development

Trained directly under a pioneer in the field of embodied creative practice, with four years of mentorship and hands-on experience. Ongoing professional development in contemplative arts practice and child development.

Rose holds an active Minnesota Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) license.

About Michael

Michael Johnson working outdoors with a power drill alongside children.

Michael Johnson is an artist and facilitator at Freeform Studio. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Arts from Gustavus Adolphus College. He was born and raised in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, where childhood experiences outdoors taught him to watch closely and understand the movements of animals, the shifting rhythms of ecosystems, the often overlooked and powerful patterns of the natural world. His own studio practice draws on Minimalism, Color Field painting, printmaking, photography, and performance, and in recent years has centered on alternative photographic processes that respond to land use, conservation, and the Earth's shifting atmospheric conditions across time and place.

At Freeform Studio, Michael serves as studio manager and co-facilitates group sessions, leading process demonstrations in printmaking, photographic processes, and environmental arts.

View Michael's work at mjohnsonarts.com