Wendy Johnson ’79

Wendy Johnson ’79 was one of 5 artists jury-selected to participate in the 2012 Minnesota Landscape Arboretum outdoor installation exhibition “Dirt-O-Rama” (May-October, 2012). Her installation was titled “Earthly Coat”. It was a 7-foot tall, needle-felted, accessible wool coat that stood outdoors on the Arboretum grounds for the length of the exhibit. Wendy decorated it with needle-felted images of flowers and soil life found at the Arboretum. It’s a perfect circle of life: As soil beautifully clothes the earth’s mantle, soil also clothes us. Fibers used in clothing originate in the soil (directly or indirectly) and eventually become soil again. Earthly Coat encourages us to think about how we dress with “dirt” every day.