Artist creating series of ‘visual puns’

He starts with a black background, sketches an outline in white, adds layers of glaze, builds shapes and reinforces the highlights. Using four or five olors, John Myers creates nightscapes where light comes from the stars, the moon or a hidden source.

Last month, Myers demonstrated his process to passers-by, giving them a view of the not-often-seen artist at work. Set up at a table at Art, Music and More in the Valley Mall, Myers answered questions and inspired budding artists.

“Kids were the most curious,” he said. “They were eager to make art.”

Myers, 35, was always “that kid in the back of the room drawing.”

Besides his nightscapes, he does what he calls “visual puns.” “It started with my mom. She doodled on a Post-it note while talking on the phone … apparently the phrase ‘let us plan it’ stuck in her head,” he said, “She wrote it down and next to it she wrote ‘lettuce planet’ and drew a head of lettuce floating in space with stars around it.” That was about 30 years ago. “I’m always turning stuff around in my head in that fashion.”

One large acrylic painting is of a man with a tissue box on his head. It’s called “Brain Tissue.”

Myers has an associate of arts degree from North Idaho College. He took some art classes there but really just went his own way as far as art goes. He was on the college newspaper (the Sentinel) staff where he had a long-running cartoon strip. “I called it ‘Wreck Tangle.” He received two awards for that series as well as a first-place award in the nation from the Associated Collegiate Press.

One cartoon he did was offensive to some who raised a fuss. “I actually got a sexual harassment complaint filed against me by a person I had never even seen or met. I was rather horrified at the time. People take cartoons very seriously.”

It was regarding a political slogan: Center for a New Direction. Say “New Direction” five times fast and there you have it.

Myers is working on recycling some of the cartoon pieces into painting subjects.

His subjects, visual puns and nightscapes range from one extreme to the next. His visual puns are laugh-out-loud while his nightscapes are quiet and dreamy, almost otherworldly.

Myers has sold close to 80 of his nightscapes online. “I’ve been described as a dark artist,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re using the right term because I don’t paint dark-themed subjects.”

Myers will be displaying his work at Art, Music and More for the time being and will continue to sell his work online. A series of his visual puns is in the works.

He says his goal is to create a place that “takes you away.”