Join us for First Friday in Louisville ft Johanna Mueller
920 Main St
12.5.2025, 6-9pm
Meet Johanna
Johanna Mueller is an artist and entrepreneur, born and raised in Denver, CO, now residing in Greeley, CO where she co-owns and operates Wonderhand Studios, a cooperative printmaking studio. Her artwork utilizes printmaking mediums, primarily detailed engravings centering on animal themes. She earned a BFA in printmaking from The Metropolitan University of Denver and an MFA in printmaking from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She has exhibited widely across her home state of Colorado, as well as nationwide, and is represented by Kuehl Fine Art in Trinidad, CO and Keep Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.
Learn more about Johanna in our Q+A!
What are you Known for?
I am a printmaker!
I make traditional hand pulled prints called "relief engravings.” They are in the block print or relief family of printmaking, which refers to two surfaces, one lower than the other, so that the highest surface prints. I hand carve each image with small but tough tools called burins, or gravers. The remaining surface is rolled with ink and pressed through the printing press. Each print taken from the plate is part of an edition, and numbered.
Printmaking is a complex but beautiful way to make images, and for me the best way to show my visual voice to the world.
Where do you find inspiration?
I am fascinated by art history intertwinement with spirituality. Humans have forever made art to commemorate what is important to them, which was often their spiritual beliefs or religion. I love seeing the importance of animals in ancient Egypt, and prehistoric cave paintings, to the Book of Kells and the Blue Bear outside the Denver Convention Center. Animals and the earth (and our treatment of them) are of utmost importance to me, which is just one of the reasons I choose to make art about them.
What is the best piece of advice that you have ever gotten?
Ru Paul is very wise, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are gonna love someone else? Can I get an Amen!?”
What has been your biggest challenge?
As an artist, everyone has an opinion about your art, about your social media content, your framing or presentation style, etc, etc. In a graduate art critique I was told by the sculpture professor to make giant marble sculptures of my work, by the painting professor to make giant oil paintings of my work, and by the creative writing professor to write short stories about my work. None of this criticism helped! But it was another very wise professor who told me to “Edit your criticism”. By practicing this, I am able to take the criticism of others, and find the little diamond of truth to take note of, instead of running around trying to please everyone.
What was the best day at work you've had in the past three months?
A good day is a day my dog sleeps in the studio and doesn't bug me to go home early!
What are your thoughts about your city's creative scene for artists, designers, crafters, makers, and/or small businesses?
I live in Greeley, and though most people know Greeley for one thing, or nothing, it is an affordable place to live, so artists are abundant. In a state where the cost of living keeps rising, artists and creatives are still able to open shop, live and work in the arts, or have inexpensive studio space outside of their home. Between mural festivals, film festivals, workshops, classes and other incubator spaces to learn, the arts are alive!
What is your dream project?
To make a set for an opera!
Artist Statement
Enhanced by printmaking’s history of illustration and graphic line work, my work is reminiscent of book illustrations with compositional complexities and innumerable details. I combine the literary and mythical history of the animal with modern science to bring awareness of climate change, human encroachment on animal wilderness, and our overall need to preserve flora and fauna on this planet.
My detailed engravings often contain animals within animals, a reference to animal cognition and spirits within animal bodies. I weave personal narrative with mythical symbols and stories which make these pieces both familiar and challenging as layers of printed relief engravings meld with topographic maps, handmade papers and brushwork.
I create a sanctuary for animals which have no race, religion, or creed, can be as easily feminine as masculine or somewhere in between. Therefore, they can tell universal stories which integrate anthropology, environmental science, and spirituality – all elements of our shared humanness – better than their human counterparts.
Get in touch with Johanna
Instagram: @johannamuellerprints
Website: www.johannamuellerprints.com
If you are a local artist/crafter/maker/indie business owner and would like to be featured on our blog, please fill out this form or contact Joy at joym@westandmainhomes.com with questions...we can't wait to learn all about you!
