Johnston, Arch 69, uses his hands and soul to illustrate human emotions in bronze. He is a concert pianist. He is an inventor who holds more than a dozen patents. In his spare time he analyzes Bach’s compositions, studies Chinese and takes dancing lessons. He was a combat artist in Vietnam and has been an architect.

Art critic Steve Mirabella described Johnston as a "sculptor of philosophical bent and deep feelings. He is also a conscientious craftsman dedicated to workmanship worthy of his early training. Johnston’s oeuvre has been described in terms of lovingly rendered details of gesture and pose dominated by architectural design and a liquid sense of line."

The son of a writer and an engineer, Johnston arrived at Georgia Tech from Huntsville, Ala., in 1959.

"I wanted to go into something creative and architecture was a field I was interested in — and still am. It was going against my nature to be at Tech, there’s no doubt about that.

"It’s only tenacity that got me through," says Johnston in his Baltimore studio.

After finishing his fourth year at Tech, Johnston left the Institute for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. "I went to art school geared up with the same level of analytical capability that got me through Tech. I spent a lot of time studying the human figure. I used that analytical approach working with models. I was able to get a better sense of my own humanity through this process. Tech is such an abstract environment. The pressure is very dehumanizing."

During his two years at the academy, the Vietnam War erupted. Despite his objections to the war, Johnston felt an obligation.

"I promised my draft board I would put in two years of military service. I could have easily avoided the military. I was six months short of being 26," he says.

At Tech Johnston had been a member of the World Student Fund Committee, which had a motto of promoting "world peace through world understanding." Because of his anti-war sentiments, Johnston opted not to use his ROTC training to enter the Army as an officer.

Johnston spent two months sketching displays of heroism, bloodshed and camaraderie on the Vietnam battlefields. The Army then sent him to Hawaii to finish seven large paintings, now part of military collections.

When his Army stint was over, Johnston returned to Philadelphia for his final year of the arts program. "But when I went back to the academy and looked around, it seemed stagnant. I decided to go back to Tech and finish up."

After two more quarters, Johnston earned his degree and moved to New York for a job with a top architecture firm.

While he loved architecture, Johnston was unable to satisfy his need to create art in a structured work environment.

"It became more and more evident that I had to make a decision. We are so specialized in terms of our professional orientation. I couldn’t seem to walk a line between the two."

After less than six months as a working architect, Johnston headed to Europe.

Johnston spent two years in Florence studying figure drawing with Nera Simi, plaster casting with Enzo Cardini and stone carving at Romanelli Studios. His passion became sculpture because it is "more closely related to geometry and architecture, the three-dimensional aspect and the spatial relationships."

He also spent three months studying theology and philosophy with Francis Schaeffer, the American author of "Escape From Reason" and "A Christian Manifesto" who had established a spiritual retreat in Switzerland.

"That was a big help because it gave me some kind of philosophical basis and theological basis," Johnston says.

Johnston pushes himself toward deeper understanding of humankind through such sculptures as "Chaos," a work completed in 1991 that "expresses the atmosphere of angst and desperation prevalent in our modern times," according to a catalog chronicling his work. "The individual is shown suspended between barbs of brutal abstract forces, accentuating his disparity."

Johnston says he achieved the best results at the Lafayette Center on 20th Street in Washington, D.C., where he was just given "a space" as his assignment. The finished product, standing more than 19 feet tall, is "Wedlock," a two-year project completed in 1980.

Johnston says a sculpture is done when he stops thinking.

"You never allow yourself to work when you’re not thinking. It’s got to be a constant process of interest. As long as I see something that is of interest then I’ll address it. Otherwise there’s no point. It’s not about working on the surface. I don’t even think about the surface when I’m working. I try to think about what it is, what the relationships are. The finishing is a natural thing that will happen in that resolution process."

Johnston is in his studio thinking every day. "Sometimes I’m working on paper. Sometimes I’m at the drafting table. Sometimes I’m working in clay."

The studio is quiet. "I can’t listen to music and work on sculpture, although a lot of times I’m listening in my head to the music I’m learning on the piano. I’m actually practicing the pieces that I know. Mostly I’m thinking about what it is, what those relationships are and playing with them. It’s about focus. I have a quiet environment so I focus."

He doesn’t, however, focus on a sculpture 24 hours a day, seven days a week until it is finished. "I have several things going. I have a personal life. My wife and I are doing tango dancing. I’m also studying Chinese right now.

"Music has been a big part of my experience," says Johnston, who has been playing the piano since age 9. "I’ve performed a few recitals. I even cut a CD of impromptus of Schubert. I’m very interested in Bach. I’ve done a lot of compositional analysis. I look at it in the same light as I would the study of geometry."

Johnston’s favorite sculpture is "the next piece. I can gladly part with any of them. I am not connected to the actual material. The piece that I’m working on is the one that consumes my attention. I try to keep moving on to different insights. I don’t want to create something that is a regurgitation of what I’ve already done.

"You want to allow for new possibilities, even if it would be more effective in a marketing sense to create something that is going to be marketable and just push that idea. I think a true artist tries to get to a deeper level and touch on as many frontiers as possible."

©2003 Georgia Tech Alumni Association