Carla Rae Johnson

Since her arrival in 1992 Carla Rae Johnson has been an active participant in the Peekskill arts community, exhibiting sculpture, drawings and performance pieces, as well as curating exhibitions and organizing events. In 2010, Carla Rae Johnson began the very successful First Monday Salon series at the BeanRunner Café/Gallery. The salons played a vital role in building and maintaining the arts community here for ten years. After the pandemic, the salons now continue as First Tuesday Salons and are attracting capacity crowds. Carla Rae Johnson is a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Drawing, a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Sculpture and a 1990 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2015, she was awarded an artist residency at the, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, NY and was honored to be a “50 for 50” Outstanding Artist by Arts Westchester. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo, invitational, and curated shows in museums and galleries locally, nationally, and in New York City. Works by Carla Rae Johnson have been reviewed in The New York Times, as well as other local and regional publications. Carla Rae Johnson has a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Iowa. After over 38 years an arts educator, Carla Rae recently retired from her position as a Full Professor of Art at Westchester Community College in Valhalla where she taught from 2003 to 2016. She is now delighted to devote her energies to art, full time. She currently resides on Nelson Avenue, where she maintains her studio.