Photos pretty as poison

The photographs Peter L. Johnson takes are garbage. Simply garbage.

That's because the "studio" where he creates his art is a contaminated stream off the Mississippi River, and the subjects of his portraits are broken vodka bottles, condom wrappers, plastic toy parts and the swirling, multi-colored sheen left by fuel oil on the water's surface.

The photo collection, which he has dubbed "Devastating Beauty," is aptly named. In one image, a long-adrift rubber ball takes on the features of an antique globe orbiting a toxic-orange sky. In another, a group of objets d'trash picked up during an Earth Day river cleanup float in a burnished muck, making them look more like talismans from a charm bracelet in the Sundance catalog than grunge-covered detritus.

These images draw and hold the gaze because they are visual oxymorons, attractive ugliness.

"What I find the most of is empty Mountain Dew bottles, but Gatorade is catching up," said Johnson, who calls himself an eco-artist. "Must be something about the demographic that drinks those."

But he said he doesn't intend his work as a judgment on the people who threw their discards into the water.

"Yelling at people not to do something never works," he said. "I just hope the effects of how we live on the world around us sink in when people are drawn to and really look at these photos."

Especially people who can do something about it. Over the past few months, he has been e-mailing descriptions of the look and smell of what seems to be fuel oil making its way into the river -- adding a couple of his photos as persuasive visuals -- to sources at nonprofits and city officials. His efforts have paid off.

City environmental inspector Patrick Hanlon and Steve Kennedy, who responds to suspected health and safety emergencies, recently visited the site that Johnson is concerned about, taking air and water samples that now are being processed for delivery to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) for analysis.

Risky business

On a recent breezy afternoon, Johnson leads a small expedition down a steep rocky path to the ravine where the stream runs, across SE. Main Street from the St. Anthony Main complex. A strong diesel odor wafts up from the water, low and stagnant on this dry day, burning nostrils and causing faint nausea.

"The Mississippi built this city, it provides our drinking water, it does so much for us," Johnson said. "When anybody who goes down there sees and smells the oil, it's common sense that it has to be cleaned up."

A few months ago, he began making another kind of artwork here -- abstract paintings made using only materials he finds on the scene. Decked out in rubber gloves, knee-high boots and a face-obscuring respirator to work in such a noxious atmosphere, Johnson looks more like the goggle-wearing serial killer in "Silence of the Lambs" than a peaceful guy who often presses his palms together in the namaste hand sign as he speaks.

A heavy paper nearly the consistency of cardboard is the only supply Johnson brings down to the ravine for his paintings. His "mixed media" consist of buckthorn berry juice, mud and discolored water from the stream. He uses a turkey baster instead of a brush to dribble liquids onto his canvas, and throws a segment of an old chain he found to stamp impressions onto the paper. Left overnight, the paper takes on the textures of the river. When finished, the paintings resemble faded hieroglyphics on cave walls.

Mississippi 'CSI'

Identifying the smelly substance will be a lot easier than determining its source, said inspector Hanlon. The site is located in a longtime industrial area crisscrossed with subterranean tunnels and sewers. Hanlon's library research found that a power plant used to sit exactly where Johnson works.

Kennedy, from the city's emergency response team, said sights and smells can be misleading; for example, orange slime is naturally generated in water near iron-rich soil. And even if one area smells strongly of oil, it may not be as dangerous as another polluted with an odorless hazardous substance. But he and Hanlon plan to get to the bottom of whatever is sullying the water in that ravine.

While Johnson's queries helped spur the investigation, another motivation for quick action is a possible plan to divert some of the river's waterfalls back to the ravine, where part of them used to flow. If the site is contaminated, the falls would only spread any pollution around even more.

Drawn to the river

Cordelia Pierson, director of the new nonprofit Mississippi Riverfront Corporation, called Johnson "a very good model" for citizen environmental activism, "persistent, but respectful." The agencies responsible can't respond to every complaint, she said, "and this is a little tucked-away pocket, not a gusher. But Peter was adamant that it deserved attention."

Johnson, 52, first became passionate about preserving the Mississippi when he lived on Nicollet Island a few years ago, becoming "immersed in its moods, beauty and sacred flow," he said. "The moment of making a photograph takes me deeply into the beauty of this system that is essential to our life here."

His art will be exhibited at the Mill City Museum in January, including another photo series called "Immersion," portraits of people floating in the river. At a show this past summer in Bloomington, he placed the actual objects he collected under the pictures, prompting a visitor to call 911 because one piece included a segment of detonator wire he found near the Lowry Avenue Bridge.

You'd think Johnson would get depressed working with garbage all day long. But he said he feels encouraged by the action the city is taking.

"This whole process has made me hopeful," he said, "hopeful that change can happen."

For now, he's still finding plenty of new material to work with, down in a ravine littered with beer cans and reeking of diesel fuel.

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046