“As a member of the Turtle Clan, I use my art as a way to recreate stories and teachings that have been passed down to me.”

By Jan Wiezorek

Think of colorful turtle designs for a Potawatomi gathering and a painted drum with geometric plants. Envision animal murals, children’s book illustrations, decorations on a standing kitchen mixer, and artwork for a football stadium.

These are just some of the artistic ideas flowering from the creative mind of Eau Claire, Michigan, artist Justin Johnson, 33, a citizen of the Turtle Clan of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Dowagiac, Michigan. Increasingly, his work in the Woodland style—often featuring animals and natural settings—is on display in Michiana. And he is receiving well-deserved recognition for his artistry.

In June 2025, Johnson received a special tribute award from the State of Michigan for his digital murals printed on vinyl and displayed outside the Buchanan District Library in downtown Buchanan, Michigan. They focus on nature, Potawatomi culture, and the cultural significance of land and water.

Johnson, also known as “Jbird,” serves on the Pokagon Band’s art committee, where he first heard about Buchanan’s interest in Native American art when the city’s Buchanan Live organization was seeking artists and approached the Pokagon Band for ideas. Johnson suggested the Woodland style for the city’s murals.

“I’m trying to bring the Woodland style back because you don’t really see it anymore,” he says. “It has a lot of symbolism. I always make sure the heartbeat is in my work to represent power. That’s what life comes from, a heartbeat. And that also connects to the drum in Pokagon and Native American culture. You’ll see lines with the drum circles, which represent how everything is connected. That’s the connection between animal, earth, land, and everything. We are all connected spiritually in the Woodland style.”

The Woodland style gives viewers an “x-ray” look inside animals. For example, as you look at a bear, you’ll also see the fish inside its belly. This is part of Johnson’s series of six murals in Buchanan, Michigan. To create the digital murals, Johnson used a vector program that enabled him to reduce the art to the size of a postage stamp or enlarge it to the size of a building—all the while keeping the resolution intact.

When viewing Johnson’s Buchanan murals for the first time, you may be moved by their intense color; dramatic simplicity; thick lines; backgrounds of graceful hills, trees, and a river; unifying branches; and geometric shapes. They represent a playful environment of respect for such animals as bears, deer, fish, and wolves.

In his artistic statement for the murals, Johnson writes: “Lines and circles throughout each composition speak to the interdependence between the natural world, the spirit world, and humanity. Divided circles reflect dualities—such as light and dark, good and evil—while short lines around each heart symbolize life force and movement. Through this visual language, I seek to honor ancestral traditions while offering a contemporary reflection on balance, harmony, and the unseen energies that connect us all.”

Even when Johnson was a student at Coloma High School in Coloma, Michigan, he knew art attracted him and his passions. Johnson’s art teacher, Kristen Maniscalco, noticed his special talent and pushed him to develop his fundamental drawing skills, assigning him advanced art projects. After graduating in 2010, he attended Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for four years, but left to continue working at his family’s T-shirt business, Casual Tee’s. He worked there for about 10 years, doing graphic design and digital illustration, until the company closed during COVID.

Back then, one design that gave Johnson local recognition was a 2020 poster for radio station Rock 107 WIRX in St. Joseph, Michigan. “It was a competition. I submitted my artwork, and they loved it,” he says. It depicted a dude with a fiery face and a brain on his tongue driving a screaming yellow Hummer to promote the radio station. Also, he has worked with cannabis companies and helped to host the Hazy Holes Cannabis golf classic in Eau Claire, Michigan.

From 2022 to 2025, Johnson was a communications specialist for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi in Dowagiac, Michigan, where he photographed tribal events. In 2024, the Pokagon Band artists, including Johnson, had their artworks exhibited in Traditional Echo: Contemporary Pokagon Artists & The Ones Who Came Before at Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, Michigan. From that exhibit, Johnson learned that the Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM), Grand Rapids, Michigan, was seeking contemporary Native American artworks to display in its galleries in 2025. “I submitted a creation story idea, and they just loved it. I was selected, and that was my first hand-painted mural,” he says.

The nine-foot-by-ten-foot red, white, yellow, black, and blue Creation Story mural depicts a turtle in the Woodlands style popularized by Native American artists Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, and Carl Ray. Their work continues to inspire Johnson.

Johnson believes his art helps to explain the Potawatomi culture visually, making the creation and other stories of his tribe easier to understand. One story of creation that he portrays is the turtle with a muskrat on its back as part of his GRPM mural. As the story goes, the earth was flooded, and the muskrat sacrifices itself by diving into the water and grabbing earth. Johnson says, “When it came back up, it had died, and Brother Turtle was moved by what the muskrat did. So, turtle put earth on his back. The creator was happy, and the winds blew this land that grew and grew from the back of the turtle. And in Native American culture, that’s where the North and South American continents are—on the turtle’s back or Turtle Island.” Johnson’s mural also contains birds, fish, and people.

In December 2025, he completed a pond and blue-sky mural for Cass District Library’s newly constructed Edwardsburg Branch, in Edwardsburg, Michigan. This project highlights birds, a bear and turtle, fish, dragonfly, water lilies, and other aquatic plants.

Apart from his artwork, Johnson is also learning about constellations associated with other Native American legends. For example, one such story features a giant serpent that wraps around the earth, intending to destroy it. In a battle, one of the serpent’s scales is broken, falls, and becomes flint, used as a fire-starter.

One of Johnson’s most unusual commissions, though unrelated to Native American culture, involved illustrating a standing kitchen mixer for Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Johnson painted images such as a steam locomotive, carousel horse, Lake Michigan lighthouse, and other images on the surface of the appliance, which was a special gift for a local hospital owner. In another project, he designed a white stylized sturgeon with a blue background and painted it on a longboard, a type of skateboard.

See more johnson art at jbird illustrations

Johnson's future looks bright. He admits it has taken a while for his work to take off, but he now believes he is on the right path. For example, he is working on several projects he is excited to mention. Currently, he is illustrating four books with a “more realistic color palette” for a series of Pokagon Potawatomi stories: The Three Sisters focuses on corn, squash, and beans, followed by The Great Flood, The Origins of the Sugar Bushing, and Whénëbozho and the Wild Rice. Plans call for board games, card games, and online illustrations related to the books that Johnson will illustrate.

His other future projects include assisting with the curation of a new exhibit, Anishnaabek: The People of This Place, at GRPM. Also, Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Illinois, has commissioned him to create a mural that honors the land for its new football stadium. “This is awesome, yes,” he says. And he will create three paintings for Epiphany Church, South Haven, Michigan.

Johnson says he is beginning to understand more about his Native American culture. He knew his great-grandfather was born on a reservation near Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and that family members in the 1960s were taken to boarding schools. But he calls it a “touchy subject and history lost.” He began learning more about his Potawatomi culture after college by asking questions while working for the Pokagon Band. “One of our responsibilities is to pass down the teachings and the stories of our culture. And one way I do that is through my artwork.”

Johnson is married to wife SteVee. “She’s very happy for me. We were high-school sweethearts, and we’ve been married for ten years,” he says. The couple has three children, Lily, 9; Daisy, 3; and Atlas, 1. Johnson adds, “And, you know, they give me my drive. I do what I love, and I push myself to show my kids that if you put in the hard work and don’t give up, a break, an opportunity, or a door will open.”

For more details about Johnson’s artwork, visit jbirdillustrations.com.

Justin Johnson wodrous woodland art

“As a member of the Turtle Clan, I use my art as a way to recreate stories and teachings that have been passed down to me.”