Blue Sky

Blue Sky (formerly Warren Edward Johnson) is an American painter and sculptor best known for his mural, Tunnelvision. Biography Blue Sky was born on September 18, 1938, in Columbia, South Carolina, as Warren Edward Johnson. In 1954, his first foray into art won him a national poster competition two years before he graduated from Dreher High School. He designed and drew the Dreher Blue Devil used by the school. For the next six years, he served as a jet aircraft technician in the Air National Guard, 169th Cameron Squad, while working several different jobs to pay for college – including as a parade float builder, a layout artist, and a dance instructor, among others. Sky attended the University of South Carolina from 1958 to 1964. During this time, he received instruction from the Ash Can painter Edmund Yaghjian. Meanwhile, he sold original works through USC student art auctions at McMaster College. At the Springs Mills Show in 1964, in which over 700 artists participated, he was judged "best of show" by Henry Geldzahler, who was then curator of modern art at the Metropolitan Museum. Sky was then invited to study at the Art Students League of New York, where he lived and worked for the next year. Upon moving back to Columbia in 1966, Sky worked as a draftsman and conceptual artist for Wilbur Smith & Associates before returning to USC for graduate school. In 1970, he graduated, earning a Master of Education because the university had not yet been certified to award a Master of Fine Arts.