It’s official. Sonja Johnson has retired from Rangeley Lakes Regional School where she taught art and mentored students for 32 years. Her legacy spans generations and will continue well into the future. In fact, one of Sonja’s first students in Rangeley, Liz Thompson, will now be the art teacher for grades 6-12, while Skyela Burgess will be stepping into Liz’s role as the K-5 art teacher.

There is no way to adequately capture the many memories and accomplishments from Sonja’s storied career in a short newspaper article. Her résumé is long with achievements and overflowing with accolades. Her students’ works have hung in Augusta and in the U.S. Capitol. They have been celebrated in Carnegie Hall and at Maine College of Arts and Design, winning more medals than the U.S. Olympic teams combined. All of Sonja’s students were guaranteed to emerge from her classroom richer than they were before entering; in fact, many of them moved on to make careers for themselves with the skills she endowed them with.

Sonja has worn many hats at RLRS over the course of her career and filled more roles than Broadway’s stages could accommodate. One of the more important roles, however, was that of a vigilant advocate for students and staff. When Sonja was standing by your side you knew you must be in the right place doing the right thing.

Sonja never skirted rigor in her courses. She recognized that students deserved rigor if the course was going to be worth taking. Her curriculum set high standards and remained stringently in line with the expectations she continually communicated to her students. Ollie Sherrer, Sonja’s grandchild and also her student, put it simply: “I kind of see her as hippie-ish outside of school, but she can be all business inside of it.” Sonja’s brand of art is predicated on an admixture of relaxed enthusiasm, a plugged-in imagination, and a keen discipline aimed at a desired outcome. Pair that with the fact she is the patron saint of hands-on, visual learners and you’ve got the ingredients of a master teacher.

It was professionally gratifying to co-teach with Sonja and Maryam Emami. We created a humanities course together and shared class time with freshmen and sophomores for years. Maryam put it succinctly: “Historians often name periods based on pivotal events and turning points. In art there were the Cubists, the Impressionists, the Postmodernists, and, today, marks the end of an era here at RLRS, the SoJo  Era. The SoJo Era is significant because of Sonja’s professionalism, expertise, vision, and compassion, which cultivated a culture of inclusion and creativity at RLRS.”

It is fitting that the art and music rooms are neighbors. Music teacher, Erin Smith, said, “It has been amazing having the woman who was my favorite teacher, mentor, and cheerleading coach from when I was in high school, as my neighbor these past 23 years. Sonja has always been there for me, and she will definitely be missed next year.”

When walking into Sonja Johnson’s classroom there was the sense you’ve just entered a place where art is imitating life, and not the other way around. It was a place where taking risks was a requirement. Students were allowed and encouraged to use their voices, their vision, their emotions, regardless of how bizarre and surreal, or linear and staid, they may seem. The scent of paint loomed in the air along with pottery fresh from the kiln and newly developed photos drip-drying where they were clothes-pinned to a rack. Student art was everywhere the eye could see. Dried paint, dripped, splattered and smeared, left behind by the multitude of students Sonja had taught over the past 32 years, evidence that, here, children learned the essentials about harnessing their imaginations. Here was where kids flew with dragons and butterflies, faced hope and despair, mingled with faeries and danced with the unknown. Here, this place, was their refuge, and in the mix, the main ingredient, was Sonja.

Clearing out a space that had been yours for 32 years is not an easy task. Sonja wanted to make sure the classroom was organized and ready for its next resident. She had held onto a treasure trove of student art from over the years like a parent who has kept in storage their adult children’s finger painting from kindergarten. She organized all of it and invited alumni and parents to come by and pick it up before she had no choice but to throw it away. It was time for her to let go of the children’s finger painting and, with a heavy heart, for us to say goodbye to Sonja Johnson, the art teacher, but, thankfully, not Sonja Johnson the artist and friend. Thank you for your years of dedication to our children and community, Sonja, and thank you for painting a world more beautiful than the one in which we live.

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