As I turned the pages and began reading this odyssey of Barry Johnston, as a veteran and artist, my interest increased, and I was pleased that I had agreed to review it. 'As We Sow' is not a book of fiction, nor a novel but an autobiography of a modern renaissance man, but a man no-less, with all his foibles, his successes, failures, fears and frustrations laid out with surgical precision in the cold reality of life's twists and turns. Viet Nam leaves an open wound Barry struggles to understand. He is empathic to the wrongs inflected on the innocent whether from war or life itself. His nature is sculpting figurative art imbued with his concerns for humanity. He joins a religious art colony in the Swiss Alps known as L'Abri where Barry argues with the founder Francis Schaeffer over interpretation of scripture and wrestles with his own spirit over the contradictions. Never at peace, he's at odds with the commercial art establishment for commissions, and he reflects on failed marriages after a near heart attack he barely survives. Barry reveals himself with honesty and a humanity which make this a compelling biography and a historical account of a representational artist, veteran and inventor.
- Daniel Shea