June 8 | PASTfuture | Linda K. Johnson with Barry Johnson

Barry met contemporary dance while an undergrad at Brown when Grand Union came to perform (it says everything about his curious mind that he attended that performance), and not long after witnessed his first work by the Cunningham Company on assignment in Seattle. He moved to Portland in the early 1980’s as an editor and writer for the Willamette Week and then joined The Oregonian in 1983 as editor of the arts section. For many years he was the editor of the at-the-time robust separate section many of us knew and loved—the A&E. Leaving The Oregonian in 2009 in the wake of the decline of print media, he founded the digital-only Oregon ArtsWatch not soon after to revitalize arts writing, thinking and awareness in our city.