Johnna Crider was born in Cartersville, Georgia to Johnnie Crider and John W. McCrary. As a child, Johnna was into writing and was fascinated with calligraphy. She didn't start painting until she was 22. Johnna had a rough beginning as an artist; due to the fact that the very same day she painted her first painting, her mother was in the hospital with appendicitis. Painting was a gift that she was often told she did not possess.
Johnna's history, however, is a struggle for survival. Johnna was homeless as a child. Her mother's family did not want anything to do with the lone mother and child and her father denies her very existence. Her mother moved to Shreveport, LA, where they lived in a homeless shelter when she was 10, 11, and 12 and in 1994 they moved into their first home. In 2003, Johnna graduated from C. E. Byrd High School and was working in the casino industry and planning to move into her first apartment in 2004.
Artwork by Johnna
Just after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Johnna was evicted from her apartment. Her landlord claimed that he could not renew their lease agreement only after the previous renewal in July, 2005. This happened after Kevin Costner's movie The Guardian's film crew rented space from her landlord. Johnna then proceeded to Dubach, LA to stay with her friends and then on to Atlanta, where she signed up for Job Corps and is now in the Transportation Communications Union program and has currently held a part-time position for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the local Atlanta newspaper. Johnna has been featured on numerous websites, in numerous artshows, and was on the front page of The Brunswick News in Brunswick, GA in 2006 for her art. Johnna has also sold art to benefit United Way of Atlanta, Atlanta Children's Shelter, and Calvary Baptist Refuge--where she stayed in December of 2005.
Johnna also has a website where homeless people can connect with their local shelters. She is currently adding on shelters and looking for new homeless shelters to add to her list. The site is called Colors of Ink 2, and Art4The Homeless. You can go there here: http://art4thehomeless.nutang.com
Profiles 
