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City People

Following a free spirit

This sought-after interior designer has lived a life that flowed from one adventurous experience to another and another.

By SHERRI DAY
Published November 4, 2005

NORTH HYDE PARK - Susan Johnson makes Wolfgang Puck's cookware pop and Suzanne Somers' fitness gear sizzle.

An associate art director for the Home Shopping Network, her set designs and promotional spots are seen by millions of viewers around the country.

But her day job hardly defines her. It's what she does after work that raises her profile from Ybor City to Manhattan. She's responsible for creating and decorating some of Tampa's most talked about clubs, art galleries and restaurants.

Corporate America can hardly contain her.

"I feel like the wild horse because I don't quite fit in," said Johnson, 46. "I'm so used to doing things my way. I'm getting somewhat better at the structure, but I'm still a little mouthy."

Johnson's path to the corporate world was circuitous at best.

As a teenager in the 1970s, she worked for a Miami catering company that served bands at Criteria Recording Studios. Her clients included the Bee Gees, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Procol Harum and John Cougar Mellencamp. John Denver called her Mrs. Cleaver and once asked her to critique a forthcoming album.

Johnson worked as a party planner after high school and spent eight months sailing with her boyfriend from Miami to Hawaii. The couple took a second sailing trip from Mexico to Tahiti.

In her early 20s, she gave structure a try and moved to Los Angeles to study art history at the University of California. As a sideline, she tended bar at Madame Wongs, a Chinatown punk club.

The daughter of two artists, Johnson left college after three years and moved to Switzerland. In Europe, she flitted from country to country admiring early Christian art.

Upon returning to Los Angeles, she opened a clothing boutique on Melrose Avenue. Grace Jones was among those who admired her wares.

Lean closer, Johnson can drop names of higher wattage stars.

Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton and music and movie producer David Geffen were regulars at her tables at Indigo Restaurant, where she worked as a waiter. Johnson's got moxie, too.

She walked the red carpet at the 1990 Academy Awards ceremony, coaxed Daniel Day-Lewis out of the Shrine Auditorium and presented him with an armful of roses. After Day-Lewis won the award for best actor for My Left Foot, he plucked her from a crowd of fans and did a celebratory dance.

Johnson's real-life confessions all occurred before she turned 33. It's enough to make 9-to-5ers beg for a lesson in cool.

"I feel like the luckiest person," said Johnson, who lives in North Hyde Park. "I've had such a great life."

Since 1990, Johnson has called Tampa home. It's where she found love - she married and divorced painter Theo Wujcik - and birthed her greatest joy, daughter Frankie, now 12.

She also quickly began making a name for herself as a designer.

"She's one of those people that if she's there and she's doing something, all the little hipster people are going to go and see what she's doing," said Shea Ferlita, Johnson's longtime friend. "She's really an untapped talent in Tampa."

In Ybor City, Johnson partnered with local businesswomen to create Ovo Cafe, which has since closed. She also designed the Cherokee Club, Cafe Cohiba, Bubba's Beach Club and the Castle.

Johnson used to run her own art gallery and vintage fabric store in Ybor City. Now she splits her days between her full-time job and freelance projects. In her spare time, she stages homes for real estate sales and does interior design.

"She's incredibly forward thinking and eclectic," said Rande Friedman, a Realtor who hired Johnson to decorate homes and outfit his Carrollwood house in a 1960s theme. "There's not a thing she's done that I haven't loved."

What Johnson doesn't have time for is finishing her home's decor. Her 1960s house blends modern paintings with Palm Beach shell chairs, Asian-inspired lamps and African sculpture. Her living room windows sport a sheet of cloth. Johnson said she has been getting to the drapes for the past two years.

Ask her if she intends to make Tampa her permanent home and she demurs. She loves the culture of Los Angeles, the hustle and bustle of New York City. But she has an equal appreciation for her friends in Tampa, her job and her connection with the local arts scene.

True to her free spirit, Johnson won't submit to career mapping or a traditional goals and objectives plan.

"I love the flow of life," she said. "The energy of just being in different situations, and then they carry you."

- Sherri Day can be reached at sday@sptimes.com or 813 226-3405.

AGE: 46

WORKS FOR: Home Shopping Network

FAMILY: Daughter, Frankie, 12

QUIET CRUSADER: Wants to restore downtown's Kiley Park

HORDES: Martha Stewart Living magazines

DECORATES: Windows at major retail stores in New York City

TEARS UP: At the sight of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and Picasso

CHARGES: $75-an-hour for a three-hour interior design consultation

HOOKED ON: Law & Order and The Apprentice starring Martha Stewart and Donald Trump

HOLDS: Bachelor's degree in interior design from the International Academy of Design

ENJOYS: Watching storms while sitting on her living room floor with her daughter

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 08:47:07]