Ironstone Mosaics - About the Artist

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Ironstone Mosaics - About the Artist


	<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="/style/main_style.css"> <!-- <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="13" WIDTH="455" HEIGHT="350" BORDER="0"> --> <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="13" WIDTH="438" BORDER="0"> <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#DEC3A8" VALIGN="top"> <DIV ALIGN="center"><IMG SRC="/images/artist/my_silouette.jpg" WIDTH="250" HEIGHT="281" BORDER="0"></DIV> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">Hello and thank you for visiting my website. I am Jeanette Littlejohn, the creative visionary of Ironstone Mosaics. Always having had an artistic streak, my life has been filled with creative experiments of all sorts. I have always had this impulse, for some reason or another, to customize my belongings. I believe most people like the idea of having something unique to call their very own. Sometimes, I am so particular in what I want that I find it easier to make from scratch than to find in any store front. Curiosity has been my best teacher, always encouraging me to dive in and explore the possibilities of what could be.</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">Design Career</SPAN> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">Prior to honing my skills as a mosaic artisan, I earned my living working as an independent graphic artist in the advertising print industry. Throughout my 20s and into my 30s I continued working as a graphic designer and built a pretty good career for myself. Although I have always preferred freelance work, there was this one “permanent” job I took during my design career and it was when an Italian company approached me to design creative advertisements for their premium mortars, mastics and grouts for tile. This family business started in 1937 in their home country of Italy and quickly become the International leader for cement products in the surfacing industry. <BR><BR> With honor, I accepted their job offer and began to discover the world of tile and it’s remarkable use as a creative media. I love the idea of it being functional, as well as decorative. The Italians have long realized the artistic capabilities one can achieve with tile, not to mention it’s time-proven durability. They are true pioneers and have paved the way to perfecting surfacing techniques, earning them much deserved worldwide recognition. I am proud to say that I am now a member of the Society of American Mosaic Artists. Please visit their website sometime at <A HREF="http://www.americanmosaics.com/" onMouseOver="window.status='Member of the Society of Mosaic Artisians';return true" onMouseOut="window.status='';return true" TARGET="_blank">www.americanmosaics.org</A> where you can view mosaic styles and techniques of all sorts. <BR><BR> Join me in my Philosophy Parlor for some soapbox chatter regarding this, that and the other. This is where I discuss my own ideas regarding creativity, craftsmanship and design. Feel free to write with any of your own concepts and experiences you’d like to share. So, don’t be shy about throwing in your two cents. Visit my Potpourri Galleria where you can see a spectrum of my design concepts that have transpired over the years, using mediums of all sorts. Allow me to engage your imagination in exploring the possibilities of graphic imagery and all that it encompasses.</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">A Budding Artist</SPAN> <BR> <IMG SRC="/images/artist/budding_artist.jpg" ALIGN="right" WIDTH="216" HEIGHT="316" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="10" BORDER="0"> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">Art has always had a special place in my life. It was my favorite class, which I gladly took every single year during my school days. My parents made sure I had plenty of paint, clay and charcoal sticks to play around with. With some of my methods in producing art being a bit unorthodoxed, mom was a brave soul in biting her tongue a time or two... like the time she found me creating abstract art over the cast iron heater as I melted shredded crayolas onto paper. It seemed like a constructive way of recycle the wax from the sharpener bin. It looks like even back then I had a thrifty side to me, always finding good use for what otherwise seemed useless.</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">My First Ceramic Creation</SPAN> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">I remember the clay medallion necklace that I made for mom back when I was only in kindergarten. I carved the letter J on the front to represent both of our names. It had scalloped edges all the way around it, which I made by pinching the edges like you do with pie dough once it is in the shell. My finger nails made little half moon shapes, accenting the scallops with “detail”. It was even sealed with a turquoise colored glaze, which was baked on to make it stain free. Talk about spiffy! <BR><BR> This necklace was a very large flat oval disc with a hole at the top, which I strung pale blue yarn through. I created a latch by making a knotted ball on one end of the yarn, which was designed to go threw a heart shaped hole that I fashioned for the other end. Mom is still quite impressed to this very day by this technique derived by her 5 year old daughter. This medallion was a far cry from delicate and frankly, it now sounds pretty horsey. Mom was very sweet in acting proud to have that necklace, but I’m sure she had to keep from laughing at what a monstrous chunk of clay it was! It’s so funny to think back on how that necklace just seemed so fashionable to me at the time... as if made to adorn the highest of debutantes!</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">My Stomping Ground</SPAN> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">Being from a military family, we moved around a bit, but Oklahoma has always been home base since both of my folks are from there. I did a good deal of growing up there in the country. It is a spiritual place for me where all of my family still lives. I miss the rolling hills, the fresh water creeks and the change of seasons. Taking long strolls through the woods was a leisurely pastime that offered plenty of exploring to do. With so many spring fed creeks nearby, taking cool dips during the summer days was always just minutes away. <BR><BR> Oklahoma is known for it’s strong Cherokee Indian community. It is a wonderful place for hunting fossils, collecting flint stone arrowheads and old grinding stones for corn. The old timers tell stories of how they remember back when bands of Indians on horseback would come through the woods, wearing buckskin hides for clothes and leather moccasin boots. My collection of stones has grown over the years and I have a pretty good assortment now. One of my favorite treasures is an old Indian grinding stone that my cousin happened upon while out in the woods. His collection is very impressive, but it has taken him many years to acquire those rare finds.</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">Nature's Canvas</SPAN> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">Remembering back onto my childhood, the natural world has always been a place of endless discoveries. The woods seem to behold a secret wisdom and provided a safe haven for playing and just being a kid. Stones have always been earthly treasures that intrigued me. Design ideas began to transpire from arranging pebbles. Paying close attention to shapes and colors, I found endless designs were possible through creative arrangement. Little did I know at that time that this art form had a name called mosaic. <BR><BR> Those decorative pebble arrangements always impressed me to find them still intact even after a considerable amount of time had gone by. Sometimes when paying my pebble formations a visit after a good spell of being away, I’d find my creations hidden from the worlds view with a thin blanket of leaves covering them over. I would unveil them as if showing some grand prize to the surrounding woods where they could once again be viewed by the woodland critters. On other occasions, I would find that the rising creek had reclaimed her little beauties. But, that was alright by me since I figured there was something very honest about nature reclaiming herself. And, so it was.</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">All Grown Up</SPAN> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">As a teenager and fresh out of High School, I ventured to California in search of creative opportunity. I kissed my family bye and off I went. At that time, everything I owned fit into my little car. Once arriving in San Diego, I settled into a studio apartment that was nestled up on a hillside overlooking the freeway. I’d say that little studio was only 500 square feet or so, if that, and in 1989 it rented for $485 a month. After a brief search for a job, I found something and began selling limited edition artwork to get my feet on the ground. After a short stint of selling art, boredom set in and the desire to create artwork overshadowed simply making a living.<BR><BR> My next job in the creative field began in a little reproduction graphic shop called FotoGraphics. My first duties were developing film and burning negatives onto aluminum printing plates. I also prepared film positives for images that were to be silk screened onto shirts and things of that sort. Shooting halftone stats onto film came later once I got the hang of operating the elaborate camera equipment. When extra time was to spare, I would even tidy up the shop a bit and that sort of thing. My potpourri of duties were not things to be complained about since I was that much closer to creating graphics than ever before. And honestly, I genuinely liked the job. There was plenty of variety. Besides, the drafting table was just a glance away and believe me, I had my eye on it.</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">Graphic Art Production</SPAN> <BR> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">After eyeballing the drafting table for some time, when I had a little extra time to spare, I began spending more and more time in the graphic design department. After several weeks of bombarding a senior designer with questions, she kindly took me under her wing. She taught me all about artwork production and how to prepare the art boards properly for the camera. Before I knew it I was laying out newsletters and small advertisements to relieve her when her work load got too heavy. <BR><BR> Things seemed agreeable with the boss since I made good use of all of my time while on the clock and my designs weren’t half bad. I enjoyed the variety of steps involved during the various phases of graphic production. I really liked the technical nature of it where the mechanical art boards involved precision in measurements and the layout. The money wasn’t much back then, but considering the hands-on experience I got, I felt I had hit the jackpot!</SPAN> <P><BR> <SPAN CLASS="SectionHeading">Graphic Design and Desk Top Publishing</SPAN> <BR> <IMG SRC="/images/artist/desk_top_publisher.jpg" ALIGN="right" WIDTH="216" HEIGHT="216" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="10" BORDER="0"> <SPAN CLASS="vgBody">I took to traditional graphic production techniques like second nature, but little did I know that with the arrival of computers, many of these techniques would soon be obsolete. At least on some level or another anyway. Technology was knocking and I was unable to ignore the ever persistent presence of the computer age. So, I traded in my exacto blade for a mouse. I blended old-school techniques with the new technology of computer graphics. This embodiment of skills lends itself to my unique style that I still use to this day. <BR><BR> Once working in the computer graphics field, I noticed that most of the computer generation lacked traditional production skills altogether and relied solely on computers only. This concerned me. I've always embraced the computer era with open arms. However, I still hang on dearly to my traditional techniques that I learned early on. The nice thing about old school methods is that they still work, they are not expensive at all and you never have to worry about upgrading any software! Woohoo!!!</SPAN> </SPAN> </TD></TR> </TABLE>

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The Designing Process

Philosophy On Craftsmanship

Philosophy On Inspiration

Ironstone Mosaics

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Etched In Stone

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