Jean Lijoi [pronounced la-joy] is a local artist who paints in acrylic.
HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN
AN ARTIST?
“Not long. But there was always arts and crafts around me growing up. Both of my grandmothers are seamstresses. They would crochet and be creative. I started painting around 1993. I have always been an artist, but not visual. Theater is my first love. I managed an art gallery and theater in New York but where I wanted to be was on stage. The Paramount Theatre is where I started to draw. It’s what I know.”
WHAT’S HER
FAVORITE MEDIUM?
“Pastels, but I don’t work in it. I think it’s my favorite because that’s what I first learned so that’s what I’m most comfortable with. I moved from it to oils. Then I tried watercolor, but it’s not my thing. I do mostly acrylic and some mixed media, but I will work in any medium.”
HOW DOES SHE DECIDE ON
A SUBJECT?
“I don’t think an artist chooses where she wants to be; the art takes you there. Painting is a meditative process. It’s a place to think and be quiet. An image would emerge and I would have to go with that.”
IS THERE AN UNDERLYING THEME TO HER WORK?
“The last two years I’ve been painting women. To me, it happened by accident. I got lingerie as a gift from a married man. I said, ‘What am I going to do with this?’ This is so stupid, somebody I can’t even date. I threw it on the floor. I was looking at it and thought, ‘I want to paint it.’ That brought me to the realization that that’s all he saw in me — the lingerie on me — nothing else about me. I think most of the world sees us that way. We’re sexual beings but they don’t go beyond it. I think that’s why I ended up not painting the head or the arms because society sees us, not as thinking, functional beings, but as T&A. Look at Britney Spears, look at Christina Aguilera — they’re little girls and they’re very sexual beings. That’s why I started painting them this way because that’s what everybody sees. We’re only sexual objects. We don’t think; we don’t function; we’re not going anywhere. That’s the way a lot of men see us. My generation was brought up that way. I think that’s going away a little bit, but to me it’s real.”
HAS SHE WORKED IN
OTHER FIELDS?
“Before I was married, I was a hairdresser. When my kids were in school I worked in a silkscreen factory, printing shirts. I wanted to learn about the separation of colors, never thinking one day I would end up painting. Currently, she is a cast member for off-Broadway production of “Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding” at Johnny Leverock’s on the Southside. “Artists have no real 9-to-5 jobs. We have lots of little jobs all over the place.”
HOMETOWN
Brooklyn. “I grew up close to the Brooklyn Museum.”
WHERE DID SHE GO TO SCHOOL?
Once a high school dropout, she returned to school at Brooklyn College, and later, Orange County Community College, studying theater and design. Lijoi has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of North Florida. She is pursuing a graduate degree at UNF.
APPLE FOR TEACHER
Lijoi volunteers as a docent at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens and also teaches art fundamentals to children at the Ponte Vedra Beach Cultural Center.
FAMILY
Lijoi lives in Ponte Vedra Beach with her daughter Jennifer, an inactive Navy reservist, and her daughter’s boyfriend. Her son Nicholas is a chef in New York.
WHAT’S MOST REWARDING ABOUT HER WORK?
“It’s self-satisfaction. When I can stand back from it and say I like it, then I’m happy.”
WHAT’S MOST CHALLENGING ABOUT HER WORK?
“A white canvas. A lot of artists do little thumbnail sketches. I can’t. If I try to copy it over to the canvas, it doesn’t look right. I have to just go to the canvas and work it out there. You’ve got to find your own way.”
HER MAIN INFLUENCE?
“One artist I researched that I fell in love with was Mark Rothko, a Russian modern artist from the 20th Century. He was about the process of painting and glazing. He would do these squares, layering paint. He could really get it to glow. I always loved the impressionists but I kind of moved away from that because no one can duplicate their style.”
LOCAL EXHIBITIONS?
She’s displayed her work at the St. Augustine Art Association and the Jacksonville Coalition of Visual Arts. She is part of an exhibition at the Artists’ Corner in March.
ON THE ROAD
A vegetarian, Lijoi almost starved walking on a 1,000-mile pilgrimage through Europe to the burial place of St. John the Apostle. “It brought together my Catholic upbringing and my art history background.”
HER FAVORITE THINGS
Lijoi surfs for repeats of “The Golden Girls” and is a big fan of “The Prophet,” a philosophical writing by Kahlil Gibran. She also enjoys sitting on the beach and visiting the slave quarters at Kingsley Plantation.
WHO IS YOUR HERO?
“My eighth grade teacher, Sister Mary Richard. She taught me discipline and how to get ahead. She pushed and pushed.”
— by Monica Chamness