User:Jjohn17/sandbox

Jeffrey Lewis John (born 2 April 1973 in Logan, Utah, USA)is most welknown for his sculpting of the human figure and animals. His bronzes range from loose, playful interpretations of childhood scenes remeniscent of Norman Rockwell to tight, realistic comemorative busts and animals. He has also done some very successful pieces in a more modern, abstract style. Much of his career was also spent at the General Motors Design Center in Warren, Michigan, where he sculpted both interiors and exteriors of future designs for General Motors.

Born in Logan, Utah, to Marvin and Louise Call John he was the second of six children. His family moved to Green River, Utah when he was one year old. His father taught high school and at the Seminary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They lived in Green River for two years and at the age of three, Jeff's family moved to Vernal, Utah. At age nine his family moved to Millville, Utah where he lived until he graduated from High School.

As a youth Jeff enjoyed art. He always loved drawing and got into a little painting and ceramics in his later highschool years. His ceramic pieces usually ended up morphing from pots into animals or some other more sculptural form.

Growing up in northern Utah mountains, Jeff also spent time with the Boy Scouts and the Order of the Arrow reaching Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor. He enjoyed camping and playing with neighborhood friends. He was very involved in the Mormon church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) as a youth.

Jeff was very concientious in school. He was in honors courses in high school and got good grades but had to study a lot to mantain them. After his junior year he did a summer honors program at Rick's College in southern Idaho. He enjoyed that as well as the friends he made there and decided to go there after he graduated. He was on the LDS seminary student council his senior year.

At Rick's College, Jeff continued to do well. He was a Graphic Design major. He enjoyed his art classes and spent a lot of time trying to be at the top of his classes. He also took time to have fun, taking gymanstics, fencing, archery, and swimming.

After his year at Rick's College, Jeff decided to serve a two year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). After submitting his papers declaring his willingness to serve, he was asked by the church to do his two year mission in Colombia, South America. While there he became fluent both speaking and reading spanish. He loved the people he served and enjoyed seeing peoples lives change as they learned new things and made new commitments. He loved seeing formerly troubled families, unified and loveing one another when he would leave an area.

When he returned home from his mission, Jeff decided to continue his college studies, this time at Utah State University so that he could live at home with his parents and hopefully save some money for his own home. He was going to continue studying graphic design but as he was registering for classes he noticed a stone carving class. He decided to take it. He quickly fell in love with stone carving and spent every spare minute in the carving studio that semester. He continued to take more and more sculpture classes and didn't sign up for anymore graphic design classes. He loved art but felt torn between his religious upbringing and having to take art classes involving nudes, so he switched to being a spanish major. After a semester in spanish classes he quit school because he just didn't have the drive for the spanish that he had before for sculpting.

He had worked for one summer on the county road crew being a flagger and doing other odds and ends jobs. He then worked for a friend, Shane Howell, for a time making log furniture. He had several stints working for ICON Health and Fitness in several different copacities, involved with making fitness equipment. Then Jeff got a job at Anderson Lumber. He would help customers inside and out in the yard, loading wood. Later he would also dispatch and make deliveries.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), marriage and family is of utmost importance so Jeff was doing a lot of dating, with the emphasis set on finding his future wife and mother of his children. He was not very comfortabel around girls and had a hard time carrying a conversation so he had a lot of first dates...but not much after that. In March of 2006, at a church ski night, at Beaver Mountain Ski Resort, Jeff met Sarah Lynne Schaelling. For the first time in his life he felt comfortable with a girl. She was beautiful, athletic, kind, and could carry a conversation, so Jeff new within a few minutes of meating her, this was the girl he hoped he could marry. Jeff began to hang out with Sarah as much as possible. She made him fill so happy and they had so much fun together. Nine months later, on December 17, 2006, they were married in the Bountiful, Utah, LDS temple.

Sarah got Jeff back to school and incouraged him to finish his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpting. He did so and they both graduated from Utah State University in 1999. Sarah got a job as a Technical Writere at IBM in Boulder, Colorado, so they moved there. Jeff sculpted from home and finished his first piece since graduating, "Nephi and the Broken Bow". He needed money to Bronze it so he got a job working for Dudley Construction out of Longmont, CO. Later that fall, Wes Gormley saw Jeff scetching during church and offered him a job working at Zephyr Grafix, a hat company. He would be doing graphic design work afterall.