Welcome to Catnapin's Meet the Artist Page

Jo Helen Cox

a.k.a. Jo Cox, a.k.a. Jojie

Jo has a bachelor of Fine Arts focused in sculpture. For 15 years, she worked as a mechanical draftsman designing home faucets and industrial boilers. She is now retired, occasionally helping to work a small West Texas ranch. Jo lives with her wonderful husband Tom in a house filled with cats, and a backyard full of ducks, geese, and turkeys.

With a life long passion for geology and paleontology, Jo taught herself fossil preparation. She cleaned, identified, and mounted nearly 150 fossils for the 2003 "Dinosaurs of Texas" exhibit at the Grace Cultural Museum in Abilene. She also researched and wrote the text for the show.

Nature has always fascinated Jo. Her mother taught her to play with bugs and look closely at plants. A digital camera gave her the opportunity to see the beautiful details and share that experience with others. The obsession to identify these creatures led to the need for this website.

Jo also writes down the odd idea's floating around in her head. Some of which are published here in the writing section called Pondering Parables. Most of this material is biblical exegesis (That is a big word that simply means she thought about something from the Bible for a long time, or until she found an answer, then wrote it down.)

"Images come to me, dancing in my head, solidifying into forms that must be given life. The act of carving, painting, photography, or writing is a fluid expression of the birth of the subject from the medium. I am in another world while I work and am always surprised upon seeing the finished product."

"The subtlety and extravagance of color is ever present. Be it in nature, paint, stone, wood, or word. Color fills creation with living space."

"I always loved to make things. Mom taught us to sew doll clothes and construct toy furniture out of cracker boxes. Dad taught us that junk could become treasures with just a little work."

"I see with my hands; texture must be experienced. Galleries and museums can be very frustrating places for me. They never let you touch anything."