Julie Rodriguez Jones

Julie Rodriguez Jones is a Nevada artist whose artistic interests are space/astronomical art, liturgical art and other traditional subjects including graphic art.

Julie’s interest in art and astronomy started at an early age. As a young child, coloring was passion.  Hearing about Sputnik as a young child, following the US space program from its inception and discovering astronomy in middle school spurred her interests.

Julie’s father took her weekly to telescope making sessions where during middle school she built a large telescope.

In high school Julie discovered she had a real love of art but did not pursue it due to commitment to science and her first career at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) which she began as a research technician in high school.

Julie drew casually throughout college, during her career at LBNL and while raising a family.

Her work at the Lab turned to the business aspects of the institution, writing contracts for LBNL’s collaborative research and development with other research institutions and contracting with the former Soviet States for the United States’ Initiative for Proliferation Prevention.

Though fascinating, Julie missed the creativity she had discovered in art and in 1998 began to draw again. She was encouraged by inquiries made at a local framing shop when a customer came in to have some of her art framed.

Julie studied traditional media at the Berkeley School of the Arts with Gwyneth Welch, Arngunnur Ur and Lien Truong.

She also had a love of astronomical imagery but hadn’t considered pursuing space art until one day when she saw a fantasy image drawn by her son, Ross, that was the ‘catalyst’. Julie now exhibits throughout the United States and overseas.

She has received numerous awards and honors for both her astronomical art and her flowers. In addition to her work being shown in galleries, Julie’s art can also be seen nationally as she has created corporate art for businesses, has had book covers commissioned, her work has been seen in magazines and in a variety of commercial applications.

Julie’s art is also now seen in churches across the US as banners and ministerial stoles, a new focus since moving to Nevada and being encouraged by the minister, Steve Wren, of her local church, who provides numerous opportunitues, artistic challenges and great artistic freedom.

After a thirty-three year career, Julie left the Lab in 2003 to pursue her art full time. She and her old loves are now inseparable.

In 2004, Julie moved from San Pablo, in the San Francisco Bay Area, to Spanish Springs, Nevada with her family and is enjoying dark skies with fewer city lights and the joy of creating art on a daily basis.