James Lehman
was born on November 16th, 1964 in Marion, Ohio.
He was the forth born of five to John Lehman, a mechanical engineer
and Mary Lehman a medical technologist / homemaker.
He spent his early years fascinated with model rockets and The Beatles
in Medina, Ohio. He attended the Highland school system and played tenor
sax and other instruments in marching, jazz and concert bands.
James' interest in audio electronics and loudspeaker design grew from
his love of music. Spring of 1980 is when he started experimenting with
speaker building and got his first electric guitar.
In 1981, James built his first computer from a kit. His driving interest
in computers was to use them to make mathematically generated images and
synthetic sounds.
James graduated from highschool in 1983.
In 1984, at the age of 19, James began work on what would become a CD
collection of 22 songs written, performed and produced by him.
James bought a house in Akron, Ohio in August of 1987. There, he and his
younger brother Joe and another person formed a musical trio called
"Subtle Disasters" that performed mostly original music in local clubs.
The CD James Lehman 11:16:64, was released on November 9th, 1990 on Extra
Stimulus Records, his own independent label.
In the next couple of years, James would travel to nearby venues to see
The Grateful Dead and sell copies of his CD and hand-made stone and crystal
pendant necklaces. This is where he got his first good look at jewelry and
other items made of polymer clay.
On February 20th, 1993, he met Terry Zimmerman, now his partner, and moved
into Terry's house in the west end area of Akron called Highland Square.
1993 was the first time that James worked with polymer clay. He made craft
beads and developed a technique for making large designs in flat sheets
of clay.
James attended classes at The University of Akron in 1995 to extend his
knowledge of computer science. He learned about the UNIX operating system
and how to write programs in C and C++.
In 1996, he and Terry formed Extra Stimulus Inc., a local Internet service
providing company.
In 1998, James got his first job as a professional software engineer and
became the company's Webmaster. About a year and a half later, he changed
jobs to join a small start-up software company where he was also Webmaster.
Late, in April of 2001, he returned to working with polymer clay and
completely rekindled his interest in the wonderful, colorful stuff. After
making just a few pieces, he got great reactions from other people, which
drove him to make more and more.
It was about mid September, 2001 that he realized that all of his interest
in math, logic, physics and engineering had always been in the pursuit of
making better art.
That was when he decided to pursue a career as a professional artist.