Exceptional Entrepreneur!
 

This month’s featured business owner:
Ronald D. Jackson, EUCP Imagine

He is described by those who know him and his work best as, "intense and detail-oriented with a great eye and ability to see beyond what most others are witnessing." Ronald D Jackson is a resident of the Los Angeles, California Watts community.  Jackson began drawing as soon as he could hold a pencil, and his innate talent quickly emerged. With no money for art classes, he resourcefully utilized the celebrity photos contained within household copies of Ebony and Jet magazines for his inspiration, and over time, developed the ability to create a total likeness of these subjects.  This early "face fixation" began his present signature style of portraits. 
 

Young Jackson initially created from a place of anger, delving into the interior of art to abate his pain; a pain caused by the daily subjection to the taunting of his peers following the sudden onset, at age ten, of the multi-faceted medical condition, Turret's Syndrome; the syndrome, in his case, characterized by uncontrollable eye-blink and vocal-grunt sequences. He would endure nicknames like "blinky" and "crazy eyes." However, Jackson says, "It made me a stronger person and when I faced my disability, I gained the power." Young Jackson persevered by embracing total self-acceptance; and in time, transmuted his anger and pain into creative energy and artistic inspiration; and later he found that his art germinated from peaceful and harmonious elements of life.

 

In Jackson's teenage years, his cap-and-gown sketches of graduating seniors sold for easy money and transitioned him from amateur to semi-professional artist. And after graduating from the Alain Leroy Locke High School in south central, Jackson studied for several years under the tutelage of famed sculpture Charles Dickson. With Dickson, Jackson learned invaluable skills that he adopted to formulate his own technique. Another influence of Jackson was Samella Lewis, the African-American, female artist and author of the 60's and 70's who wrote numerous books on the history of black art and who is considered by many to be the revolutionary force that brought unknown black artist to the attention of both the underground and mainstream art communities.
 

Jackson finds inspiration from faces, and though he is not exclusive to black subjects and models, he works with what is typically in his surroundings; his community is an essential part of who he is as both a man and an artist.  Jackson seeks to exalt those elements in his work that mainstream society rejects; those qualities that are considered more afro-centric; he is drawn to faces with strong features: sparkling eyes, generous noses, and full lips.

For over ten years, Jackson primarily sketched and sculpted until seventeen years ago when a dear friend gifted him a set of brushes and paints and prompted his foray into painting. Over time, Jackson incorporated multiple mediums into his artistic palette including: painting with acrylic, oils, watercolors, and pastels; sculpting with clay, wood, and metal; mural design; graphic art design and digital media; photography and fashion design.

For over 20 years, Jackson has showcased his work throughout the US; owned and operated a successful clothing store; created a line of jewelry, featuring hand-crafted masks; and garnered an impressive body of work with a catalogue of hundreds of sketched, drawn, painted, sculpted, and carved pieces. Jackson established his company EUCP Imagine in 2006 which represents his greatest life tenet: "everything you can imagine."  It is his belief that both the imagination and creativity are limitless. With EUCP Imagine, Jackson produces commissioned murals, canvasses, and sculptures for commercial and personal spaces. Most recently Jackson was among a hand full of artists featured by the Los Angeles Mayors Office.