Today we’d like to introduce you to Yeshe Jackson

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

The first time I painted was in my junior year of high school, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Right around that time I found an old box of acrylic paints in the back of my garage and bought a handful of cheap little canvases at the art store. I started painting little pictures, mostly of wildlife, and giving them to my friends and family when they were done.

When it was time to decide what to major in at Humboldt State University, the obvious choice for me was studio art. I had some great teachers there and learned a lot about drawing and oil painting. After receiving my bachelor’s degree in art I was full of enthusiasm and fresh artistic knowledge but had no idea what to do with it. I went back to carpentry, which I had learned from my father and was my summer job in my youth. About ten years later, I decided that I was going to quit my job as a carpenter and try to make a living as an artist. I had no idea what to do, or how to do it, but knew I’d never be happy unless I gave it a try.

My first attempt to make a career as an artist was as a tattoo apprentice. It was unfortunately an absolute failure. After 3 years I had to finally accept that there was no hope for me in the tattoo world. I was confused, depressed, and exhausted, and feeling like I should have just kept my construction job.

Then one day a friend of mine asked me to paint her a picture of a local landmark in Santa Cruz called Natural Bridges. It’s a beautiful place on the coast where she and her husband had been married, and she wanted to give him a painting of it for their anniversary. I asked another friend of mine named Neil Simmons, who is an amazing landscape photographer, if he had any photos of Natural Bridges that I could use for a reference. He emailed me about half a dozen and said paint away.

I chose one of the photos and used it as a reference for the anniversary painting. It was well received and I think I got about $200 dollars for it. That sale gave me an idea. I bought a few more canvases with the money from the sale. Then with his permission, I painted the rest of the Natural Bridges photos that Neil had given me. They all sold! Some of them sold to customers in the tattoo shop, and some sold to people who saw when I posted them on Facebook.

After that handful of sales, I knew what I had to do. First I quit my long and fruitless apprenticeship the tattoo shop. Then I used the money from the sales of those paintings to buy some more canvases. I started to paint all day and all night. I would put my mattress against the wall while I painted, then flop it down and go to sleep when I was exhausted. I only left my room to eat. I posted my paintings on Facebook and Instagram, and started hanging them up in local coffee shops, restaurants, and anywhere that would let me. There were months when I would barely make rent on time, but I somehow always managed to pull enough together to support myself, albeit modestly.

Over the last 10 years my art business has steadily grown. My local following has increased and is now quite strong, earning me “Best Local Artist” in 2023 and 2024 in the GoodTimes Magazine reader’s poll. I’m very grateful to have finally found a way to use my creative energy and artistic skills to make a living. I even appreciate all of the struggles that I met along the way. Without them I would have never learned many essential lessons, and I wouldn’t have been in the right place at the right time to get to where I am.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

Obviously failing to make it in the tattoo world after giving three years of my life to it was crushing. It was hard to have any confidence after such a colossal failure. But the beautiful thing about it was that taking that apprenticeship had finally forced me to commit to art. Even when I finally realized that I’d never make a dollar with tattoos, I felt that I had gone too far down the road of becoming an artist to go back. I was an artist and that was it.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I absolutely love to paint seascapes! I am intrigued by the way the light plays off of the waves, sometimes reflecting off the surface and sometimes penetrating through. The reflection of the sky on the wet sand at the ocean’s edge is something I’m obsessed with and am always emphasizing in my work. The ocean is also full of so much movement and life! There’s just so much to capture, I feel like a kid in a candy store every time I’m painting the coast.

I have taught myself to paint with acrylics using techniques that are usually associated with oil paints. I use a painting technique that involves several layers of varying opacity. The use of several layers of paint allows me to create subtle variations in texture and color that would be very difficult to achieve with one layer of paint, especially acrylics. My paintings tend to be very realistic, but also richly saturated, with colors that glow and evoke emotion. This combination of very precise detail and expressive and emotional color work is the basis of my painting style, which I call poetic realism.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?

I think the most important quality that I possess is tenacity. I have had countless disappointments and failures, but have always believed in myself enough to keep moving forward. Failing never feels good, but it’s the only way I think we ever really learn. I can usually look at something I failed at, and I can see some pretty obvious mistakes that I can correct in the future. Each time that happens, I learn something significant and it makes me better at what I’m doing. I think if you take risks you have to become comfortable with that process. It’s gotten to the point where failures get me kind of excited, because I know I’m going to make some big improvements because of them!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yeshejacksonfineart.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/@yeshejackson
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/yeshepaints