Ashley Jackson - Ashley Jackson: The Yorkshire Artist: A Lifetime of Inspiration Captured in Watercolour

Ashley Jackson: The Yorkshire Artist

A Lifetime of Inspiration Captured in Watercolour

Ashley Jackson

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

P EN & S WORD L OCAL

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street,

Barnsley,

South Yorkshire.

S70 2AS

Copyright Ashley Jackson, 2017

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 47389 800 4

eISBN 978 1 47389 802 8

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47389 801 1

The right of Ashley Jackson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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Like most Yorkshire people I work and live in an urban area. Our industrial heritage is a source of great pride and I am immersed in projects to regenerate it. But where is the countys soul?

You must turn your eyes to the tops to the hills, to the valleys and moorlands that are never far away, even if you are based in a town or city. Poets and authors have distilled the essence of our landscapes the Bronts spring to mind but visual art offers an immediate and vivid way to capture Yorkshires moods, from benign and beautiful to harsh and uncompromising.

To achieve this, you must be a poet with your paintbrush and you must have an abiding passion for Yorkshire. Ashley Jackson has these qualities in abundance.

His technique is unimpeachable, but his vision and unquenchable love for our landscapes, in all their temperamental glory, are the elements that make him Yorkshires artist laureate.

The places he depicts are timeless and the same goes for his work. But this book makes that point far more effectively than any words of mine...

Professor Bob Cryan CBE DL FREng

Vice-Chancellor, University of Huddersfield

To my daughter Claudia Berettoni, I wish to thank her for bringing together this unique collection of paintings and collaborating with me not just on this book but over the last fourteen years.

As you know, I truly believe that if Ashley were to be cut in half he would say Yorkshire through and through, such is his passion for the landscape that we call Gods County... important as his words are it really is for his paintings to speak for themselves. The raw passion and dramatic atmosphere of an incoming storm or the flashes of colour in a moorland fire, he is adept at emotionally connecting you with his imagery because it is truly a love affair and besides his wife there is nothing else that comes close. He may be alone on the moor but not in the emotional, isolated way that many would feel, when stood out in the open landscape without a soul in sight.

This book, his paintings and his project Framing the Landscape will be his legacy. I know that I am biased, as I am his daughter but, putting family loyalties to one side, I sincerely believe his paintings, like a good bottle of wine, have gained more depth, tone and power through the years... not to say that he has rested, for the last fifty years he has honed his skills, becoming more at one with his mistress.

Claudia Berettoni

The Yorkshire moors have always pulled at my inner soul from the young age of nine years old and now as my age moves as quickly as cats eyes on the motorway, I can honestly say I have grown deeper in love with her. For she is a woman to me; with her soft and wild nature, the perfumed scent of heather blowing around you and her voice, the wind blowing in your face. How can you not paint her beauty when she enthrals you?

I have been sincerely fortunate for I have been in heaven for the last sixty years, whilst being able to bring up a family solely from my love of the Yorkshire moors captured within a watercolour through my hands, my passion and my eyes.

Years go by as fast as cats eyes on a motorway.

The art of living is to make use of what

youve got and use it to the full.

Most people dont know what they are

living for, but once you have found out

you have the jewel of life.

(Ashley Jackson, 1969)

This book contains paintings old and new from the last fifty-four years of my life, each holding a different chapter. I hope that you will read my love letters from Mother Nature and my soul with enjoyment.

It is not a book that needs to be read from start to finish but is one that can be picked up and put down, savouring each page as an individual chapter, immersing yourself in the landscape and perhaps bringing with it your own personal memories of a location you too might have visited.

Throughout my career I have tried to be the peoples artist, wishing my paintings to be accessible and not requiring a dictionary or this way up written behind it so that when exhibited curators know which way to hang them. I wish my paintings to speak for themselves.

Alone with my thoughts and mistress, the moor.

You are never truly alone on the moor, with the wind blowing through your hair, feeling the sun on your face, for your inner self is with you and your soul will talk to you in spirit.

The sun will burn you

The rain will wet you,

The wind will chill you,

But only people will make you cry

So paint what you feel and not

What will sell.

(Ashley Jackson, 1962)

I have tried to capture a strong reminder of how small we are in the grand scheme of life. Mother Nature is as harsh as snow blizzards on an isolated moor, or as gentle as morning sunlight on the grass, but of all lifes certainties, she will carry on without us.

I am still hungry and art is still the blood that courses through my veins, but if I died tomorrow I know that I have lived... (Ashley Jackson, 2010)

Although most fires are destructive, moorland fires, when started for the right reasons and not arson, are a rejuvenating process. From out of the ashes new growths seek the newly-created daylight. Previously smothered by old growth, the new is given the chance of life.