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The Editor Meets...
Ashley Jackson
 Driving over from Wortley to Holmfirth is a history and geography lesson in its own right at any time but it was extremely appropriate to do so on a misty October morning when the mist played tricks with the light – or possibly the other way round – and half familiar landscapes emerged and then retreated as though on stage in an erratic sort of theatrical production.
There was atmosphere and drama in the light over the upper reaches of the Holme Valley and Daisy Lee Moor and the lone windmill at Longley Farm took on an ethereal look against a background on which a slowly emerging sun tried to paint late-season patterns. It was in short an Ashley Jackson sort of day.
Once he had settled me in with a cup of tea in his Holmfirth studio, Ashley confirmed that this was indeed his sort of day and that he was especially an autumn and winter painter. Not for Ashley the brash bright Mediterranean skies and seascapes or even the lush meadows and trees of a home-counties pastoral England. Rather the loneliness of moor and fell and stream and the atmosphere and drama of soft light, blue light, cold light and twilight. As he has written “it is indeed, a humbling yet uplifting experience to stand on the moor with a brush in your hand, capturing what you believe in your heart to be the essence and spirit of the moor…” And capture it he has for almost fifty years, using his gift and accumulated skill to communicate to thousands the very feeling of the moor and moor-edge scenes he portrays.
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Ashley is a Yorkshire man with a little of the style of the famous cricketers of recent times. Trueman, Illingworth, Close and Boycott have rarely been seen to be short of self-belief, and neither is Ashley. He is proud of his roots and continues to draw strength from them. A long-time resident of Holmfirth but brought up in Barnsley he is one of the town’s favourite sons – honing his skills at Barnsley School of Art (now Barnsley College) by night and obtaining priceless training (and a living) with sign-writer and gilder Ron Darwent. Shortly after his marriage to Anne he took the crucial first step towards a long-held ambition to be a professional artist and started a career that has become extremely productive and brought him widespread international recognition. In short he has become one of the country’s leading and most distinctive watercolour artists with his work hung in public and private collections throughout the world. Of this he is justifiably proud, retaining perhaps a special slice for the tribute paid him by Barnsley College when the Ashley Jackson Gallery housing twenty-six originals was opened in 1996. He has had over fifty one-man exhibitions and a considerable number of high profile entries in mixed exhibitions.
He is extremely well-known from his television work where his easy informative style has served to communicate both the technique and the joy of landscape drawing and painting to tens of thousands. To the TV viewer Ashley Jackson’s art was accessible not remote and elitist. It was seen to be genuine art created by someone staying close to nature and enhancing our understanding. He had his first series on the BBC on Pebble Mill at One in 1978 with a further series in 1985. In 1989 the critically acclaimed “A Brush with Ashley” was commissioned by Yorkshire TV continuing for no less than nine series over twelve years. His books have been extremely well received, none more so than Ashley Jackson’s Yorkshire Moors – a Celebratory Love Affair published by Dalesman in 2000.
Ashley is a mine of quotable quotes (and some that can most definitely not be quoted!). Asked how he approaches a new piece of work he responds by saying that he first and foremost goes for a walk and “the painting comes to me”. Ask him how he knows what will make a good painting he says simply “I look at something and if it makes the hairs on the back of my hands stand up – then I paint it” After all, as he has often said he is “very fortunate to be able to read Mother Nature’s love letters”. And a long and devoted love affair it has been; one that Ashley is more than happy to recognise as a passion. Fortunately he has been able to share some of that passion with us and as a fit looking sixty-four year old he shows no sign of reducing his output.
Never a great believer in reticence, Ashley has little time for what he terms phoney art (he labels it phart). When he argues that art should be available to everyone and not the fortunate few he extends his passions into the realms of political philosophy. This is an artist with an ability to not only parade and exploit his own rare talent but to also appear to be fighting a greater cause at the same time. This all serves to make him one of Yorkshire’s well known characters – something Ashley will certainly not mind – as long as it helps him to fulfil his vocation of communicating to us the drama, the moods and the glories of the natural world.
The Ashley Jackson Galleries are at 13/15 Huddersfield Road, Holmfirth and are open Monday to Saturday from 9.30 to 5pm. Website www.ashley-jackson.co.uk
Published Winter 2004. All information correct at time of print
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