Breaking rank

A suburbanite, paintbrush in hand, goes inside to go rogue

Wes Jackson seemed more likely to be tossing coffee than coin. He spends his days working a job at a local bank branch; when I met him, he was wearing a purple T-shirt spattered with paint. He returns every evening to a Sapulpa home, in a mature neighborhood across from an industrial plant. On the outside, it’s like a mirror image of his neighbors’ home—the doors, brick, siding, and even the mailbox match. Inside, it’s a spanning canvas.

Murals cover two large walls floor-to-ceiling while a six-by-three-foot image, a composition of feathers and flowers, floats above the sofa. The north wall showcases flowing, flame-like figures in sharp, contrasting colors—red, white, black, and blue. On another wall are interwoven waves and banners. The designs flow but are meticulous and consistent.

Jackson walked me to his garage studio. “I had already been painting on stuff and making murals out here,” he said. Outside, the walls of Jackson’s garage are splashed with murals, too, some with funky, cartoon-like characters, in contrast with uniformity of the sweeping patterns on the walls inside.

I sat with Jackson, surrounded by countless hours of painting. His dog, a Chihuahua-and-Dachshund mix named Michelle, settled on my lap. He said I was one of the few to see these murals after he began the projects last year.

The work was freehanded, initially in marker. “I don’t have time to mess with pencil,” said Jackson. “I knew I was going to be painting while I was here. One day, I noticed I had some stains on my walls and tried to match it up … it looked awful.” He pulled out a marker and began to draw. After a week, Jackson stood back for a look and said, “Oh, that’s kind of OK.” He decided he wanted to paint every wall. “I want to sit here and be completely surrounded by color and lines and form and structure and see what it feels like, what that looks like,” he said.

“I’m learning more by doing this. They say if you want to be a master at something you have to spend 10,000 hours minimum. That is somebody’s shot from the hip number, but I like the idea of spending 10,000 hours doing something,” Jackson said. “Doing something like this is really easy. I have good nights and bad nights. Some nights I just come home; I had the idea in my head all day, it’s been stewing. Sometimes I come home and need to do the mechanics. I need the familiarity of that repetition, that familiarity of being able to focus on nothing and something at the same time. When I am there and doing that, I have peace.”

He believes his work at home has enriched his artwork—he sells at Shades of Brown on Brookside and SOFA Gallery in McAlester, to name a few—helping to adjust his perspectives and expectations. Painting, whether it’s on his walls or on canvas, is part of the artist’s daily routine. Still, he couldn’t paint all day. A starving artist is a “life choice, not an inevitability,” he said. “I’ve got bills to pay. That funds this and allows me to be a 30-year-old child who still wants to paint on the wall, make a mess and have fun.”

Jackson doesn’t plan to move anytime soon. “I’m going to live here, finish out the mortgage,” he said. Either way, there are plenty of blank walls. “What I get out of this is not the end image,” Jackson said. “That’s nice, that’s for you or anybody that comes in here. For me, it’s the point A to point B.”