How Art is Born Season 2

Episode 2

TRANSCRIPT

R. Alan Brooks:

Welcome to How Art is Born, a podcast from the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, about the origins of artists and the creative and artistic practices. I'm your host, R. Alan Brooks, artist, writer, and professor. Today, I'm joined by Denver-based, self-taught, multidisciplinary artist focused on photography and film direction, Blake Jackson. Say hello.

Blake Jackson:

How's it going?

R. Alan Brooks:

See, I make everybody do that so that they know, when they're listening, they're like, "What voice is different?"

Blake Jackson:

That's right. That's right.

R. Alan Brooks:

"Who's talking now?" Anyway, start us off, man. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are?

Blake Jackson:

Man, my name's Blake. I love long walks on the beach, blowing daffodils, watching them float off in the wind.

R. Alan Brooks:

Oh, really?

Blake Jackson:

No, my name's Blake. I'm from Cheyenne, Wyoming, the thriving metropolis of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Yeah. I moved to Denver in 2007, just trying to chase some dreams, and that dream led me to selling mattresses for about four years.

R. Alan Brooks:

That's how it goes.

Blake Jackson:

That's how it goes.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And stumbled my way to becoming a full-time creative somehow, someway.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay. Well, so let me ask you more specifically about this stuff. So you were born in Wyoming?

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. So I was born in Wyoming. I lived there until I was months old, like five or six months old. And then my mom, myself, and then my older brother, Jermaine, we moved down to Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And we lived there until I was about nine years old, then we moved back to Cheyenne.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

So my whole family generationally is from Cheyenne.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I mean, we're originally from the continent, but our family is traced back to Mississippi.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right on.

Blake Jackson:

So my grandpa worked for the railroad.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And when they built the Union Pacific Railroad in Cheyenne in, I want to say, the late '50s, early '60s, he moved our entire family to Cheyenne, and that's where we're from, man.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. So if you see a Black person in Wyoming, they're probably a family member of mine.

R. Alan Brooks:

That's pretty dope, man.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

All right. Well, let me ask you, what was your of first interaction with art? Was it creating? Was it as a fan? What grabbed you right away?

Blake Jackson:

Man, I've always been interested in art, but never considered it to be art until I was told it was art.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean? I've always been interested in cartoons. I've always been interested in comic books. I've always been interested in movies. But the first time I actually did something artistic was, I would always be doodling and drawing and things like that. And at the time when I was coming up, Dragon Ball Z was a thing.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

So I would be in the art class drawing a terrible Vegeta. You know what I mean? And the hairline looked great though. It looked very accurate. It looked very accurate, but the rest of the hair wasn't looking great.

R. Alan Brooks:

I just got to throw this out real quick.

Blake Jackson:

Yes.

R. Alan Brooks:

In a battle or a hip-hop, rap battle in my 20s, one of the lines I was most proud of, I said (singing). That's for the Dragon Ball fans. All right.

Blake Jackson:

Why did he not... I don't understand why he didn't have a nose.

R. Alan Brooks:

Me neither.

Blake Jackson:

That's wild. And then later on in the comic, he got hair too, and they shouldn't have did that. He looked ridiculous having hair.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hair and no nose.

Blake Jackson:

He was a family man and whatever, no nose. He had the dots on his head.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

It was crazy. So that was my first foray into it, and then I transitioned into writing. I was really into creative writing.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

Shout out to Mrs. P. She was our-

R. Alan Brooks:

Oh, nice.

Blake Jackson:

... creative writing teacher.

R. Alan Brooks:

Well, let me interrupt there and say, were you reading things that made you want to write or did you just kind of...

Blake Jackson:

No, no. I wasn't a voracious reader. I read if I had to read, for school. I read things that were short-form, like comic books.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

So I'd read a lot of comic books or short stories or I was in Goosebumps and stuff back in the day.

R. Alan Brooks:

Nice. Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And so, that kind of carried throughout my entire life of wanting to digest these stories in bite-sized chunks. So in my creative writing class, it would always be about writing the short stories, obviously, just to get to the point.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And I remember the first time I realized that I could make something that people weren't expecting was in the same creative writing class in high school.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

We had to write a little short story that was no longer than three minutes and we had to get in front of the class and read it. And I wrote this short story about this man who, it's kind of crazy to think that a 15-year-old would think of this kind of stuff, would go around the city and he would stab people and kill people and stuff.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

And every time he would do it, he's like, "I'm late. I'm about to be late. I'm about to be late." And so, the whole thing was about him, for some reason, being the serial killer that was always in a rush.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And I remember after writing it, after reading it, most times, everybody would get an applause. I didn't get any applause at the end of it, but I got a whole lot of, "What the hell was that?" But then all the kids would come up to me after class and the teacher would come up to me after class like, "Yes, that's phenomenal, but you're going to have to tone it down."

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean?

R. Alan Brooks:

That sounds as a distinct moment.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

You created something.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

You were able to see the effects on people.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. And it was also kind of concerning that at age 14, 15 years old, I was already thinking about making a horror story.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean? Where did that come from?

R. Alan Brooks:

What do you think appealed to you about that?

Blake Jackson:

I think anybody with depression is really cool with diving into the darker part to the recesses of their mind. And one of my first lasting memories, like a core memory of mine, was when I was living in Arizona. The first few years we were in Arizona, it was just me and my brother, my older brother, Jermaine. And for some reason, we were latchkey kids. Right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

So for some reason, he thought, while my mom and my stepdad were out doing stuff, it would be cool for us to sit down and watch Child's Play.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

Terrible idea. I was seven.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

It ruined me, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

And I remember having this big-time phobia of Chucky for forever, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

So maybe that was the jumping-off point of me being kind of okay with the darker things of life. You know what I mean?

R. Alan Brooks:

It's interesting. It's interesting that you came to it in that traumatic way, right?

Blake Jackson:

It was very traumatic.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

I had to go to therapy for it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Wow.

Blake Jackson:

I used to have panic attacks. Blockbuster, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

So we would walk into this Blockbuster in our neighborhood and they have those big cardboard cutouts of the cover of a upcoming film.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And they had one for Child's Play too. It was one where Chucky had the big scissors and he was about to cut the head off of one of those jack-in-the-boxes, and they had it right in front, like right when you walked in.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

And I walked in after my mother and she just keeps walking and she's talking and stuff thinking I'm behind her still. I'm frozen in fear-

R. Alan Brooks:

Wow.

Blake Jackson:

... staring at it. I couldn't move. I couldn't talk.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

That was my first time having a panic attack and I was like eight,-

R. Alan Brooks:

Wow, man.

Blake Jackson:

... eight, nine years old. So it left an indelible mark on my brain from that point. And I think that along with the way that we grew up, we grew up poor.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

We kind of had a pretty traumatic childhood. You know what I mean? I think that instance, along with being a kid with ADHD, diagnosed with that when I was in fifth grade, and having an overactive imagination and being okay with being alone with myself. I was okay with being by myself because I was cool with that.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

I had a lot of friends, but I found myself being alone, playing alone and writing alone, and doing all that stuff by myself. I wasn't completely a recluse, but I was okay with that. Kind of allowed me a lot of time to spend up in my head.

R. Alan Brooks:

Well, okay. So given all of that, how did art fit into that? Because for some people, art is an escape. Sometimes, it heals you. Sometimes, it's about sharing a message with the world. Did it function in any of those ways for you doing it?

Blake Jackson:

It was a mixture of all of that.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

So it was being able to go to a different world, for one. For two, it was just like, I wanted to be able to express myself.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And it's really hard for non-artists to understand that expression of using art as a form of expressing yourself, because we're able to do that through the language of our vocation, of our art, of our craft, as opposed to just being like, "Yeah, this is how I feel. This is my worldview. We can show them."

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

So it was that, and I just wanted to get what I wanted to say out. You know what I mean?

R. Alan Brooks:

Uh-huh.

Blake Jackson:

And it was just like one of those things where it's like, if you're an artist to your core, it's compulsive.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

You can't live without doing it. You can't survive without creating something.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right. Okay. So you're going through these experiences, you're dealing with trauma, you're working through all these things. And I think you said that one of the things that stood out to you was, you wanted to be able to say something through art. At that age, at that time, what was it that you felt like you wanted to say?

Blake Jackson:

I wanted to be able to... My whole life, man, I don't really feel like people have really thoroughly understood me.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

I have very close friends. I got people that I've known my entire life. And I think this is true for anybody. You can know somebody up to a point because you're not with them for their most intimate moments by themselves.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. You're not in their head.

Blake Jackson:

You're not in their head, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And so, I've always just been wanting to be able to get out this perspective of how I see the world, my worldview.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And I couldn't do that other than through art. And what's wild about my journey to becoming an artist, because I didn't consider myself to be an artist until 2018.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

2018, 2019 probably.

R. Alan Brooks:

Wow. I mean, I know you've been doing art.

Blake Jackson:

I've been making art my whole life and even at a professional level. But for some reason, I didn't consider myself to be an artist until... I quit my job to do photography full-time in 2017, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And it still took me a few years probably, maybe even to 2020, till I actually felt like I had to release the shackles of what I thought people wanted me to be.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And so, I was able to actually live as an artist,-

R. Alan Brooks:

Interesting.

Blake Jackson:

... express myself as an artist, dress the way I want to dress, because I can be like, "Yo, yes, you couldn't pull that off because you're not me. But since I am me, I can pull this off because it's the way that I feel. This is how I'm going to be able to express myself." Right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. The most me.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. This is the most me.

R. Alan Brooks:

Anyway... Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

When you think about The Matrix, which is a movie that literally changed my entire life, but in The Matrix, you have their subconscious expressions of themselves while they're in the Matrix. This is how I see myself, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And so, up until a few years ago or a couple years ago, I didn't really feel like I was able to fully lean into my vision of how I look at this world. Right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm.

Blake Jackson:

And in addition to that, the reason I didn't really feel like I was an artist was because it took forever for me, not only to find my voice, but to find something that I feel like I could stick with, because I'm an Aquarius through and through. I'm mercurial. I change my mind pretty quickly.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I can go one direction and change on a dime the next day.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And that kind of permeated throughout every part of my life, specifically with how I want to express myself creatively.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

I was drawing and I was pretty good at it, but I never dedicated myself to actually doing it for my whole life.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

I had this period where I was obsessed with it, and then I put it down.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

There's a period where I was writing a whole lot, and then I put it down.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean? And so, I think that's why I have this such big love for photography. And then by way of photography, filmmaking is because it's stuck.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

It's stuck. It's stuck. You know what I mean? It was finally something where I'm like, "I'm good at this. I can make a living doing this." And I am finally getting the people in my world to see what I've been trying to say this whole time.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

And so, that has been something that I've been able to hold on to.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

Now I'm going to say, I'm really interested in this, quote, unquote, "idea" of an artist, right?

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

Because if you were making photography, I've known you to make photography for much longer than before 2018.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

So was it the financial component that made you feel like, "I can support myself"? What made you feel like you're finally an artist?

Blake Jackson:

It was a feeling that my art wasn't compartmentalized.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

Instead of it being a waffle, it was a pancake, and the syrup was spreading out through all my pieces of my life.

R. Alan Brooks:

Interesting.

Blake Jackson:

So I didn't feel like I had to watch what I say to a degree.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. That's a good thing.

Blake Jackson:

That's a big thing. That might have gotten me in trouble the last couple years of being very expressive about my worldview, and it's probably cost me a bag because I'm very steadfast in my beliefs when it comes to liberation and anti-imperialism and being anti-capitalist and all that, right? But it allowed me to... 2020 was a really pivotal year for me because it forced me to slow down, it forced me to stop, and it forced me to focus on the world in a way that I hadn't focused on it before, and really get into this part of myself where my level of empathy could now be expressed in a way that was tangible.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

I've always been somebody that has cared for the underdog and the small person and the people that don't have a voice. But now, by way of what was happening in 2020, I was able to find a community that was able to allow me to put that empathy into people, whether it was through activism or through actions or mutual aid or digital activism or things of that nature, or philanthropy or fundraising. It really helps solidify what I feel like my role in my community can be.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

And then since then, it's evolved even more. So 2020 I think was... I say this a lot to my friends. If you were able to come out of 2020, period, you're winning, for one.

R. Alan Brooks:

No doubt.

Blake Jackson:

And for two, if you're able to come out of 2020 and have this ability to still hold on to that part of you that a lot of people lost because of how crazy 2020 was, that part of you must have stuck around for a reason. So lean into that a little bit.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

It just kind of solidified it. I think we, as a society, went through a whole lot and it strengthened us and then it traumatized us as well, a lot of things that went on during that time, but I think it really solidified what we believe to be what's right.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And what that's done for myself has allowed me to have a little bit more perspective of not only of my world and of what's going on in it, but being more aware of myself and how I walk within it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

And so, I've been able to use my art in a way to express myself in a manner that lines up with that dogma a little bit, but not necessarily hitting it nail on the head of like, "Okay. This photo signifies this," but more of, "Okay. You're going to find out who I am by way of my art, and then you're going to get this message on top of that." You know what I mean?

R. Alan Brooks:

No, that is dope.

Blake Jackson:

Because I use that as a Trojan horse to get people to listen to what I have to say.

R. Alan Brooks:

No, I love that, man. As you're talking, I feel like we have some interesting parallel paths. We come from different places. You come from a place where it sounds like you might have been the only Black face in a lot of surroundings. I come from Atlanta, which I didn't know any white people, but I was surrounded by people who did not understand art and, in some ways, resented it, and made me feel bad, like I was some flighty, selfish person, for wanting to express my creativity. Right?

Blake Jackson:

Right.

R. Alan Brooks:

And so, part of my journey was also moving to Denver because I had to get away-

Blake Jackson:

That's right.

R. Alan Brooks:

... from all the people who were choking what was valuable to me. And I remember my homeboys being like, "You move out to white boy land, see what happens," that kind of thing, right? But it's a cool thing because even when I moved here, it didn't all happen the way I wanted it to, just the way that you're talking about, but I put out my first graphic novel in 2017. You had your thing in 2017.

Blake Jackson:

That's right.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. So a lot of these things are happening, and we're both at the point where we're making a living off of our art. And it's a really interesting journey, but that whole thing for me is, I was filled with this fear of who I would damage if I was my fullest self,-

Blake Jackson:

Whoa.

R. Alan Brooks:

... and a lot of what you're talking about of learning to speak your most authentic voice. During 2020, I wrote and drew a short comic story for Denver Noir. It's like an anthology. I'm an only comic book person, but it's all noir stories. Right? And I wrote this story and I was like, "This is the blackest thing I ever wrote. They're going to hate it." You know what I'm saying? And they were like, "No, we love it." And I was like, "For real? I didn't get blacklisted?"

Blake Jackson:

Wow.

R. Alan Brooks:

And it is an interesting thing when I'm speaking in my most authentic voice, how that allows people to hear in their most authentic selves and it reaches them in a place where nothing else would.

Blake Jackson:

Man, it's weird. I have this two... That whole meme of you have two wolves inside of you. One of my wolves is, I really appreciate being recognized as being inspirational to somebody, and then the other wolf is like, "Hey, bro. I don't know. Sometimes, I find it really hard to clean my apartment." I have that self-doubt where I'm like, "Hey, don't..." I tell people that are complimentary of me and I'm like, "Hey, don't pedestal me because I'm a human being and I'm probably going to let you down." You know what I mean?

So I'm real, but I'm appreciative of it because I see so many people talk about how you need to do what you have to do for yourself, and you shouldn't rely on other people to put the battery in your back. And I believe in that. You have to be self-motivated and you have to be self-driven to able to do something, but that's a lonely existence, because a lot of times, you miss the forest from the trees, and sometimes you don't realize. You're like, "Damn, am I doing this for nothing? Am I doing this for nothing?" No one's going to see it, let alone not connect with it. No one's going to be able to...

But then when you get somebody that can reach out to you and say, "You inspired me to take a chance on myself," or "You inspired me to go out on faith and not be afraid to speak my truth," that, to me, is much more fulfilling than any type of article that gets written about me or any type of interview I do or any type of accolade or any type of bag or check I get, because I am so inspired by the people that are in my life and I'm so thankful to have them as my inspiration that keeps me going. And to be that for somebody else, it's one of those things where it hits two parts of yourself, where it gives you that surface-level ego boost where you're like, "Okay, cool. That's nice."

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

I appreciate being appreciated.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

But it also gives me, for me, as somebody that is deeply emotional and deeply passionate and deeply takes things, and I romanticize everything in my life to a degree that may or may not be healthy, but it's feeling like you can make somebody want to do something that they felt that they couldn't do. It's like, "Yo, that's the thing. That's the shit right there, man. That's where it comes from. That's what it's all about."

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. It's an interesting thing to try to divide empty praise from real connection, right?

Blake Jackson:

Shit, man.

R. Alan Brooks:

I militantly resist people who try to gas me up. "Yo, you killing it. You know what I'm saying? You're doing it," because that means nothing. It gives you nothing, and it'll go away as quickly as it came. But when you have that person who's... For me, it'll be like, "I read something that you wrote and it made me think about my whole life in a whole different way," that kind of stuff.

Blake Jackson:

That's it, dude.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. That's the most beautiful gift.

Blake Jackson:

Why the hell are we doing this if we can't connect with people at that level?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

You look at the way the world is set up, man. It's been hard enough as it is. Life was crazy hard before the world got weird. I had an argument... I don't know if argument, but debate with a couple of friends of like, "Yo, I feel like 2020 was the weirdest year in human existence." And my friends were like, "What do you mean? We had the Crusades. We had the Salem witch trials." I'm like, "Yes, that's awful, but the things that we deal with would boggle the minds of the people that dealt with that kind of stuff."

R. Alan Brooks:

Uh-huh.

Blake Jackson:

Obviously, the technology would...

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

I think about the joke of giving a Sour Patch Kid to a pilgrim. It would just kill them. Right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Right. Right.

Blake Jackson:

But just the thing, the weirdness of living through that time.

R. Alan Brooks:

Uh-huh.

Blake Jackson:

And then since then, because we live in a post-truth society now, where it's like, "Oh, shit. You can just say something is true or not and that's Bible," even if it's incorrect.

R. Alan Brooks:

And clearly incorrect.

Blake Jackson:

And clearly incorrect. You can just be like, "No, that's my reality."

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

Oh, wow. That's crazy.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean? So I think we are just dealing with so much uncertainty, and the world is burning and all that. And I was commiserating yesterday with my friends and I was just like, "Hey man, what's the point of all this?" You know what I'm saying? We're out here trying to make a difference in the world with our art, but the world is changing fundamentally in a way that we probably can't even comprehend quite yet. Right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

So I'm like, "What's the point? We should just batten down the hatches and take care of our family? What's the point of trying to make it?" quote, unquote.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And my friend was like, "Hey, first of all, you're just going through a weird thing that all creatives go through," and I'm like, "Yes, I know you're right," because that's what happened. That's the roller coaster.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

But he's also like, "Yeah, but what's the point of living if we always have to be worrying about dying, we always have to be worrying about the things that are most dire? What's the point of living if we're always just going to be surrounded by this darkness? Darkness that we can use is useful. Darkness where we can... The shadow work and the things that we do, that is important when it comes to dealing with the things that we don't want to deal with. That's great. But to be overwhelmed by the world? What's the point, man?"

Like you were saying, you have the surface-level stuff, but the things that I hold on to, man, is walking away from a conversation with somebody you fuck with or even as a stranger and being like, "Yo, we saw each other as humans."

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I mean? We saw each other as human beings, so that's crazy.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. You were talking about empathy, right? Art is such a powerful way to teach empathy because it puts you really in someone else's shoes in a way that you can't in any other way. You can feel their experiences. You can hear their thoughts.

A few weeks ago, I was walking down Broadway and a trans woman ran up. Now, online, I'm R. Alan Writes. So, somebody who's never heard it out loud. So a trans woman runs up and says, "Oh my God, are you Alan Writes?" which is funny to me, but I was like, "Yeah. Yeah, yeah." And they were really engaged in the weekly comic I do for The Colorado Sun. But the thing that was such a victory to me is, I grew up in an environment that was anti-gay, anti-trans, and people were all like, "Manhood," and "Hood, hood."

Blake Jackson:

Yeah, yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

You know what I'm saying?

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

And to think that I came from that but was able to create art that resonated so much with somebody from this demographic that they felt overjoyed...

Blake Jackson:

Imagine saying that to a seven-year-old you.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh. Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

Imagine saying that that's what would happen in your life. You're like, "That's crazy. That's crazy. There's no way."

R. Alan Brooks:

Right. That they feel so touched that they can run up to me enthusiastically and greet me.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah, dude.

R. Alan Brooks:

That, to me, is the highest gift of being an artist.

Blake Jackson:

And it's wild because it's hard to talk about these experiences with people that are fans of your work and not feel like you're bragging about it, right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

And I think, depending on your tone obviously, you can tell if someone's just trying to humble-brag or just trying to gas themselves or whatever. And who's to say that we can't let them do that? Life is hard enough. Let them have their shine.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

But when we talk about these instances where you make a difference with somebody, it's like, yes, you're feeding... It's for you, but it's also like, "Hey man, you're giving a part of your soul to these people and they're taking care of it."

R. Alan Brooks:

Yes. That's a beautiful way to say it.

Blake Jackson:

They're being good shepherds of this piece of yourself that you're given to them because they understand it and they're like, "Oh, I really appreciate it and I want to tell you how much I appreciate this part of yourself that you gave me." And I can think of so many instances where somebody... I was able to connect with somebody by talking with them about their art.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

Right? And that, in turn, allowed me to want to carry on in a way that will allow me to create in a way that will make somebody else feel the way that art has made me feel.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And so, it's just like this ripple effect, this butterfly effect of inspiring people and how much that can change a perspective. Right? Our entire lives are confined between our eyeballs here, our ears, our gray matter. That's our entire world. Right? And when you're able to give somebody something that gives them that dopamine hit or gives them that feeling in their stomach of like, "Finally, I saw something or I witnessed something or I read something or I heard something that makes my soul sing," it's like, yo, you're changing their perspective on the world. And that in itself, while yes, that makes me feel good, that makes me feel good, that makes us feel good, but that is literally, in my opinion, what we're put on this earth to do.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

We weren't put on this earth to consume. We weren't put on this earth to dominate. We weren't put on this earth to have these experiences. While yes, we are put on this earth to be happy and things like that, it's about... One of the reasons why... I grew up in a very religious thing, household. Well, my actual household wasn't crazy religious, but my family, my extended family, was very religious.

R. Alan Brooks:

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

So my mom came from that, so we still had to go to church and stuff. But inside the home, we weren't really crazy religious, but we were going to church two, sometimes three times a week. You know what I'm saying? And one of the things that kind of pushed me away from traditional religion was this whole idea of fear.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

I'm supposed to fear this omnipotent being that put me on this earth? And not only am I supposed to fear this omnipotent being, I need to praise him for my suffering and I need to also be put on this earth to suffer, depending on what religion? I got Catholic friends. They can probably tell you that. I grew up Southern Baptist, fire and brimstone, like, "You're going to hell, hell."

R. Alan Brooks:

Right, right.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I'm saying? "If you look at that woman down the street, you're going to hell." You know what I'm saying? All that kind of stuff.

R. Alan Brooks:

Were they doing the tongues too?

Blake Jackson:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. Okay.

Blake Jackson:

The thing about it... Side note, I wish I would've appreciated going to church more, because now that I've looked back on it, while I'm away from it, I'm like, "Bro, that was just some of the most..." You can only experience that in a Black church, those things, of somebody catching the Holy Spirit and falling out,-

R. Alan Brooks:

No doubt.

Blake Jackson:

... and speaking in tongues or hitting the drums crazy, and sweating.

R. Alan Brooks:

In that way. Right. Right.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I'm saying? And sweating through the suit. As Black people, that is something that is uniquely ours.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I'm saying? And that is something that... While I'm not religious anymore, I'm not a practicing Christian or anything like that, I'm very, very spiritual in the way that I look at the world as just one unified being or whatever. But that's one thing where I'm like, "You need those kind of institutions." Even though I'm not a churchgoing person, I understand the importance of a church because that's a gathering place.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

That's where everybody can go. That's how people can connect. That's the fellowship.

R. Alan Brooks:

And civil rights movement.

Blake Jackson:

The civil rights movement.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

That's where people can get fed. That's all that stuff.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And so, that's humanity at its most pure. It's when you put in these other isms inside of it and you corrupt that and turn it into something else. It's like, you lose a piece of that.

R. Alan Brooks:

The analysis of it is dope, man.

Blake Jackson:

Mm.

R. Alan Brooks:

So, for me, a church moved into my neighborhood when I was 13. My mom took me, we joined. It was like 50 people. By the time I was 17, it was 20,000. Right? Now, those early days were all community. It was all, "Come as you are. God wants you to be your best self, your truest self." But by the time it got super big, it was, "What kind of suit are you wearing?"

Blake Jackson:

It's a business.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

It's a business.

R. Alan Brooks:

It was super classy, it's so hierarchical, and reinforcing racism. It was an all-Black church, but it was very much reinforcing every terrible hateful... And for me, as a young Black man, I was the worst. You know what I'm saying? I was the target of all their ire.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

So you and me know each other from the dance community, hip-hop.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah, bro. Over at Goodness. You know what I'm saying?

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

And so, for me, the first place I danced was in church.

Blake Jackson:

That's it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

That's it.

R. Alan Brooks:

So I definitely still carry that with me, man. And so, when I'm on that dance floor, that's pretty much why I don't get to know people, because I basically just come in, go straight to the dance floor.

Blake Jackson:

That's it, baby.

R. Alan Brooks:

And that is my connection with God.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. And it's so much deeper than the surface-level stuff that you could see for other sects of Christianity in the United States, especially if it's like a Southern Baptist church, a Baptist church, that is directly a descendant of what we had to go through when we... Part of the diaspora. We had the enslaved population. That's how they communicated with everybody, through hymns and through dancing and things like that.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

So it's so deeply rooted in this idea of overcoming, and that's something that has always been... Something that has sat with me in a good way of the message that I would take away from, the overarching message I would take away from, if I can look back on the time when I was going to church a lot, was this idea of, "We'll overcome this. We'll overcome this together." And that's why you have these civil rights movements organize through the church because it's all about, "We are not going to allow our station in life to remain this way. We're going to overcome this by the grace of God if that's what you want to do."

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. I feel like I should also bring out... And you know this, but I feel like, for people listening, during that time, the church was one of the few places that Black people could gather-

Blake Jackson:

That's it.

R. Alan Brooks:

... without police trying to break it up or us being attacked. So the civil rights movement had to come because it's the only place we could talk,-

Blake Jackson:

Had to. Had to, man. Had to.

R. Alan Brooks:

... which is just crazy.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

All right. So we were talking about how people react to art. And with you doing photography and film, I would love if you have an example of when you created something where somebody specifically talked about how it affected them.

Blake Jackson:

Man, there's a few instances, but I would say it was... I have a couple of instances specifically.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I actually have a few. But the one I want to speak about specifically was, while the uprising was happening in 2020, I was going to a lot of protests. At first, I was going there to document.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I wanted to be able to be a fly in the wall, take it in, take photos, and just really approach it from a photojournalistic standpoint of, "This is an important time."

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

I didn't see any Black photographers out there or brown photographers out there. And so, this is our plight, and a class plight as well, but I wasn't seeing... We were being displayed in a manner that felt like trauma porn.

R. Alan Brooks:

Through other people's eyes.

Blake Jackson:

Through other people's eyes.

R. Alan Brooks:

No doubt.

Blake Jackson:

So that's what prompted me to go out there. And subsequently, things changed once I got tear-gassed the first time, and I was like, "Wait a second." Something clicked, and I was like, "Hold on." I don't want to be someone that's just taking photos of this, document it. I want to be someone that is a part of this movement and really tried to fulfill a role within that community.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

But before that, I went to a protest that was over in the Montbello area, and everyone had their fists up and things like that. So I took a photo of this gentleman's fist raised the air and titled it Break Our Chains.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

And that photo was probably the first time I could really see that I have a responsibility with my lens. I have a responsibility of what I take. I have a responsibility of my perspective, and I have a responsibility to make sure that I do it in a light that is going to be authentic because I'm not just some random dude.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

I'm not just some random guy that you're going to find, like some people who are paying attention. That's when things changed a little bit for me of being like, I thought I was living within my purpose of being a creative and I knew I had to go deeper, a little bit deeper, because a lot of people reacted to that image in a way that felt like it gave them a sense of revolutionary spirit.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

It gave them a battery in their back.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

So I was like, "Okay. All right. Well, now that I know that people can identify with my work in that way, I have to be very intentional with how I do it, regardless of the subject matter, regardless if it's from a street photography, a perspective, or from making a short film. I have to be very, very conscious of that."

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

So that was probably one of the times that I was able to realize that people are receiving my art in the way that I wanted to.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm. Okay.

Blake Jackson:

Mm-hmm.

R. Alan Brooks:

That's dope.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

That's really dope.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

All right. We talked about artistic insecurities and things that we have kind of overcome and stuff like that. I think all artists, at some point, experience it.

Blake Jackson:

Man.

R. Alan Brooks:

So, for you, especially at this point where you finally consider yourself an artist, what is it like when you feel that fear and then what do you do to move through it?

Blake Jackson:

Aw, man. I feel like I have self-doubt. It goes on and off like a light switch. You know what I mean? As somebody that has, their whole life, been someone that's been very hyperactive and I can't focus on one project, I have to do a million things at once, or else I feel like I'm not doing anything. It's been that way since I was a child.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm.

Blake Jackson:

So I deal with doubt on probably a weekly basis, of like, "Man, it was all good just a week ago. Now I'm feeling like I can't do anything right." What gets me out of that is just time.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

It's just what it is. From somebody whose brain works the way mine does, where I'm very much... Not only do I romanticize everything, I overanalyze every bit of my existence and every interaction that I've had with every person. I remember conversations that went poorly in the second grade. I remember everything. So I overanalyze everything.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And I think that is relatively common for an artistic brain just because... We can say that we create art and this is what it is and take it or leave it, but we make art so people can look at the art.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

We don't make the art so we can... I mean, some people make art and never show it off. I mean, more power to them.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

But if you're like me, you make art so people can fucking see the art.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I'm saying? So there's that insecurity that creeps in a whole lot. But for me, I have to just go through it. My insecurities are... My emotions are directly tied to if I feel like I'm fulfilling what I need to be doing as an artist or not.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

It's directly tied to that. They're irreparably tied. I can't separate the two things because I live as an artist. I can't just put it over there.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

It's all in here all the time. So I have to deal with that. When I say time, it's like, "Yo, you have to take the time to work." I'm a big proponent of, when I'm giving advice to people and they're going through stuff and they're coming to me like, "Man, my life is fucked up right now. I don't know what to do. What should I do?" I'm like, "Hey," and they feel all these groundswell of emotions and they're like, "Yo, I don't know what to do with them." I'm like, "You just need to feel those emotions. Feel them and stop trying to repress them. Work through them and you'll get through them and you'll be fine."

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

And then I have to remember that when I'm going through it,-

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh. That's a challenge.

Blake Jackson:

... of like, "Hey man, you know this is what happens. This is what you signed up for."

R. Alan Brooks:

It's a regular cycle.

Blake Jackson:

"This is what's going to happen. You're just going to have to deal with it. You're going to have to work your way through it, and then you're going to be fine." And so, it's one of those things where I just have to give myself the time to be in that position of not feeling inspired or not feeling like I'm worth a damn or not feeling like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. Just feel those, work my way through it, and I just know that I'm going to come out of it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

If you live long enough and you go through enough crap, you know you're going to come out of it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

It just sucks while you're going through it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

So you just got to go through it and get yourself through that. And one of the things that my mom was really trying to preach to me a few weeks ago... I was really going through it a few weeks ago, really, really down the dumps. And she could tell. I was back home in Wyoming and she's like, "You seem... What's going on?" And I'm just like, "I'm fine. I'm just going through stuff, man," and just, "Mom, I'll get through it." And she's just like, "You don't ever confide in anybody. You don't ever reach out to anybody for help. You never reach out to speak your mind about what you're going through. You just deal with it. You just shoulder it."

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And I've done that my whole life. And what she had taught me is that... So I'm a recovering alcoholic.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

So I stopped drinking on October 21st, 2015. Right?

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

And so, I was partying all the time, doing a lot of drugs, drinking every single day.

R. Alan Brooks:

Uh-huh.

Blake Jackson:

And I had done so many bad things during that course of being an addict that didn't stop me from being an addict.

R. Alan Brooks:

Hmm.

Blake Jackson:

The thing that stopped me from being an addict was people finding out that I was an addict.

R. Alan Brooks:

Uh-huh.

Blake Jackson:

That's what did it. It wasn't driving drunk. It wasn't putting my life at risk. It wasn't putting other people's life at risk. It wasn't any of that.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

It was finally people seeing me for what I actually was. That's what got me to stop.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

And what I realized through that was, it didn't make me weaker that they found out about it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

It didn't make me feel worse in their eyes because they found out about it. It actually enriched all my relationships and it enriched all the things that was going on and made them stronger because I'm human.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

Right? And so, that's another thing. It's going to be a mixture of time. You just got to go through it, feel those emotions, but you have to be okay with reaching out to people and being like, "Hey man, I'm not doing too great right now," even if that has to do just with your art. If you're feeling that doubt, you have to confide in some people and be like, "Hey man, I'm not feeling that."

R. Alan Brooks:

I got to say, man, first of all, props to your mom, but...

Blake Jackson:

She's the best, man. Mary Gadlin, shout out to you. I know you're listening. You listen to all my stuff. You watch all my things, so I love you.

R. Alan Brooks:

It's something very specific. A parent at their best can give you a perspective on yourself that nobody else can give,-

Blake Jackson:

Oh, it's crazy.

R. Alan Brooks:

... because they've seen you your entire life.

Blake Jackson:

No, she didn't say anything groundbreaking.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

She just said, "You need to reach out to people more." Duh!

R. Alan Brooks:

Yes.

Blake Jackson:

That's what you should...

R. Alan Brooks:

But it came from her. It was the thing.

Blake Jackson:

But it came from her. It was a hit.

R. Alan Brooks:

Are you a parent?

Blake Jackson:

I am.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I am.

R. Alan Brooks:

So how has that impacted your approach to art?

Blake Jackson:

Aw, man. It's impacted it in the sense of... I think so much about... Man, it's crazy to say this, but I think about what I'm going to leave behind all the time.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

All the time. I think about, what are people going to think of me when I'm gone? What am I going to leave behind as far as a legacy and stuff like that? I can't help but think that way.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah.

Blake Jackson:

And so, with my daughter, Ava, it's that now, like tenfold, of like...

R. Alan Brooks:

How old is she?

Blake Jackson:

She just turned one.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

She turned one in June.

R. Alan Brooks:

Oh, wow. Recent. Okay. Dope.

Blake Jackson:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Miss Ava Sky.

R. Alan Brooks:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Jackson:

So it's one of those things where... With her, she's allowed me to look at life through a lens that is a lot more pure and unadulterated and unfiltered and unbastardized. Right? When I pick her up and I sit her on the fence and we're looking out at the wilderness, none of the pretexts of adulthood is in there.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

It's all about, "Hey, look, there's a plane." So it takes that away. So it forces me to realize that none of this stuff I'm worrying about really matters. All these things in my head about doesn't really matter. And so, that should allow me to create a little bit more freely, as opposed to being so caught up in like, "Hey man, it has to be perfect." You know what I mean?

R. Alan Brooks:

I like that, man.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah, man. Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

All right. We kind of wrap up with asking people what's their... What's your current geek guilty pleasure?

Blake Jackson:

Oh my God, bro. Okay. I don't have any guilty pleasures. I don't believe in guilty pleasures. All my pleasures are innocent,-

R. Alan Brooks:

Without guilt.

Blake Jackson:

... are with my whole chest. But something that... I have two things that I'm obsessed with that are nerdy as fuck.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

All right. So I'm obsessed with this video game called Hades.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

It's a dungeon crawler, rogue-like game where you're trying to go through the five levels of hell to get to the surface. It's awesome.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I've been obsessed with this game. I can't stop playing it. So that's one. Two is my growing VHS collection. I'm up to 100 VHSs now.

R. Alan Brooks:

You have a VCR?

Blake Jackson:

I have a VCR that doesn't work unfortunately now. It did work until the other day.

R. Alan Brooks:

Huh.

Blake Jackson:

And luckily, the tape I put in there was in a good tape because it destroyed it.

R. Alan Brooks:

Oh, wow.

Blake Jackson:

But yeah, I have an actually kind of embarrassing VHS collection of all the movies I grew up on.

R. Alan Brooks:

Dope.

Blake Jackson:

You know what I'm saying?

R. Alan Brooks:

That's dope.

Blake Jackson:

So I just found Purple Rain recently. You know what I mean? It's the thrill of the hunt.

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

People are like, "Yo, you can go in eBay." I'm like, "Nah, man. I want to find it in the wild."

R. Alan Brooks:

Right.

Blake Jackson:

They're like, "Yo, you can buy it off..." And I'm like, "Nope. Nah, I got to find it in the wild because it's the thrill of finding that."

R. Alan Brooks:

Oh, that's cool, man.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

All right. What's next for you artistically? What's your next direction?

Blake Jackson:

Aw, man. I got something I'm working on right now. I'm very excited about it. I can't talk about it yet, but it's something...

R. Alan Brooks:

That's when you know it's good.

Blake Jackson:

If it goes through, it's the goal that I've been wanting to do with my career, my whole artistic life. So if we can actually do it, that'd be great. So I got that going on. I got my Movie Night series with my podcast, Popcorn and Jalapeños.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

I co-host that with Nate Bishop. Shout out to Ghost Robot and...

R. Alan Brooks:

Everybody can find that on, and all that.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we recorded for about a year. We're taking a break from recording, but we're still doing live events.

R. Alan Brooks:

Okay.

Blake Jackson:

And so, you can find our Instagram, @popcornandjalapenospod. That's where we're most active. And we're doing a Movie Night series, and we have something very exciting coming up in October. And so, that's what I'm working on right now, man.

R. Alan Brooks:

Good, man.

Blake Jackson:

Yeah.

R. Alan Brooks:

Pleasure talking to your, brother. I appreciate it.

Blake Jackson:

Thank you.

R. Alan Brooks:

Yeah. Thank you for being here. It was a really cool conversation. This was huge.

Blake Jackson:

Man, this was great, man. This was a great conversation. I appreciate you, bro.

R. Alan Brooks:

Again, I feel like we've known each other for over a decade and this is the longest we've ever talked.

Blake Jackson:

I know. It's crazy. I know. That's crazy.

R. Alan Brooks:

So thanks to our listeners. Be sure to subscribe to How Art is Born wherever you get your podcast for more episodes. And if you can leave a review, it really helps us out. Check out MCA Denver on YouTube and subscribe there too for behind-the-scenes clips from today's episode.