My childhood was rich. I was raised in a secure family, dwelling in the nostalgically beautiful southern town of Clarksdale, Mississippi, which sits on the Sunflower River, a small tributary of the Mississippi River, the widest river in the world and arguably the most aggressive. This majestic entity—and its parallel levee—has appropriately been the setting for masterpieces by the literary Greats: Eudora Welty, Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, Walker Percy, among others.
My childhood in the Mississippi Delta taught me almost everything I needed to know about creativity, particularly the art of storytelling through the written word. The local librarian held reading circles presenting books on faraway places as well as Mississippi’s indigenous and seemingly exotic Seminole Indians, the school nuns at St. Elizabeth encouraged the written word and pretty penmanship, and Mississippi storytellers always, by default, could find an audience for their newly released books themed on pride, heritage or grandma’s recipes.
Picturesque, with wide streets, large oaks and antebellum homes and boasting expansive porches — my neighborhood, is one of the oldest in the Delta and is a unique incubator for great writers of artistry and cadence. Historically, Clark Street has been home to acclaimed wordsmiths such as 20th century writer Tennessee Williams to contemporary writer Wright Thompson (among others). During my childhood, book readers and collectors dotted Clark Street, and I had full access to the expansive library of Walter and Mary Thompson (parents to Wright Thompson) just next door. The Thompsons’ inventory of books warped library shelves then spilled over under sofas and antique buffets, filled attics and even rested on powder room and kitchen counters. To my young eyes, it seemed like a sea of over a million books. I can still remember standing in the Thompsons’ grand foyer and smelling aged, brittled pages of Shakespeare — a leather bound, square art form with a red ribbon for marking pages, that only a Renaissance craftsman could achieve.
Also my high school teacher at Lee Academy (named for Robert E. Lee; our school newspaper the General’s horse, the Traveler.), Ms. Thompson encouraged my love of words, perhaps intuitively realizing that books were a way not necessarily a way for me to escape but to belong. Belonging can be described a a primal human motivation to connect with something or someone, and for me it was the tales of wonder and wander by Ernest Hemingway’s adventures through Caribbean or John Steinbeck’s daring migrations across the dust-bowled west. Though I was a popular kid, I didn’t seem to have the close relationships and associations with any clique or social group, sequestering myself sometimes from the world — in books. “We feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home,” Maya Angelou poignantly observed in Letter to My Daughter, “a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.”
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I shared equal love for my parents — Leslie Charles and Jacqueline Martin Jacob — and they created a hybrid of art and entrepreneurship of which I magically became.
My mother encouraged the arts and books, and my father, business and financial independence through eduction and sheer willpower. They shared the expectation of hard work and perfectionism; details and fine lines were critical to excellence, both in school and at home.
Jacqueline M. Jacob had a smile that could knock out a room and that’s what I remember most about her. Raised in small town Alabama, she had a southern drawl of long i’s and spoke in contractions as much as possible. Mama’s hair was dark black with a small patch of grey on the right side, a defiant Baptist, she always believed “that’s where an angel kissed her.” She was a corridor to kindness and the template of a virtuous woman, the practice of which she lived; the verses in Proverbs 31:10-31, highlighted and underlined in her Bible. She was the temple of Goodness and her gift was giving. Her eyes were crystal blue like a clear sky and danced in the rhythm to her deep-hearted laugh, which was constant.
My mother could have written a manual on introducing one’s children to art and books. She was often juggling a full-time job and motherhood, always hauling me off to creative writing lessons, dance lessons, piano lessons, or art lessons, even if that meant late at night or early in the morning before school bells rang. My heart would flutter like a jackrabbit at the anticipation of engaging in that world of creativity, strategically packing my red backpack the night before with selected sheet music, pens, books, or paints. For me, the extra circular activities were a barometer of well-achieved academics, as straight A’s were required in order to engage in the after-school activities. Also, sometimes I got the feeling that my mother’s pride for me depended on how much I excelled at these art forms. Perfectionism would become subtle, silent barometer, adding a present (sometimes fussy) rhythmic percussion of delusion and false self worth. Keep reading.)
My mother, a great reader of books, would orate to me every night until, by the young age of four, I could read on my own. I, in my childish way, applauded her wizardry with the English language and her empathetic renderings of words to make the stories come alive. Sometimes, she would pause and challenge me on a spelling word, still a challenge as I see many letters backwards and upside down. My older sister Rachael, who could not keep her eyes open past sundown, quietly nested beside us, a closed-up bottle of fireflies often by our antique, quilted bed.
My love of photography is deeply rooted in my mother’s love of candid imagery, and a camera was ever present in our homes and lives. She was known to have two or three cameras strapped around her neck at dance recitals, graduations or casual family outings. Her archive is a detailed series of images of the Jacob home and our progress as a family. Her style direct and documentary, her camera varied from RCA video cameras to polaroid cameras. Her photographs and cameras are still in my archive.
I mastered the piano, dance, and writing, erring the weight that she was difficult to please and experiencing the disappointment when I thought I had failed to please her. We lived on Clark Street, about two blocks from our Catholic school, St. Elizabeth, where I was trained on the piano two-three times a week by Mrs. Tavoletti. One cold morning, moving at a sluggish speed, I had forgotten my piano books. Mama was so mad, she drove me home all the way down Clark Street in a rant — backwards.
Mama was a perfectionist about our appearance, too. As most children rolled their hair in sponge rollers for Sunday church, my sister and I had ours “done up” every single night. Our clothes (sock and underwear, too) were always ironed, and we rarely wore the same dress twice to fancy functions where we were to be photographed. Those expectations have manifested and perpetuated in my adult life, thus defining me to some degree as an artist of sorts, workaholic, over-achiever, and might I add, a fashionista of well-ironed attire.
While my mother kept the house moving to her delight and high standards, my father mostly worked, departing before daybreak and arriving after sunset. My father, owner of a furniture company, located only a few blocks from my house in the business district. It was a world of sofas, couches as well a cash registers and large bound hand-written ledgers.
Leslie “Les” Charles Jacob is still the hardest worked I have ever known and his work ethic was instilled in me early. I still compare my progress to his unsurmountable success early in life. I don’t remember a day that he didn’t reflect and engage in his company, constantly “feeding the organism,” as he would say.
My father was sort of a miracle. He was tall, dark, and handsome and alway walked with a confident swagger. One of seven children of French descent, he was the only one to inherit green eyes, which shifted in colors to grey or blue, depending on the light. His eyes, set deep and expressive, said everything about his current state—stress, joy, concern, contemplation, and more. I am often reminded of his eyes—and their honest translation of thought and emotions—as I wear them myself. “Genetics are a funny thing,” my mother would suggest. At work, he was conscious of his appearance (yes, slightly vain), so my mother always saw to it that his khakis and long sleeve shirts were pressed with “triple extra starch.” Sometimes it would seem as though his garments were standing up on their own. I “inherited” the same trait. If I am not dressed to the nines at work, I am clearly having a nervous breakdown.
Both parents created a safe, happy home for both my sister and me in the Southern community of Clarkdale that was warm, loving and inviting. It was a nurturing ecosystem that cultivated wholesome values like faith and country, as well as progression ideas of higher education and self expression through the arts. My father, somewhat of an anomaly in a conventional Southern community, was an avid supporter of women’s rights and opportunities, encouraging my independence. “Chart your own course” and “find your own way, on your own terms” he would suggest, leaving hand-written post-it notes in my lunchbox.
Irony was at play and I would discover that my roots in words would also become my wings. It was an early late August morning in 1994 and dew was blanketing the Delta fields, its light shimmering like God had kissed the earth in well wishes for good fall crops. Daddy and I drove Highway 6 towards Oxford, where he would drop me off at Ole Miss to continue my studies in English and Creativity Writing. For years after, I would puzzle words and punctuations, defining thoughts and ideas that would ultimately become the crux for art curated, and ultimately sold. I was already on my way exploring a vocation of which I didn’t even yet have a term - an art dealer.