Almost Famous is a photography book containing photos from the active years of L.A. hip-hop collective Odd Future. From early photography at pop-ups, to close ups features of the group’s notable members. This book serves as a time capsule to an important time in Jon’s life, when he was starting to discover his individual music taste, apart from what influenced him in his household as a youth. Jon’s first encounter with this book was on a trip to the Golf Wang flagship store in SoHo, New York. At the store, this book costs $150, to which at the time he went, he settled for a t-shirt as a souvenir instead. A few weeks after, an opportunity to purchase the book at a cheaper price was made available to which Jon purchased this as an artifact of his childhood.
The Golf Book is a magazine editorial made by Tyler, The Creator, to go along with the release of his third studio album Cherry Bomb. It features the official lyrics to each song that was made for the album alongside a section featuring core albums that shaped Tyler, the Creator’s making of the album Cherry Bomb along with albums/songs that carry over throughout his life as inspiration. Within this magazine are also interviews with different creatives and photoshoots. When Tyler, the Creator first initiated the idea of his artist collective (which would then become Odd Future), he envisioned it initially as a magazine to feature his and his friends’ creative endeavors. Heavily influenced by skate culture, what this magazine represents is a piece of Tyler’s mind, at least at the time of him making this magazine. The colors are saturated; Cherry Bomb represents a time for Tyler when his interests began to shift and represents a desire for change or to be taken seriously. To Jon, this resonates with him on a deep level, having the understanding that we never truly appreciate how great something is until we’re out of it.
Blonde is a studio album released in 2016 by acclaimed artist Frank Ocean. It is also the last album released by the artist since 2016. For Jon Jackson, this album represents the spark that led to Jon wanting to take his art more seriously. From the beautiful instrumentation to the lyrics about connection and growing into new life stages. This essentially was the soundtrack to Jon’s found appreciation for the arts and a desire to see where it could take him. With certain songs invoking feelings about growth and change, or as Frank puts it, “We didn't give a fuck back then, I ain't a kid no more, We'll never be those kids again” To Jon, this album is a beautiful arrangement of music, and when played, is a call back to Jon’s foundational roots within his practice. To remember where you started, but keeping efforts to push forward. You can’t really change what’s already occurred but you can find new ways in how it makes you feel.
The “Muscle Man 1s” are a shoe coined by the artist Jon Jackson as a play on the traditional Air Force 1s with a flare reminiscent of Muscle Man from Regular Show. They are a black air force 1, with green laces, gray Nike swooshes, and drawings on the inner part of the shoe done in white posca ink. Jon wears these shoes almost every day. They are a staple in what Jon considers his artist uniform. What started as an ode to Virgil Abloh’s Off-White collaboration with Nike, this shoe that Jackson wears has taken on various forms and alterations, first being a shoe worn by him back in high school with white laces instead of green, over the course of the next few years, there were about 3 or 4 versions that existed before the current, with differentiation through the laces and painted designs to eventually lead to the Muscle Man 1s being created.
Featured are Jon Jackson’s lined black notebooks. These notebooks that are apart of his archive span over numerous years documenting early sketches for pieces, conceptual ideas, journal entries, and many names of different artists that align with Jon’s research, particularly those learned over the span of attending the Cleveland Institute of Art. He considers these books to be quite valuable to his practice with them being living proof of Jackson’s overarching ideas and philosophies towards his practice. Jon’s understanding of how his way of creating has changed, seeing how in earlier entries in these books focused a lot on the conceptual content within the work. As Jackson undergoes changes with his views in his practice, most work that is ideated and thought of aren’t held as precious as they once were, with the work coming more naturally as the foundation has been set more clear for the greater, more overarching ideas within the work.