Suitable for Framing

“This is definitely not something I ever considered as a career option,” says Ken Jackson with a laugh. As one of five Los Angeles County calligraphers, Jackson designs, paints and letters the colorful personalized proclamation and commendation scrolls the county presents to upstanding citizens and organizations. In his 16-year career, he has created more than 20,000 scrolls, a task the former runaway center counselor describes as “daunting.”

Jackson, 50, often spends his lunch hour sketching customers at a coffeehouse, capturing their fleeting expressions and subtle mannerisms. A wall of his San Fernando Valley home is papered with favorite designs, each rich with vibrant, watery images emblazoned with the gracefully lettered recipient’s name. One scroll, presented to a local hero, depicts the burning house he entered to save two children; an adjacent sepia tone conveys a tender moment between a mother and newborn. “I enjoy creating something that honors someone worthy of recognition,” Jackson explains, “but it’s a challenge to think up something different and new every day.”

Before taking the county job, he trained for a year under Donald Jackson, no relation, the calligrapher who designs Queen Elizabeth’s proclamations. “He worked for the Crown Office of the House of Lords and taught medieval techniques for calligraphy on vellum with quills,” Ken Jackson recalls. “That’s why I was initially attracted to this--it was esoteric and unusual.”