David Denniston brings Ice Cream’s visions to life in ‘Illusions of Grandeur’

David Denniston first met Ricky “Ice Cream” Jackson more than 20 years ago, at a point in time when Jackson was just beginning to regain some footing in the wake of several bipolar episodes, a cancer diagnosis, and the death of his mother.

The chance meeting took place when Jackson strolled into a downtown Columbus barbershop while Denniston was getting a haircut. “And he came up to my chair and he said, ‘Do you know what the ice cream scoop is?’” said Denniston, who then pantomimed Jackson doing his signature basketball move, bringing one knee up high and “scooping” the imagined ball into the hoop. “And he drops it in. Two points. Guaranteed.”

Struck by the interaction and the overall character presented by Jackson – a physical presence standing at 6’6” with a flair for eye-catching fashion – Denniston asked the barber for the man’s name, hoping to record a quick on-camera interview with him for a short film. That project has now extended beyond two decades, resulting in an unlikely friendship, an in-progress documentary entitled “Welcome to Ice Cream Land,” and a new art exhibit, “Illusions of Grandeur,” which kicks off at 934 Gallery with an opening reception at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 21, presented alongside works from artists Ben Duke and Jeff Ostrowski.

Before the two met, Jackson attended Central State University-Xenia on a full basketball scholarship, Denniston said, where during his freshman year he experienced a severe bipolar episode that forever altered his course. “And the way he tells it is that he thought he was a seven-foot Jesus, and he would wear all white and have a white bible,” said Denniston, who captured this scene on one massive canvas presented in “Illusions,” showing Jackson dressed in white robes and flanked by white limousines and veiled women dressed in white, his head ringed by a glowing halo. “That’s the point when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and so he came home and spent a year in a mental hospital. And slowly he came back. And when he did, he was full-fledged doing the suits, the derbies. He wore gloves. He had capes. He was Ice Cream.”

In the years that followed, Denniston said Jackson developed into a South Side fixture, working as a drug runner for the better part of a decade until he was hit with a cancer diagnosis, which landed him in the Southeast Healthcare system right around the time his mother died.

“And he got a little money from her when she passed, and he was like, ‘I can’t spend this on drugs,’ and it was him basically coming to this point. … And that was 22 years ago, and he’s been sober ever since,” said Denniston, who heard Jackson recount these stories in vivid detail during on-camera interviews as the two continued to meet and film, even making multiple trips to Jackson’s Memphis hometown. “When Ice Cream was a kid, his mom had a restaurant on Beale Street, and his aunt was a full-time cook for Elvis. So, there were times when his mom would work events over [at Graceland] and Elvis’ grandma would come and pick him up.”

Around the age of 7, Jackson moved to Columbus with his mom, settling near the intersection of Whittier and South High streets, which remained his stomping grounds for the bulk of the time he has spent in Columbus. For a stretch, Jackson lived in an apartment above a barber shop on Whittier Street, which later became an occasional overnight respite in the time that he lived unhoused. And yet, through all of these struggles, Denniston said that Jackson never lost his sense of “creative optimism,” as the artist termed it, continuing to exude a larger-than-life presence that had a way of altering and uplifting the feel of any room in which he set foot.

While Denniston has always been drawn to larger-scale paintings as an artist, he allowed that Jackson’s outsized presence is ideally suited to the trio of massive canvases that will be on display at 934 Gallery, all three of which are inspired by the more metaphysical stories that exist within the Ice Cream realm. In addition to the painting giving life to Jackson’s college-era bipolar visions, there’s a stunning sci-fi epic set on Mars and rooted in a poem written by Jackson in the ’70s, and a towering painting titled “Welcome to Ice Cream Land” and born of a college-era hallucination experienced by Jackson but reflecting multiple aspects of his life and journey.

“This is Ricky’s story, but the way he tells it, he was in college and he went to get breakfast, and when he got back to his dorm with his pancakes and orange juice, his television was flying around the room,” said Denniston, who painted a floating TV next to a levitating, modern-day Jackson and then filled the room with artifacts reflective of his interests, including a basketball and multiple Prince posters. “Because Prince is his idol, and someone who really inspired him to embrace the freedom of being who he is.”

Denniston started on the works included in “Illusions,” which also features a series of smaller portraits showing Jackson dressed in a variety of fashions, a little over a year ago. Initially, Denniston planned for the exhibition to accompany his long-in-the-works Ice Cream documentary, which currently exists as an 80-minute rough cut and has been delayed as he seeks finishing funds, eyeing a 2025 release.

Part of the slowdown with the film can also be attributed to a falling out that kept the two apart for a stretch, and which they patched up four or five years ago after both “grew up a little bit,” said Denniston, who recently had Jackson over for Thanksgiving dinner and plans to spend Christmas with him, as well. (Jackson, who currently lives with a caretaker in Worthington, will also be at the 934 opening, likely dressed in a white fur coat he had specially cleaned for the occasion.)

“Any relationship can have its ups and downs, but maybe five years ago we met back up at the North Market,” said Denniston, who at the time had just gone through a divorce and moved back to Columbus from Pickerington, again putting the two in close proximity. “We just had this great conversation, and … it was like, ‘We should get the band back together.’ … And the last four years we’ve really been much tighter.”