Photo by Charles Champagne
Fairleigh Cook Jackson, the new executive director at the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, pictured in front of LSU’s Huey P. Long Field House, which the organization is working to preserve.
As it was for many Louisiana people, Hurricane Katrina was a turning point for Fairleigh Cook Jackson. A native of New Orleans and graduate of the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Jackson attended college at LSU, graduating in 2000 with a degree in general studies with a focus on ceramics. As soon as she got her degree, Jackson took off for Asheville, North Carolina, a city well known for its buzzing arts scene.
An experienced rock climber and backpacker, Jackson also raced mountain bikes and worked for a clay-supply company. After apprenticing with two clay artists, she opened her own ceramics studio, creating vases and lamps that often incorporated vintage fabrics.
Although she lived away for seven years, Jackson maintained close ties with her home state, visiting family and friends regularly, particularly during Jazz Fest. “I think I’ve missed it twice since I was fourteen,” she said.
On a visit to Baton Rouge in 2006, she dropped by the recently completed Shaw Center for the Arts. She saw the center’s construction as a sign that “Baton Rouge is finally getting it,” and “really trying to be part of the cultural scene.”
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Jackson opened her Asheville digs to New Orleans friends and kept track of her parents, who had temporarily moved to Lafayette. By late September, she decided she had to come home to help. “I thought I’d never come back to Louisiana,” said Jackson in a recent interview at the mid-century-modern house she shares with her husband John and their two children. “Then Katrina happened. My focus was on going back and helping.” She drove to New Orleans, rolled up her sleeves, and started showing up at friends’ houses—whoever needed help.
Her decision to move back was sparked by what Jackson calls “a really pivotal moment” at a house on Canal Boulevard. “I was helping a friend clean his parents’ house. The refrigerator had fallen across the doorway. The walls were full of mold. Hanging above where the fridge had been was an original Walter Anderson watercolor. At that moment, I knew I didn’t want to leave.”
In 2006, she moved back to New Orleans, got a job teaching ceramics at Kehoe-France school in Metairie, and rented a studio in uptown New Orleans. What had begun as a friendship with husband John (they had met at LSU and stayed in touch while she was in Asheville) deepened into a romance. In 2007, they were engaged and she moved to Baton Rouge where he ran a startup company that would later become Launch Media, a multimedia production company.
“Then I got involved in Art Melt with John,” she said. John had pitched to the young-professionals group Forum 35 the concept for Art Melt, which is now the largest juried multimedia art exhibit for Louisiana artists.
The Jacksons married in 2008 when Fairleigh also became director of development for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Baton Rouge. In 2009, she was hired as campaign director of the Community Fund for the Arts. “That’s where I found my passion for nonprofits,” she said. “I raised money and organized for fourteen member organizations. The Foundation for Historical Louisiana (FHL) was one of them. John and I became members because we saw the relevance of that organization.”
In 2012, she was hired as director of advancement at the LSU Museum of Art, and in 2014 she became director of member services for the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations. Jackson also served as deputy coach for the Louisiana Creative Communities Initiative, is a graduate of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s 2010 Leadership Program, and was chosen as one of the Baton Rouge Business Report’s Top Forty Under 40 in 2012.
Her work with nonprofits, her fundraising skills, and her ability to connect with people did not go unnoticed. Last summer, Jackson was selected to replace Carolyn Bennett, who retired after forty years as director of the FHL.
After a four-month nationwide search for a preservation leader, the FHL’s board selection committee voted unanimously to appoint Jackson to the position. She is only the second executive director of the foundation in its fifty-two-year history. The organization uses education and advocacy to promote historic preservation across the state. FHL worked without an official leader until Bennett was hired in 1975.
The FHL is a nonprofit organization chartered in 1963. Its headquarters is the Old Governor’s Mansion, built by Huey Long in 1930 in Baton Rouge, which FHL operates as a historic-house museum and community venue. The organization’s mission is preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of Louisiana. FHL is a statewide membership organization with a variety of programs such as monthly heritage lectures, tours, historic preservation and restoration services, museum retail stores, and educational programs for children.
FHL is not funded by federal, state, or local governments and relies on membership dues, fundraising events, donations, planned gifts, and social entrepreneurship to achieve its goals. Jackson plans to reach out to younger members. “We want to start an FHL book club for our members,” she said “We’ll include Dr. White’s book [Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long by Richard White] and Leo Honeycutt’s book on Edwin Edwards. But we won’t read just about the governors. We’d like to include authors who write about our cultural history, like Maggie Richardson, who writes about culinary adventures [in Hungry for Louisiana: An Omnivore’s Journey].
“Ours is as much a cultural heritage as an architectural heritage. It’s a broader scope. I hope that’s where we will excel in the future—being ahead of the emergency need for preservation. A lot of cities and states keep an inventory of what’s out there and of potential costs. We have historic tax credits. We can encourage developers to keep preservation in mind.”
Her volunteer activities include serving on the board of the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance and the Louisiana Citizens for the Arts. “I’m on just two boards right now,” Jackson said. “That’s my limit.” She shares her desire to be of service with her husband. They worked together to purchase and rehabilitate a cluster of three buildings in the 800 block of Main Street downtown. After undergoing rehab they are collectively known as Creative Bloc, which houses John’s media business.
“We’re both very philanthropic,” said Fairleigh. “We are both wired that way—doers and goers.”
