Jamestown Community College, the first locally sponsored community college chartered by the State University of New York system, is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. As part of that celebration, JCC has created profiles of some of its more than 28,000 alumni.
Eric Jones knew at a young age that he wanted to create. At Jamestown Community College he was able to hone the artistic skills that would one day lead to national television and more than 250,000 caricatures of people around the world.
“I was about three years old. I knew I was going to pursue something artistic,” Jones says. “I was obsessed with creating and I was always looking for an opportunity to create something whether it be building something, carving something, or drawing something. I couldn’t get enough of it and I recognized at a young age that I was good at it.”
Jones acknowledges how fortunate he is to have realized his calling early in life.
“Most people don’t.”
Jones has been a caricature and portrait artist for 25 years, but during the fall season, he is a “professional pumpkin carver.” He appeared on the Food Network’s “Halloween Wars” this fall, competing in a pumpkin carving competition. His team, which included two other contestants, placed second. Though falling one vote short of earning $50,000, Jones says the experience is something he’ll never forget.
Attending JCC in 1993 as an arts and humanities student, Jones admits he knew his artistic skills could hypothetically lead to a television show appearance one day, but he never would’ve guessed it would be for carving pumpkins.
“It was incredible. It was a complete rush being on television, being recorded, being mic’d up, and having producers,” he says of his time in Hollywood during fall 2019. “I’ve always been fascinated by that industry. I never thought I’d want to get involved in it, but I had a great time.”
He always figured that if he ever reached a certain level of fame it would be for his caricature drawings. But when he saw a positive response to his pumpkin carvings he decided to push himself harder in that area.
“It was two weeks of constant filming,” he adds. “It was completely exhausting, but it was so much fun.”
And although his team didn’t win, Jones believes the entire experience “was still worth it.”
Jones co-founded a retail website called GiveACaricature.com with other business partners. He started the venture 15 years ago and it took a fraction of that time to see significant success.
“In a matter of two years we became the biggest retail caricature site on the whole web — worldwide,” he says.
Prior to starting the website, Jones spent a decade as a graphic designer and digital illustrator at DalTile, now known as American Olean Tile, creating and designing murals made from mosaic tiles. On the side, he began doing live caricature drawings professionally, which was really his true passion.
“I loved it, but it wasn’t really in my wheelhouse,” Jones says of his work at the tile company. “I was good at it, but I wanted to pursue caricature drawing and carving, that’s what I loved. It was just a matter of finding a profession lucrative enough to leave.”
His artistry focuses on people, faces, bodies, expressions, and human beings — “anything figurative.” Discovery and cultivation of his skills happened at JCC, says Jones.
He attended classes at JCC’s Cattaraugus County Campus in Olean, studying under Catherine Downing, an art and design professor who he credits for encouraging him to develop his particular style.
He graduated from Richburg Central School the school year prior to its merger with a neighboring school district. Just 30 minutes from Olean, he had always viewed JCC as a potential landing spot for himself after high school.
“Attending a community college locally is a brilliant decision even if you know what you want to do professionally,” Jones says. “There are great programs in small schools like that.
I knew JCC had a great art program and I didn’t go into any debt and I had the best training in those two years I had anywhere else.”
When contemplating potential programs and courses to pursue, he kept hearing from former students and teachers that Downing was “a great professor.”
Upon arrival, Jones realized quickly why she had garnered such a reputation.
“She immediately picked up on my skills and started encouraging me to pursue the style of art I was best at,” Jones says.
Though the program is now only offered on JCC’s Jamestown Campus, Jones continues to speak highly of it.
“The program was designed to help art students discover what they’re good at and then challenge them individually to pursue that,” he says. “It wasn’t the kind of situation where you show up and everybody does the same thing. It was tailored to each individual student, which is fantastic.”
He learned the basics of art including concepts and techniques such as shading, dimension, perspective, and contrast, and enhanced his own style and skills.
Jones, now married for 23 years with three children in college, encourages young people to consider enrolling in a community college. His enthusiasm helped his youngest daughter decide to attend JCC.
Financially and logistically, Jones says staying local and going to a small college allows for students to take the mandatory and general courses that larger four-year institutions require for students.
“I think it’s ridiculous to ask kids to go into college at age 17 or 18 and know what they want to do as a career,” he says. “Getting those general courses out of the way in the first two years lets them mature a little and prepare yourself to choose a career. I think it makes more sense.”
Though Jones knew what he wanted to do with his life at the age of three, he understands and empathizes with people who are fast-tracked to selecting a career path in their early years of college.
From his experience, JCC is ideal for the decided and undecided student.
“Most people have no idea and to expect them to know at 17 or 18, it’s kind of crazy.”