ARTJAM: Jessica Perlstein

Join us for this special ARTJAM with Jessica Perlstein in the Visionary Arts Academy at 5pm EST on February 23rd 2017!

Jessica Perlstein is a visual artist who grew up in Petaluma, CA and is now based in San Francisco.  Art has always been a passion since childhood, and she grew up in a home which encouraged and inspired creativity.  She attended art school at the Academy of Art University where she earned her BFA in Illustration in 2006.  Her biggest inspirations involve music and nature, which have both led her towards her artistic path that she is on today.  Her love of nature and interest in medicinal plants and healing led her to the jungles of Peru, where she stayed with a native shaman and artist.  Here she learned and worked with various plant “teachers”, accumulating a pool of inspiration to draw from.  Her journey left her with the strong message that if one listens to their gut instincts and intuitions, and follows their heart despite seemingly difficult feats, that any dream can be achieved.  She credits this journey to be the reason why she has been able to accomplish all she has to this day.

The following year led her to the thriving underground electronic music and dance scene in the Bay Area.  Here she was able to bridge her passion with art with her other passion of music through the act of “live painting” which is to create a painting live and on the spot during a music event.  She let the energy of the event guide her through the process of creating a painting, and thus captured the event’s energy on the canvas.  She began to paint at as many events and festivals as she could, which have led her towards being able to travel all throughout the west coast, Hawaii, and now internationally.  She became heavily inspired and influenced by the growing visionary art movement that is an intrinsic part of the music and festival culture.  Through visionary art, she has been able to deliver her messages of interconnectedness with all things in nature, and the ambition to inspire by living life as an example of all that we can be by surpassing our own boundaries and riding the waves of synchronicity and limitless expansion.

In 2010 she took the honor of accepting an apprenticeship with digital artist Android Jones.  The experience has opened her up and broken boundaries in ways in which she never thought would or could happen.  The digital brush has catapulted her creativity in a way which knows no limits.  During the summer of 2011, she joined Android and a handful of other digital artists on an epic roadtrip across the west coast called the Seeing Is Believing Tour.  The tour brought an interactive digital live painting experience to festivals all over the west coast, where we gave others the opportunity to try live digital painting for themselves.  With a small geodesic dome equipped with Cintiq computers hooked up to projectors, and a musical soundtrack provided by The Human Experience, we were able to open the creative minds of many.

Jessica is now still bringing artwork to events, and is in a constant state of unfurling creativity as she dedicates herself to the growth and expansion of artistic pursuits, and remains open to the mystery of where this journey will take her next.