This street painting was commissioned as the featured artwork for the 2016 Art Along the Rogue Festival. It features the renowned musician and activist Nina Simone for the festival’s 2016 theme of “Legends”. Nina Simone is an icon of American music and was know as The High Priestess of Soul.

Deeply affected by Mississippi bombings of the 60’s and the Civil Rights Movement taking place during her career, she began using her musical prowess to sing of injustice in her communities and nation. These protest songs were controversial to her jazz career yet her passion to tell the stories unheard through music was stronger than fame. This street painting is an homage to such a great woman whose MIGHT has inspired thousands of artists, activists and those who have heard her music.

This art style is called Madonnari after the tradition of Renaissance artists painting from the church to the streets on their hands and knees.

In 20 hours over 2 days my team and I completed my design for the street art festival, using chalk pastel in the lineage of traditional Madonnari street painters.

My team was commissioned to help revitalize this park's reputation from an unsafe and underused space into a vibrant welcoming public greenspace in downtown Medford. Today Hawthorne Park hosts music events, farmer's markets, dog parks and playgrounds. 

Each of the six chosen pillars holding up I-5 were painted with the Rogue Valley's landscapes and natural history in mind. With twelve compositions total, each design features a native species in their habitat for a month of the year. 

With the support of the Wildlife Images Center, we collected the stories and research of many characters including the Western pond turtle, blue heron, trout, salmon, rattlesnake, swallowtail butterfly, pollinators, insects, black bear and cougar.

As a native myself to Southern Oregon, this Wildlife Calendar Walk mural has been an experience of restoring reputation and relationship with the park as a vibrant space. It has also been a parallel experience of portraying species that we humans fear or don't connect with. Our hope is that these images can help create a new relationship of respect and curiosity with the black bear, cougar, rattlesnake and others with a historical reputation, while continuing to honor and revitalize populations such as the salmon and honeybee. 

See more progress images of this project at instagram.com/jessilynbrinkerhoff.

Feature art for City of Springfield, Oregon's Upstream Art storm drain project. 

This street painting for brings awareness to the streams that city storm drains lead to, encouraging citizens not to dump into storm drains. 

After researching storm drains and learning more about the untreated drain waters, I considered what species are affected by dumping down drains. I decided to sketch a composition featuring wildlife species found in our McKenzie and Willamette rivers. This design tells the story of the creatures in the rivers reminding us that our decisions have consequences and affect the greater ecosystem that we enjoy year round.  This beautiful aquatic life of river dwellers include salmon, trout, tadpoles, salamander, western pond turtle, crawdad, otters in the background and river botanicals. The design shows the entire community of species surrounding the drain as if the rectangle drain dumped directly from the street into a river bottom drain, and the locals living there are curiously present to the city water that enters their home. 

Traffic Paint. Springfield, OR. 2016

Botanical Mandala Mural in copper, blue, green and red to complement the space. Additional bedroom mandala in blue. 

4' x 4'.

A chalk pastel street painting for the Art Along the Rogue Festival in Grants Pass, Oregon. This is an original piece for the theme this year, The Art in Music. Each artist is given an 8' by 8' space of asphalt to complete in two days. After the festival the street blockades are removed and traffic is permitted to drive over the artwork, leaving ghost images on the asphalt for months. 

Collaboration with artist Esteban Camacho Steffensen.
During our time as muralists for Triangle Lake Charter School, we drew from local community members stories and natural history. From guided tours with locals, we learned about the history of logging, the lake culture and wildlife in the rural Oregon region to be included in the mural. Design features the region's Triangle Lake landscape with underwater perspectives of otters, elk, fish, nests.

Triangle Lake, Oregon.

A chalk pastel street painting for the Art Along the Rogue Festival in Grants Pass, Oregon. Each artist is given an 8' by 8' space of asphalt to complete in two days. 

A chalk pastel street painting for ESAP Eugene Springfield Art Project in Springfield, Oregon. Each artist was given an 8' by 8' space of asphalt to complete in one day.
Winner of People's Choice Award.

Mural completed on concrete wall using iron rich red clay soil and other pigments from the site. 

Here I’ve set aside the acrylics and latex using instead a paint palette of earthen materials found on this property in Southern Oregon: charcoal, clay soil and wood ash (shown in bottom photo). With the intention to get away from industrial materials for a moment, I’ve found inspiration in the possibility of rich shadows in charcoal, mid tones of red and highlights in the opacity of wood ash each mixed with water.