Meet Jesseca “Jesse” Zollars Smith

Jesse, (as friends and family call her) paints the kind of moments most people miss ~ the drool on a baby’s chin or the space between breaths. Born beneath the gray skies of the Pacific Northwest, she grew up with a quiet ache in her chest~ a silent reverberation that still echoes through her work, drawing in the seeker, evoking the question: What have I forgotten to feel? Her portraits are less about likeness and more about presence. Each piece is an invitation to remember~ someone, someplace, some version of ourselves that still Upload Resume lives just beneath the surface. She apprenticed under a classically trained artist from Poland while in Olympia, WA, where she absorbed Impressionist techniques and elaborate methods that expanded her craft and deepened her reverence for light, color, and storytelling on canvas. Over the years, Jesseca has been a featured artist at the Olympia Garden Club Tours, the Olympia Arts Walk, neighborhood showcases across Western Washington, and the Wimberley Valley Art League. She has painted live at private events and completed portrait commissions for clients near and far—always with a deep reverence for story and soul.