Chalice festival takes cue from Coachella with weed-inspired live art

Not every painting or sketch or sculpture on display this weekend at the Chalice festival in Victorville features a pot leaf. But either way, the artists behind these works say cannabis inspires them.

“It’s part of the entire process,” said artist Jesse JFR. “When I paint, smoke is being blown into the wet paint.”

Chalice is taking its cue from Coachella and other festivals that are increasingly featuring live art and an interactive fire installation along with music, food, booths and carnival rides.

Jesse, who drove up to the three day festival from Downey, does more mainstream art that he sells at comic book festivals and other family-friendly events. But he said events like Chalice are freeing for him both as an artist and as a marijuana fan.

“When you get to come out to stuff like this, there’s no filter,” he said.

Artist Toxic Mind works on a live painting during the Chalice festival Friday in Victorville. (Sarah Alvarado, The Cannifornian/SCNG)

Jesse is sharing a booth for the weekend with artist Toxic Mind, a Long Beach resident who dropped his career as a tattoo artist three years ago to do cannabis-inspired paintings fulltime.

Toxic Mind describes his style as graffiti street art with a cartoonish bent. He likes working with friends who are cultivators to invent characters that go with new strains.

Toxic Mind was slated to participate in a live graffiti wall, with multiple artists cover massive canvas panels with a bit of their work.

Boyfriend and girlfriend team Aaron Brooks and Ellie Paisley – both sporting dreads – travel the world creating and selling their psychedelic art.

Aaron Brooks and Ellie Paisley make a living selling psychedelic art around the country. (Brooke Edwards Staggs, The Cannifornian)

Brooks has built a fan base with his surreal images celebrating cannabis, also making a good living by designing logos and branded products for emerging cannabis companies.

Paisley leans more toward portraiture, with a large concert poster-style painting of Chalice headliner Ice Cube on sale for $1,000.

The Colorado couple also judged the Chalice cannabis competition. And they took time Friday to support other vendors at the festival, each buying new pipe art pieces: an swirly orange one for Brooks and pretty blue cupcake one for Paisley.

A massive art installation at the Chalice festival. (Brooke Edwards Staggs, The Cannifornian)

Brittany “Monster” Turnette of San Clemente has carved out a niche by painting pipes on big canvases. Sometimes she trades glass artists her paintings for their pendants and other products.

“It’s fun to paint the glass colors,” she said. “And I collect glass, too.”

She also takes commissions, which have kept her steadily busy this past year. So after a few years of coming to Chalice to work for other people, she decided to set up her own painting corner for the 2017 festival, with plans to put one of her paintings up for silent auction.

As Paisley puts it: “Every individual artist is a small business owner. So this is a great place for us to come together.”

Here’s more Cannifornian coverage of the Chalice festival:

These photos show you what it’s like to be at Chalice 2017

Glassblowing on display as artists make pricey pipes at Chalice cannabis festival

Visit TheCannifornian.com for more on the three-day festival. And come back to the website Sunday for our special package of cannabis oil reviews in honor of the 7/10 cannabis oils holiday.