Begin Where You Are: Lessons from an Artist/Entrepreneur

​Jennifer Perlmutter is an artist, gallerist, and community-focused arts leader dedicated to using creativity to strengthen downtown districts. She founded the Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery in Lafayette in 2014, transforming a former pop-up into a vibrant space for contemporary exhibitions, interactive installations, concerts, and community programming. Her model demonstrates how vacant storefronts can become profitable cultural hubs. In 2020, she co-founded a long-term gallery in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Perlmutter’s artwork has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and throughout California. She has taught in Seoul, South Korea, and delivered the TEDx Monterey talk “Begin Where You Are,” emphasizing creativity’s transformative power.