Seeing the Unseen
“When we so fear the dark that we demand light around the clock, there can be only one result: artificial light that is glaring and graceless and, beyond its borders, a darkness that grows ever more terrifying as we try to hold it off.”
―Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
I’ve long admired Anita White for her unique ability to see human beings often overlooked in the rush of daily life. With her sketchbook and pencils in hand, she draws hospital orderlies, road workers, folks waiting for decisions to be handed down in immigration court, hospital cafeteria personnel, and family members in waiting rooms at the hospital. In doing so, Anita bears witness to the most essential work and the most vulnerable experiences in life. Anita has “drawn through” many happy and difficult times in her own life. She documented her life with her beloved husband Josh, who died two years ago. Josh suffered through many medical crises with Anita at his side while she captured many difficult moments in their journey from what she calls “the lowly place.” She was kind enough to talk to TCM more about this process for our series on Compassionate Art.
Anita White, with her art as Zoom background. Picture of a queen with the title “I am the queen of artistic messiness.”
Crystal: What propels you to do your art?
Anita: I’ve been drawing for over 50 years. To me, Drawing is just a natural way of connecting and expressing myself. It’s taken the same form for many decades. I draw wherever I am and whomever I’m with. But in the past few years it’s shifted and deepened.
Drawing for me is a tool… it’s a way of recording beauty in the world. It has taken on more urgency as I drew through my late husband Josh’s medical traumas. It became a way of coping. And then it became a way of honoring because I could honor the people who came to our side by drawing them. And then it became a way of inquiry, because I got interested in the medical side of things. Drawing was also a means of faith, a way to hang on. When things were really bad—like when I was drawing [Josh’s] pain and it felt like we were at the end of the road and there was no hope then I would invoke the “divine hands” in my drawings and some wonderful things emerged.
“It’s a way of connecting to other people.”
Theresa: Anita, can you say a little bit more about what parts of giving your drawings to people bring you joy?
Anita: It’s kind of impulsive sometimes…very spontaneous. Like when I was waiting in line last Friday morning, sure that I was going to get the vaccine, I drew myself and wrote: “this is a historic moment.” As it turned out, I didn’t get my vaccine that day. But there were people waiting with me and I drew them. It’s very connecting and fun—people are thrilled to get their drawings. The pharmacist said to me last Friday morning: “I’m so sorry that you couldn’t get an appointment.” So I did a little drawing of him really quick and I said “Thanks anyway.” And Monday, he was still holding on to that drawing and I thought: “Gosh, he really liked that drawing!” I’m always surprised how much people really like their drawings. If I had taken a picture with my phone, no one would have thought that was a big deal. Drawing people is personal and it’s kind of risky and fun.
Crystal: What do you think people appreciate most about receiving their drawings?
Anita: I think it’s pretty basic how people feel… it’s that someone is paying attention to them, looking at them.
“It’s just this really simple humble act of paying attention and honoring who they are… their humanity.”
A lot of times, it’s about paying attention to people that aren’t normally seen. So, at the hospital, I might draw the doctor but I also draw the person that comes in and changes the urine bag or the person pushing the cleaning cart around. That was a lot of my work with the “24 hour project” [at Hennepin County Medical Center].
Credits: “A Day in the Life of Hennepin Healthcare” was curated by Wenda Ballinger, commissioned by Hennepin Healthcare and funded by Hennepin Healthcare Foundation’s Fallon Fund for Humanism.
Credits: “Drawing Through Crisis with Courage and Humor” was curated by Wenda Ballinger and funded by Hennepin Healthcare Foundation’s Fallon Fund for Humanism.
To lift the staff’s spirits, Anita sent weekly drawings from her previous projects. In more recent months, she has shared her interpretations of Hennepin Healthcare’s Stories from the Field, another documentary project by the hospital that focuses on staff experiences during COVID-19. The stories are poignant and heartbreaking, but show the resilient spirit of healthcare workers in this unrelenting time.
Theresa: What do you think comes first: your interest in seeing people that other people don’t tend to pay attention to or your art, which allows you then to pay attention a different way?
Anita: It’s kind of all connected. I think what happens is that if I’m moved by something, then I want to draw it. There are moments in life that are very bare, sometimes you can’t believe you are there seeing it, and then drawing takes it one step further. There are lots of times I haven’t drawn someone I would like to have drawn… You know like the security guard at Aldi. Nobody really sees him exactly. There were the times I drew about immigration court. And then the other part about it is that it leads to conversation, which is really interesting. I try to put the story in as well.
There are a lot of incredibly beautiful and incredibly tragic moments in life. We are coming up on this huge milestone, we have endured this pandemic for a year. Yesterday, I was at the lake, and there was this young man tossing these arcs around and I drew him. Even though he seemed happy twirling these arcs, he also told me about his heartbreak—he can’t go to live music, he can’t see his partner. A propelling force for me in my art is to uncover deeper feelings in drawings.
Crystal: What would you say you are walking away with from the series you have done on grief and life at the hospital?
Anita: Last week I had kind of an illuminating thought. I perceived a trilogy. The first part is a series of drawings that includes [Josh and my] early years and happy times, when we had no idea of death. Then there’s the medical drama and trauma of being present in the moment, paying attention to him through these crises. And then the third part of this is drawing through Josh’s death and Shiva. Those are things I’m working on. I take drawings from my sketch books and scan them and put them in a folder in dropbox. So there are periods of time marked out.
I see it in a linear way, like one day after the next. But it is also emotional. It’s putting this mass of emotions into the timeline. I see it as sort of a graphic memoir. But what really happens internally is a way of finding closure—moving through time again. There have been more and more feelings of closure along the way.
Theresa: How does your Jewish faith impact how you see your work?
Anita: One thing I’m loving at the moment is that I’m scanning some drawings for the Haggadah [for Passover]. “Seder” means “order.” Connecting to my Jewish faith has been more and more a guiding and organizing principle for me. Ever since October, I started going to morning minyan, which connects and grounds me. My day feels ordered and I am able to connect with other people and the ancient prayers.
Sometimes my Jewish life is very internal and hidden. But it’s always there. I feel like the very fact that I was able to formally become Jewish has a lot of mystical sparks. Like my ancestors are there. And the concept of rachmones—compassion—and empathy, which are both universal and very Jewish are propelling aspects to my drawing life.
Crystal: In what ways do the prayers move you and how does that relate to compassion?
Anita: What really moves me a lot are prayers like: “I cried out in the wilderness and you heard me.” God delivering the people from Egypt. “Open your mouth wide and be fed.” These really correspond to my experiences with Josh. I was forlorn and lonely. It was just the two of us, struggling through. I was trying to work, it was winter, I had no money and everything was just really difficult. And I just felt like I just kept holding out my hand and I did feel something happen in a mystical way… that my cries were heard. It felt like faith carried me through and that my prayers were answered. I didn’t even know I was praying. I knew I was crying out. I felt delivered, held.
Crystal: Is there anything you hope others might learn from the way you approach art and life?
Anita: I’m always encouraging people to draw—especially when they’re in a tough spot. People often say: “Oh I’m too stressed out to draw,” but I think that’s when you should be drawing. I think the avenue of drawing can be really illuminating and can really get you through what seems technically like an impossible situation. I was anxious the other day thinking “what’s going to happen to me with the vaccine? Then when I started drawing, I wasn’t worried at all. But if I had just sat there, inside my head, I’d go into overdrive.
Theresa: What would be your advice to people on how to get started?
Anita: I would say get a pad of paper, get a pen or pencil, and just make some marks. Don’t get hung up looking at it and “trying to draw.” People are afraid to draw. I was scared lots of times [during Josh’s medical crises]. I was petrified driving in the ambulance, so I drew how crazy that was. Or being there when he was having a lot of blood taken out or was in a lot of pain, I drew his pain. If people can not be afraid to draw their most difficult moments, there is often a door to some kind of insight or silver lining waiting to open.
Theresa: When you say “draw emotion,” can you elaborate on that process a bit?
Anita: I would say draw some lines that show a scared feeling or happy feeling and add some colors to it that relate to…perhaps your anxiety. Once you draw your anxiety, choose a color that is soothing and helpful. It’s a kind of layering. First you draw the hard part—so say you’ve got a scribble to represent that—now draw something that for you is a “calm shape.” That is a very simple way I would say to move through the situation. It’s easy to get paralyzed in a difficult moment. But I think drawing is more productive than sitting on your phone.
Theresa: What role can the kind of art you do play in the fractured world in which we live?
Anita: I don’t think I’ve spoken nearly enough about humor. I always delighted when I found humor where there really was none, like at rock bottom. Then I would draw myself as “nurse Nita” and she would take a break from being a caregiver to go out dancing. I think one way of healing the fracture is through humor because somehow if we can find some humor we can come together. Our sense of time is fractured from the pandemic. Our sense of country has been fractured, but now it’s apparent. Humor is always there. It’s a great gift, a great tool. Some of my early drawings I was arguing with the coronavirus, like “nobody wants you, get out of here, good bye,” but at the same time that gave me the ability to hold it and not be paralyzed by fear. You always have the tool of yelling at a difficult situation in your drawing.
Credits: All drawings are @copyright of the artist and may be reproduced with permission.
