Art Is + Jessica Witte

SP Blog’s series "Art Is +" is an attempt to view art through the eyes of artists and writers themselves. In wide-ranging interviews with vital new artists and writers from both Asia and the USA, the series ushers these voices to the forefront, contextualizing their work with the experiences, processes, and motivations that are unique to each individual artist. "Art Is +" encourages viewers and readers to appreciate art as the multitude of ways in which artists and writers continually engage with our world and the variety of spaces they occupy in it. Read our interviews with Symin Adive, Geraldine Kang, and Paula Mendoza.

Jessica Witte is an artist based in St. Louis, Missouri, best known for her interactive artworks that rely on temporal change and social engagement to see her vision all the way through. https://jessicawitte.com/

In this interview, Witte opens up about some of the personal experiences that have inspired her collaboration-driven ethos and, in her reflections on the ideas of control and engagement, explains how the daily act of caregiving colors the ever-changing art that she creates. In addition to her work as an artist, Witte is taking on the roles of parent, teacher, grandchild, friend, and sister-in-law at this socially distanced time. She is currently showing “It Hits Home: Parenting Amid a Pandemic,” alongside Christine A. Holtz, at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation Gallery in St. Louis, where her work can be viewed from the Grand Street windows, by virtual tour, or by individual appointment. The show is open until August 2, 2020.

“the domestic is in everybody’s face now”

Jade Onn: So how has existing in the time of COVID been?

Jessica Witte: Relatively, we’re doing well. It’s been interesting because I was teaching college when Covid really hit here. Right before midterms, we realized that everything was going to shut down and it was probably the last time I was going to see my students. It was an interesting transition because I had just returned to the classroom in January after taking a decade off to raise my kids. Luckily, the tools for teaching online learning are much more intuitive than when I left teaching.

I had also started working on interactive public art projects. I had one upcoming slated at my grad school. The Northern Illinois University Art Museum was in the works to commission me to do an interactive art project in the fall— but, obviously, that is not happening anymore. So as soon as the pandemic hit, I was just kind of like “ugh.” The thing that I was most excited about pursuing (art-wise) was interactive public art projects in other cities. And actually, I’m working on a show at the Lambert Airport here, in St Louis. The airport show is documentation of “Seed the Change,” my  400-ft.-long collaborative drawing in birdseed at the Gateway Arch. It seemed a little crazy to have photos of that much engagement with strangers during the first part of COVID times.  And airports aren’t heavily-trafficked during pandemics, so it took the wind out of my sails a bit…

and I hear my children in the background.

Having my children around 24/7 has definitely been a change because I was appreciating having them in school and being able to work on things uninterrupted during the day. So I’ve had a couple big projects this summer that have been a real challenge to complete because of distance learning. Even though I really like teaching adults, I am not very good at teaching my own children (laughter).

JO: Yeah, it’s an entirely different playing field when it comes to kids! You just never know what to expect.

JW: Yeah and my son is the most easy-going, loves-to-learn kid but, when it’s the two of us, we butt heads. I mean, I guess it’s to be expected.

JO: I’m curious about how you’re working on your art right now, because so many of your pieces are really large and you also have to create them in the spaces that they are shown in. What’s your preparation process like and are you able to do that from home?

JW: I have to go through so many contingency plans because it’s all on-site. I have been working on large-scale stuff on the floor for a long time, probably 15 years, so I know how I want to do it. The challenge is more about how to scale it and train people to help make these things happen on a larger scale. One thing I learnt with “Seed the Change” (Commissioned by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts, and funded by the William E. Weiss ) was that it’s really amazing to have a budget when I need help. I have outgrown the ability to do it all myself and do it well.

Jessica Witte, Grounded, 2017. Wood chips on plastic. Courtesy of Jessica Witte. © Jessica Witte

I’ve done a couple of projects at university galleries and worked with students, and had a tech problem because I was trying to do too much at once. So I’ve realized that I have to be able to scale everything up and get support. And luckily, I have a great group of volunteers who have worked with me on several projects. I have paid them whenever I could. They’ve been really instrumental in helping to simplify things, offer suggestions,  and just make things work.

I work in environmentally-friendly and non-toxic materials already, so having a home studio was not a huge transition.  When we looked for a house in St. Louis, a home studio was part of the plan. As time has gone on, I’m better about not having much to store. It was nice that I already had a home studio before COVID. It does limit some of the things I do, but I also don’t want to pay others to work in dangerous materials on my behalf. Almost all the materials I use are safe enough to be used/made in my basement in the winter [so] that I didn’t have to go work outside or be in the garage to safely work.

I did a piece recently— I mean, I finished it a while back but I just reinstalled it at the show currently up in St. Louis—“Re:building,” which is branded wallpaper, so I was burning it. It was mostly paper but there was still a little bit of plastic, so I did it with a respirator on, out in my garage. But for most things, it’s safe enough [for] me to do it in my basement and I can sneak it in around my kids’ schedule.

(pause for Ray, JW’s daughter, yelling in the background)

(laughter; Ray is okay)

JO: Does that happen a lot when you’re working in your home studio?

JW: Ohhh yeah. These things [headphones] are amazing because I can’t hear everything. The kids know that if I have them on, they can’t really yell at me and expect me to answer. But it has been challenging because my husband works from home now as well and initially, I was taking on all the kids’ [online] schooling and still trying to work on my two upcoming shows. It was a dumpster fire of no energy, with the stress of the pandemic and trying to teach as well. Juggling all of that was difficult and my kids are used to getting responses right away… so we’re learning healthier limits now and COVID has been good because [now] my kids help a lot more around the house than they did before, because I was like “I can’t do this all. You guys need to help.” And now it’s become routine so they don’t need to be reminded. Well, they still need to be reminded, but it’s less nagging (laughter).

JO: It sounds like they’re really adjusting well to this new normal.

JW: Yes. And I’m very glad there’s two of them and they play well together. The whole family is pretty introverted and very project-focused, so, most of the time, as long as we can call other people and have a regular schedule of contacting family, we’re fine. We are homebodies anyway.

In the past couple years, I’ve also really been into running and that has been instrumental in feeling like [I’m] not trapped in the home. Getting all that physical energy out helps fight the dread of the current situation. It’s gotten more difficult to head outside because it’s so hot and humid now. But I’m in the habit of waking up really early and going before I can talk myself out of it.

JO: That’s amazing! I wish I had that kind of determination.

JW: Well, I didn’t previously! I realized I’m just really bad at self-motivation unless there is some external thing, [like] signing up for a big goal where, if I don’t train, I will be in pain. So a friend and I signed up for a half marathon together last November. And initially, the social part was the only part that made running fun [but] now I can do it by myself and actually enjoy it. I mean, I still like biking better but running is faster. Well, I’m not fast but, you know. Same workout for less time.

JO: I’m so glad so many of these changes have turned out to be largely positive for you! And actually, this is a really good segue for us to talk a bit more about your artwork. You describe your art as something that really “embraces change” and I find that really interesting because change is usually something that people aren’t the most comfortable with, especially when it’s not something within their control (e.g. COVID). Is this element of change something that you have always prioritized and sought after in your work, or is it something that you kind of evolved into doing?

“I really think you should push your work being temporary
and make sure it changes.”

JW: So, initially, a lot of what I was driven to investigate with my artwork was “what are structures and how they change.” Or even how viewpoints change, [so] things are still the same but your viewpoint changes so that relationship is shifted in a way. I wanted to harness the idea of time and changes over time so I would continue to show an art installation and alter it with each space. I used lower-impact materials and the form would basically disintegrate before your eyes. With my birdseed doilies pieces, I was initially doing them with rice in interior protected spaces. Their fragility was the focus. A passer-by could disrupt the setting. It’s out of your control and you depend on their attention to not destroy what you made.  

Initially, those pieces were set up in a way that was kind of challenging people to not be jerks and I didn’t want things to happen… but they would. But it was ok. In their earlier versions, [these pieces] were in group shows, where a juror comes in and selects the artwork.  There’s usually a lot more artwork than there is space to show them. I would have an eight-foot-wide doily in the middle of a gallery space with tons of artwork on the walls, so people would be looking at the things on the walls and step backwards and step into a doily and destroy its organization. I would go in over the course of the show and fix it.  Fixing it, that maintenance of the work, was a big part of it.

Jessica Witte, “drawing process”, Sun + Gravity, 2012- . Digital. Courtesy of Jessica Witte. © Jessica Witte

As part of a “For A Limited Time Only” show, the curator Olga Stefan wanted me to invite the public to alter it.  “I think you should really push your work being temporary and make sure it changes.” Encouraging people to take things out of the gallery or just making it interactive and less “I have this perfect thing set up. Are you going to destroy it?” At the opening reception, I had spaces set up for people to get involved and it was so much more interesting to see what they added and responded to. It was awakening more of the teacher in me. I think part of that was a personal change too because I went from being a perfectionist to embracing the process which is a lot more interesting to me. I really wanted to shift the work to being like the audience had to engage with it, so then the work got bigger and bigger. I showed in a space where [the artwork] took up the entire floor so in order to even look at it, you had to either step carefully through it or destroy it as you were walking.

For that show “Porous Architecture,” the walls were all glass, so you automatically felt like you were in a fishbowl being watched as you entered the space. I was able to work for two whole weeks to build a drawing in seed on both floors of the space. A friend helped for a whole week, but we were in this building without heat, so I had this tiny little heater.  My friend and I were freezing while carefully placing seed all day and wearing all of our clothes at night next to this little heater. At the opening reception, people were very carefully walking in. During my gallery talk, I told them the work may be destroyed by the end of the night and I’d be ok with it. The students (this show was at a college) went a little crazy and it was pretty much gone by the end of the night. At the end of two hours, most of the drawing was gone. The school administration wanted to close the show, sweep it up and clean it out, because there wasn’t any “artwork” left. The gallery director said that students actually defended the work because they got the point of it. Her students talked to administration and said that this was a huge mind-shift for them to think about work and the process. It also made me think about how do I control the changes enough that there is still a work there over a longer span of time.

So a lot of that embracing change became how do I lose control so that interesting things, that I cannot foresee, can happen? But how can I also still edit what happens at the end?

After that work, I had a space that couldn’t change. It was an atrium space and the work was “Sun + Gravity.” Initially I was asking “Can I set up a fan?” or “Can I get somebody to come in and remove a part of the drawing over the course of the show?” but the gallery director was going on maternity leave, so she was going to lock the space. So, to take advantage of that space, I put newsprint on the floor and did a drawing with seed on top. The sunlight bleached all of the paper not covered with seed, so that it made a kind of document.  This work is actually up right now in St. Louis. The show actually changed over time, even though no person could altered the work. 

Jessica Witte, Sun + Gravity, 2012- . UV burn on newsprint. Courtesy of Jessica Witte. © Jessica Witte

“Seed the Change” was all about not wanting it to just be my drawing. I wanted it to be about the additions [by] whomever shows up, whomever walks through the space and alters it. It took a lot of encouragement to get people to add to it, but once they would see other people working, especially kids, adults would also stop to add a design or name as well. The biggest issue we had was the weather. The project was supposed to be over two days but the first day had scattered thunderstorms and there was no shelter.  I didn’t feel comfortable providing safety measures to the many people who were helping with the project.  We switched it from two days to one and just did one really long day. And so, with that change, engagement with the audience was paramount to the life of artwork and its changing.

JO: That’s amazing and, actually, I would love to know what you think about the role of photos/videos and their relationship to work that embraces change, like “Seed the Change.”

JW: Well, for one, I wish I were a better photographer. I love the fact that crowd-sourcing works on occasion. I now pay for professionals since I have one shot to capture it.  I had been making the pristine first part of the work all about “organizing chaos,” making all these really messy materials look neat—for me, that is the “work” part of it and the fun part is really seeing how it disintegrates because it always disintegrates in different ways. And I think [the art] is always more interesting once there is, like, a footprint in it, or someone has run their fingers through it and changed it. The piece is really alive then and becoming what it’s supposed to be in that space. I feel like my vision for the work goes beyond what it is in that pristine space and I want to capture the lifespan of that work in that particular space.

I want to celebrate the hard work of maintenance. Part of that is going beyond just building something beautiful and giving attention to things that aren’t new and perfect. I don’t know if I have necessarily done that yet but what I would really like someone to walk away with is “yes! We need to take care of things!” I’m not exactly sure how to get that across using visual means, besides that careful attention to the same thing over time. I really love the time-lapse video as a way to capture the work because it is a short-enough thing that people can get the idea [of the work] quickly, and the lifespan of the artwork itself becomes the focus over a specific moment.

“… those pieces were set up in a way that was
kind of challenging people to not be jerks and
I didn’t want things to happen… but they would.
But it was ok.”

“Letting Go, To Seed” was the first time I worked with others to generate something that was open-ended. I realized that because of the [limited] time-span, I only had so much childcare help [that made it possible] to go in and work on this piece. I can’t stay for two weeks to draw on their patio. The art center had a volunteer crew work with me—

(Ray comes in and pokes her head into view)

JW: Do you want to come and say hi? No? I’m still talking—

Ray: I knowww… I just want you to help me find something

(Ray leaves; laughter)

JW: What was I going to say? Right. With that, I was building a framework. Other people could generate something of their own and it would end up still being a controlled entity. It allowed people to put their strengths forward and work in their own way.  So I basically said, “We’re going to work with black seed, it needs to be at least two inches thick so that you can actually see it from the camera, and I’m generally looking for a floral form.” Then I drew a circle, assigned it to a person, and then they built from there. I walked around like it was a drawing class and orchestrated the activity to make the overall composition work together.  That became really fun to watch because that whole process then was out of my hands. Even with the building of the drawing, I got to enjoy the process instead of just executing something that I had previously done and making it larger.  

JO: Speaking of changes in processes, congratulations on your current show in St. Louis! What has it been like, working on and opening an art exhibition in the middle of this pandemic?

JW: Oh it’s been really interesting. Because, initially, Christine A. Holtz and I had the show [scheduled] about a year earlier. It was supposed to open the end of May. But as COVID hit, no one knew what was going on. I had two shows to get ready for. Which one is actually going to happen? For me, it was a lot of waiting around and being anxious about what was happening. You know, there was some grief there because I kept getting notifications on my phone for different events that we had already scheduled. The Kranzberg is this beautiful, amazing facility that has multiple live theatrical spaces. It’s really active and engaged. It’s right next to the giant Fox Theater, there’s great foot-traffic… it’s in a wonderful place. So their First Fridays are a great gathering of people and of course we’re missing out on that now.

Jessica Witte, Birdseed Doilies. Birdseed. Courtesy of Jessica Witte. © Jessica Witte

Several weeks out, we finally got contacted when the Kranzberg knew what was going on and they wanted to know if we were still interested in showing or if we wanted to push the show back a year. I, at the time, was teaching my kids and trying to teach my [college] class and feeling like I can’t add one more thing. Luckily, Christine, who is a good friend of mine as well, was like “we need to do it.” Our work is all about parenting, this is going to be a rare occasion where everybody is going to be thinking about the difficulties of parenting because even if you don’t have a family, you have your co-workers getting constantly interrupted, and I mean, the domestic is in everybody’s face now. We can’t pass up this opportunity. And there’s tons of people looking for content, everybody’s on their phones, scrolling— there’s kind of a captive audience there.

So I slept on it, and woke up energized. The work that we do is relevant anyway, but especially now when so many things are being highlighted, inequality-wise, and just thinking about the value of different labors and how people spend their time. So we agreed to make new art about COVID and I’m so glad we did because working on the show has been so therapeutic and probably why I’m much calmer now.  Being able to process it, art-wise, feels really good because I doubt that I would have the energy to crank something out if I did not have this deadline. I would have been like “ok, let’s be a happier mommy,” and focused on a little more self-care and my kids.

JO: So, in this show, “Targeted Treatment” and “You Are My Sunshine” are the new pieces you did?

(Ray sticks her head around the door again; laughter)

JW: Ok. Right. We were talking about “Targeted Treatment” and “You Are My Sunshine.”

JO: Yes. So did you come up with the ideas for these pieces before COVID kicked in? Or are they ideas that you came up with after getting that call from the gallery and confirming that you will be going ahead with this show?

JW: Those were new. Christine and I wanted to rewrite the press part of our show to respond to COVID directly. Once we knew that the Kranzberg was excited that we were shifting our show in response, Christine had told me about the things she was thinking about doing and I was like “ok. She’s setting the bar high,” so I’m going to have to push myself.

I kept thinking about my grandma, who is a hundred and currently in the process of dying. She’s amazing and making stuff all the time. She is such an inspiration to me especially because my daughter has the same drive that she does, where she won’t go to bed because she has to finish making her comic book. So I really wanted to make a piece about her because a lot of the work I had done of late has kind of been in memorial for people. “Sun + Gravity” was a piece made during my mom’s cancer treatment. And ‘You are My Sunshine” WILL be the last piece my grandmother gets to see. She’s been such a big part of my creative life. I want to do an homage to her that she can see before she’s gone. In thinking about my biggest concerns with COVID, I was thinking about the people that are the most fragile. My grandma being in a nursing home and isolated was really a difficult thing to get my head around. My kids and I sent a lot of mail, drawings and photos to her. I also have a sister-in-law who was undergoing cancer treatment at the time so those were the people that I focused my worries and good thoughts on.

“It took me a while to realize [that] my doing things
on the floor and having it be about others’
engagement is still a metaphor for what
I am most concerned about.”

Jessica Witte, Targeted Treatment, 2020. Coloured chalk powder. Photo courtesy of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation.

It took me a while to realize [that] my doing things on the floor and having it be about others’ engagement is still a metaphor for what I am most concerned about.

My grandmother is a prolific quilter—she has broken sewing machines (laughter). She basically needs people to replace needles and fix the sewing machine because she barrels ahead and gets stuff done. So, in thinking about how she combines colors and how she is very vivacious and loving and bright, doing something monochromatic is just not fitting. I wanted bright colors so I learned how to work with colored chalk powder.

In thinking about doing something for people undergoing cancer treatment, I interviewed friends and family who received treatment. My mom’s response was that the ribbons don’t really mean anything to her. I mean, they made her think of breast cancer but didn’t make her recall her experience.

For her the most resonant symbol for going through cancer treatment was focusing on the calendar and thinking about more time. One of the things we gift her every year is a calendar with photos of grandchildren and those things are her most precious possession because it represents “extra” time she gets to spend with the people she loves. So with “Targeted Treatment,” I wanted to make it like a calendar and the pattern looks like selected days of treatment or just keeping count. I combined cancer ribbons and targets to highlight to the vulnerability of these people who are most likely to be hurt by other peoples’ engagement with the virus.  

(Bennett, JW’s son, enters the room, off camera)

JW: she can’t find her mask? You guys- it’s piled somewhere around. Ok? Ok. You want to say hi?

(Bennett waves)

JW: Where’s Ray? Bring her in here!

JW: They’ll probably bug us less if they get entertained (laughter)

JO: (laughter) I still do that with my mom all the time. She just has the ability to magically find everything, even if I had already looked in the same spot.

JW: I feel like I have that magic too!

(Bennett and Ray pop into view and JO takes a photo of everyone together on her computer screen)

JW: OK. I’ll talk to you guys in twenty minutes. You’re fine.

(laughter; Bennett and Ray exits)

JO: They are adorable! Okay, let me try to re-focus… You know what, actually, I did want to ask you about how you talk to your family about all the artworks you’ve created for/about them. How do you handle that, especially with your kids?

JW: Ohhh, yes. It’s interesting because, with the “Where He and She Begin” pieces, it’s about literally projecting yourself onto your children. You filling in what they’re feeling, for them. Especially with COVID, being home with them for sustained periods of time, and trying the make the experience a good one for everyone, I try to listen to them more.  When Bennett and I were butting heads, he would say things like “we’re not the same, mom” and I would be like “oh. No, we’re not. You are a very different thing.” I assumed that I know what’s going on with him because I was also a shy kid and we look very similar too. He reminds me of myself but he has a very different perspective on things—I mean, obviously, he is a different human being. I’ve become better at seeing them as completely separate from me whereas, before, I always took parenthood as “this is a reflection of me” and less like I’m just helping to coach someone.

With Bennett, he came really early and we were automatically in the whole medical system before we became parents. I was also on hospital bedrest for a month before he came. It was a very difficult time for me as a person and I wish I had gotten more assistance with mental health because I just didn’t feel like myself. It was a lot. It was also difficult because we were states away from family and it was just us, parenting. Although we were lucky to have my mom stay with us when my kids were just born. But with his physical therapy and everything else, I’m realizing now that there was respite care available that I didn’t use. We were in a good financial place [but] I felt really bad about taking these resources, [even] when I could have benefited greatly from just getting a break.

In the first couple years of his life, there’s an incredible service called “First Steps.” So if you have a kid with special needs, they have people come into the home and basically help reach developmental milestones by coaching you at the right time. So an occupational therapist and a physical therapist came into the house each week.  I took my perfectionism into parenting and he (Bennett) did amazing! He’s an amazing kid now and in the gifted program. He’s a wonderful human being but I think that I would have been a better mom if I had gotten help myself, earlier. Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent here.

JO: It’s okay, that was a great tangent! These are all important things to talk about.

JW: Oh, yes, talking to my kids about the artwork! So, with “Where He and She Begin,” I already knew from the beginning that a lot of what I was doing was projecting onto my kids. That was very evident in me thinking that every single milestone he (Bennett) met was my doing. Or, if he didn’t meet it, I wasn’t doing the right thing. And now, especially after Ray (my daughter), I just realize how fully-formed children are—their personalities are already made when they come out. Bennett was totally chill and, as a preemie, everyone was like “he’s the most chill preemie” and I was like “no he’s not” and they said, “you don’t know. You’re a new parent.” And then Ray was a completely different animal and I was like—yeah, we had the easiest baby [with Bennett]. Ray is strong-willed and determined. If something happens and she falls down, she just shakes herself off and attacks it, whereas Bennett had to master things before he would try them.  

Jessica Witte, “Jessie 1983, Bennett 2016”, Where He and She Begin, 2018- . Digital. Photo courtesy of the Jessica Witte.
© Jessica Witte

So I talked to my kids about making work, and I wanted them to actually sit and have me project an image onto their faces.  We tried it a couple of times, but I still wanted so much control that it just wasn’t working. But now that they’re older, sometimes fascinated with what I’m doing, they were interested enough to actually sit for it. So, in the very last two pieces I did of my kids, it is their school picture that then turns into them and they got to do whatever they wanted. So they both got up and left. That was perfect. This might be the end of this series because I no longer feel like I’m constantly projecting myself onto them. Especially after COVID and just trying to focus on the more important things. I’ve become less obsessed with my part in them and I just want them to thrive.

My son is a decade old now, which is crazy, and my daughter is now seven. They are both independent and pretty good about talking about their feelings. They are a little less like a pudgy baby or toddler, where you can kind of answer questions for them. I have talked to them about my other artwork. There are a lot of pieces that I wanted to make with my kids but if they aren’t game, I won’t do it. It’s very much a permission-based thing, so I am sure to get explicit consent. They love helping with seed-drawings. I’m still trying to figure out how to do work with them as the editor but making it open-ended enough so that it’s not just me telling them to do something. So I’m still figuring that out.

“I think [the art] is always more interesting once there is,
like, a footprint in it, or someone has run their fingers
through it and changed it. The piece is really alive then and
becoming what it’s supposed to be in that space.”

Jade Onn is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where she studied English and Political Science. She is always happy to exchange notes with anyone on the culture of identities, new books, and houseplant care.