Anita Inez White

Describe what you do for work and how your experience with it has been.

I draw people and places of beauty in the moment. I try to pay attention to those not seen through my daily drawing life, often in unseen places like hospital settings.

How did you get your job?

I got my medical drawing life by drawing my way through the medical needs of my late husband.

What was your major and how did you choose it?

Drawing and Painting. It was a natural expression for me.

Who was your favorite faculty member and why?

Roman Verostko because of his creative erudite philosophical outlook on art, technology and life.

Describe your internship(s).

My creative internship was through travel and drawing in the moment in unusual situations.

Best thing you ever found on the free shelf?

Sketchbooks.

Did MCAD prepare you for life after graduation? In what way?

Yes. I was taught to take creative risks which I have done now throughout my life in every way possible!

Your biggest takeaway from MCAD?

Getting inspiration from being around other creative artists and teachers.

What inspires you/your work?

Drawing with compassion and paying attention to those not seen, as well as responding to the everyday beauty of life around me.

How do you network yourself and your art?

By being spontaneous and striking up conversations with those I meet. My late father James C. White (who taught Eny. Poetry and Film at MCAD from 1970 to 1980) set that example for me.

What was your experience living in the Twin Cities? Any hidden treasures?

My experience was to get to know different neighborhoods. I grew up in Uptown, but moved to Longfellow in 2006 and helped found a community of artists here by starting the LoLa Art Crawl (LoLa being an acronym for League of Longfellow Artists) with fellow artist Bob Schmitt in 2009. Also, by drawing Whittier residents in south Minneapolis with their visions for the old K-Mart site, I got to know another neighborhood and to have my drawings made into banners that currently hang on a chain link fence outside the old K-Mart.

How have your travels influenced your painting life?

All my travels have influenced my creative drawing and painting life. From 1975 to 1979 I lived on the smallest of the Aran Islands in a stone cottage with no amenities that had been the cottage of a storyteller. I drew, wrote and painted from that journey for years.

My journey to Mexico in 1992 and my photos inspired paintings of vendors, dances, markets and courtyards for 14 years. My journey to Romania also inspired a lot of documentary drawings and many large colorful paintings (gouache on handmade Thai Unryu paper).

My inner journey to becoming Jewish from 1988 to 2003 also inspired a lot of writing, drawing and inner musing. My medical drawing life inspired a lot of documentary drawing as did the personal caregiving of my late parents, and now the caring for my brother.