Q&A with Violet White

How have you evolved as an artist over the years?
I grew up wanting to be an artist, but I didn’t fully believe it was possible. My adult life has been a slow, stubborn process of proving that wrong. Along the way, I wandered — working and doing whatever I could, healing arts, ceramics, drawing, painting, video, photography, digital imaging, and sound.

What I was really building was a vocabulary. A palette I can draw from, depending on what the work asks for. Now, working in St. Louis, I can see that none of those paths were detours. Each one expanded my understanding of material, time, and attention. The work has become less about choosing a medium and more about listening to what it requires.

Was there anyone early in life who had a big influence on your creativity?
My whole family. I come from generations of makers, my great-grandmother, grandmother, great-aunt, grandfather, and both of my parents. Making wasn’t something you waited to do; it was part of daily life.

I remember my dad coming home after a full day of work in the Arizona heat and going straight to the garage, welding, hammering, building, until it was dark. Every day. He never waited for the right conditions. He just made. That taught me more than anything: you don’t wait for permission or inspiration. You work.

My high school painting teacher gave me something else entirely: permission to imagine a life as an artist. He made it feel real. Like I could be one of them. Like there was a larger world waiting for me, and I could step into it.

What was your path to becoming an artist like?
I grew up making art and music, but I didn’t follow a conventional path. I left home as a teenager and kept moving: Mexico, San Francisco, New York, Montana, back to Arizona, then on again.

I lived alongside artists, performers, poets, and musicians. I was always making something, always searching — not with a clear plan, but with a kind of internal direction I didn’t yet have language for.

The people I met along the way often recognized something in me before I could see it myself. They opened ways of thinking that no institution ever could. I didn’t arrive here through a prescribed route. I built my own conditions, followed what felt alive, and kept going even when the path wasn’t visible.