We recently connected with Anna Hite and have shared our conversation below.
Anna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
All things considered, I think the most meaningful project I’ve worked on so far has been a piece called “Recovery Position.” It’s a to-scale cyanotype print on a twin bedsheet that sits on top of a bed. I printed it by coating the fabric in cyanotype emulsion and then physically lying on it in the sun. I made it during grad school at Ole Miss, the semester before I started thesis. I was investigating the intersection of COVID and disability, and it referenced how I would lie in bed during my third bout of COVID, trying to find a position I could breathe in.
I’ve displayed it in several places and shown it to many people. The imagery evoked in it – the bed as a place of collapse, restoration, comfort – and the illusions to recovery can take different forms for different people. I continue to be surprised and touched when I hear people tell me how they relate to the piece, how they have found themselves in similar “recovery positions.” I think it’s my piece that has resonated the most with people, because the feelings it evokes are so universal.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Anna Hite, and I’m a working artist and art teacher. I finished my MFA at Ole Miss in 2023 and started teaching high school Art. Instructing and working with students is an art all its own! I manage the school district’s student gallery. I’m also a practicing artist still, and have had my work in shows across the country, the most recent being my piece “Recovery Position” being included in an almost year-long exhibition in Minnesota called “Chronicles of the Chronic.” In January, I’m expected to join fellow alumni Madeline McMahan and current Ole Miss student Somayeh Faal for a group exhibit at Bozarts Gallery in Water Valley, MS. In addition to this, I also sometimes take commissions and sell work at art festivals and fairs.
I have been interested in creative pursuits since I was a child. I started entering art competitions in the third grade. I submitted creative writing (and even got a story published) to various student magazines in high school. In undergrad, I cemented my decision to study art, and in grad school, I specified in printmaking. I work primarily in printmaking, drawing, photography. In my conceptual work, I focus on questions of identity and location. In my other work, I focus on functionality. One of the main things I sell are handmade sketchbooks. I make coptic stitch sketchbooks, which I find preferable to other forms of stitched books because coptic spines can lay flat, making for easier drawing. Handmaking sketchbooks also allows greater customization – from choosing the paper to the size to the number of sheets in the book, everything can be altered.
Out of everything, I think what I am most proud of is my ability to teach. I won’t say I’m the best teacher in the world – I definitely have a lot to learn. But every time I can show a student “yes, you can do this, you don’t have to be born some savant to learn how to do art” and I get to see the joy on their face as they see the results of their efforts, I know I made the right choice in my career. How could I be satisfied with anything less than this?
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
CaFE (callforentry.org). I had been searching social media for exhibitions and shows to submit work to, and it was a mess. CaFE is a commonly utilized tool by exhibition organizers that makes it easy for applications to search through shows and submit to the ones they like.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Society at a certain point has begun to view art as something secondary. How can something be secordary, when we’ve been making art since before humans even had a written language? Society needs to put more value on the arts, because the arts offer us catharsis and understanding in an increasingly fractured and digitized world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.annahite.com
- Instagram: annakhite.art
- Twitter: annahite
