Jessica Butler smiles in front of cubbies full of art supplies and books.
As TOSS Director Jessica Butler unfolded two metal chairs in the middle of a room lined with art and paint stains, an instructor and several interns bustled around her, chattering in the doorway and organizing supplies.
Butler, who became director in April of this year, relaxed into the chair before detailing the path that led to her place in TOSS.
The Old School Studio (TOSS) is an art education and advocacy program within The Industrial Commons, serving as an intersection between public art, community building, and K-12 arts education.
Although Butler is the director, she doesn’t claim to be an artist and her fingers aren’t covered in paint or clay.
What she is, she explained, is in love with the process — a trait that reverberates through her life, well past the bright violet door of TOSS.
“I’m really focused on the climb, just what it takes,” Butler said. “What keeps coming up through me at work is I don’t even care about the finished product anymore. I want the highlight to be on what it takes to get there, because I think it’s just so undervalued in today’s day and age.
“You Google (anything) and you get your answer. There is no search anymore, and there is no wonder. I think, not just in art, but in life, you really have to sit in these uncomfortable moments in your process.”
Her enjoyment of the journey over the destination is what first brought her to Morganton in 2018.
She explained that she had been through the city on her way to a solo backpacking trip and fell in love with the “cute, little mountain town” instantly.
After discovering Fonta Flora Brewing Company — she had been a bartender since she finished college at UNC Greensboro — she decided to “take a leap of faith” and apply for a job, where she worked for nearly five years.
She got a second job as a mentor at a therapeutic boarding school in Black Mountain, where she worked shifts for seven days at a time, before she would head back down the mountain to Morganton to Fonta Flora.
“I couldn’t find a rental,” Butler explained. “So, I actually camped out at Wilson Creek every night that I wasn’t working at the boarding school … for about three months.”
Butler explains how the mural behind her was created by students learning about composition and color theory. Tools and art supplies are stacked on the cabinets behind her.
For Butler, life is about letting the world unfold and appreciating the moments in between. A runner and mountain biker in her free time, the self-described extroverted introvert values her alone time.
“We just got a new senior director so I’m dabbling in having some more work-life balance moving forward,” she said, explaining that she likes to go climbing at Bigfoot Climbing Gym in the evenings and cook dinner for herself after. “I really value my evenings to just decompress — not shut down. I do not go out. I find a lot of joy in my very cozy home and my animals and my self-care.”
Much of her job, she explained, consists of smiling and exerting a lot of emotional energy. While she finds it tiring at times, it allows her to be a catalyst for helping people use creativity and art to understand their peers and engage with their community.
“I have interns that I get to help and expose to so much stuff, but also create the reality that not everything is sunshine and rainbows,” Butler said before taking a phone call for TOSS.
Not long after she finished, the group of interns flocked around her, timidly handed her an envelope, and giggled out the door.
“Sprinkled in sunshine and rainbows,” she corrected, before finishing the interview, folding the chair back into a corner, and returning to work as the rain poured outside.
