Jessica Dickinson Holt Obituary
Jessica Dickinson Holt, 81, died peacefully on June 7, 2016, in her home along the Rock River in Fort Atkinson, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.
Jessica was born Oct. 22, 1934, in Lake Geneva, to Albert Boyd Dickinson (The Albert Dickinson Seed Company) and Bernice Latimer Dickinson (Leininger).
She grew up on a farm where her father raised Percheron, Herefords and Holstein-Fresians, and where she played with her four sisters in the barns and on the lake.
She attended the University of Colorado where she was a Delta Gamma, and found her passion for the mountains and skiing. She later worked as a medical records business administrator at Passavant Hospital in downtown Chicago.
In 1960 she married Edward B. Holt and moved to Rockford, Ill.
While raising four children, Jessica was an active member of the community; she was president of the Junior League; an elected member of the Winnebago County Board, and a tireless volunteer for the arts, youth and schools.
In the summers, Jessica brought her family back to Lake Geneva where they swam, sailed, raised vegetables and laughed in a tumult of aunts, uncles and cousins. As her children got older, she returned to her first love — art — taking painting courses at Rockford College, supporting the Rockford art scene and eventually receiving a Masters of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Illinois-Chicago. She participated in solo and small group shows at Roy Boyd Gallery, Abel Joseph Gallery and Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago.
Her husband died in 1985, and a few years later, she was drawn back to the open spaces of the West, moving to a 70-acre ranch near Parkman, Wyo.
Jessica continued to make and show her art at the Rockford Art Museum, Nicholayson Art Museum and Ucross Foundation in addition to being invited to participate in international artists’ residencies at Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Italy, Straumur Art Commune Hafnarborg Cultural Institute, Iceland, and Banff Center for the Arts, Canada.
She eventually went back for a second master’s degree in Philosophy at Colorado State University, using her thesis on play and the natural world to create the Bauen Camp, a camp for teens focused on using the arts as a catalyst for social change and responsibility that she founded on her Wyoming ranch. The Bauen Camp lasted for 10 years, from 2000 to 2010, inspiring hundreds of underserved teen artists, muralists, poets, actors, dancers, writers and musicians from urban centers like New York City and Chicago to Native American Reservations, including Zuni, Crow and Northern Cheyenne, to rural Sheridan County, Wyo., as well as international campers and staff from Australia, Japan, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
In 2007, for her work founding and operating the Bauen Camp, Jessica was noted one of a dozen Fellows as part of the Purpose Prize Civic Ventures program at Stanford — a program for social innovators over the age of 60. In 2012, after 22 years in the west, Jessica moved back home to Wisconsin, to be close to her youngest daughter, Cynthia, and her husband, Jeremy, because of health concerns.
Jessica “Grannie” lived passionately for and was inspired by the love of her family, the laughter of her grandchildren and the possibility of life-changing work and play for people of all ages and backgrounds in the arts, garden and the natural world.
She is survived by her four children, Cynthia (Jeremy Pinc) Holt, Melissa (Tom) Moore, Nancy Wright and Douglas (Tuba Ustuner) Holt; her sisters, Nancy Tenney Picken, Lois Whiting, Susan (Bob) Morton and Sarah (Dick) Baker; her grandchildren, Lachlan, Clara, Alice, Ella, Asa, Ali, Kaya, and one on the way; 15 nieces and nephews, and numerous grandnieces and nephews.
A public celebration of Jessica D. Holt’s life will be held at Horticultural Hall in Lake Geneva on Sunday, July 31. In honor of Jessica’s passionate life in the arts, please wear artist colors.
For additional details, visit Jessica’s Story on Facebook. To learn more about Jessica’s life work in the arts, visit www.jessicaholtart.com or www.flickr.com/photos/jessicaholtart/.