May 18, 20182 min read

Noelle Lorraine Williams, Mixed Media Artist

Noelle Lorraine Williams use craft, sculpture, photography and performance to engage audiences in conversations about community. She has exhibited her work, given artist talks and lectures at Newark Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, Jersey City Museum, Rutgers University, Kean University and other galleries in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Louisiana. Her work has also mentioned in the New York Times, Star Ledger and she was lauded as one of the “100 Women We Love in Go Magazine!”

Noelle brings together more than twenty years of cultural activist organizing and working with student and community groups to her art practice. The heart of her work is reimagining our contemporary lives through, engaging history the lens of telling stories through through art. Currently, I serve as a consultant with My Newark Story creating art activities that engage audiences of different ages in thinking about history,family migration and community.

Image by Colleen Gutwein O'Neal

From the Newark Arts Photo Documentary Project

TAP Work:

"Though I have done workshops, lectured and served on panels with adults and teens as an artist who engages ideas about community, I wanted to learn more about how to work with some of our youngest community members. Thanks to the Teaching Artist Project I was able to do a 13-week residency building a book of drawings and poems with first graders at 316 in Brooklyn. Though there were similar themes as to when one works with teens and adults like: “keep it simple” or “layer the activity and have opportunities for some to engage more or less depending on their needs,” the first graders really bring lots of imagination and clarity."

Most Memorable TAP Moment:

"I had so many engaging moments! I think my favorite moment was definitely when I unveiled the community quilt that we all contributed to. They had been discussing it amongst themselves, so when I revealed it it was like a wave of excitement rolled all over the room! They all told me how they thought I would arrange the squares and why! I was impressed that they had considered their own work so deeply and also the work of their classmates so deeply."