Scribble Town (ST): Hi Nate!  We have been friends now for a very long time now and have been following your work and want to make sure all the Scribblers are aware of your stories, colors, and art.  Please introduce yourself for us!

Nate Williams (NW): I am a Brooklyn, New York based collage artist, architect and researcher. In my free time I enjoy playing music for people to dance to. I love to travel around the world and learn about how different people live and have fun. My work has been focused on translating and transforming the arts of Africans in the Americas. I enjoy observing the ways people create their visual art, dance their dances, sing their songs, and tell their stories. I learn from these ideas and try to combine them in my ar(t)chitectural collages. I try to create artwork that tells several stories in one visual song, like a DJ might connect different songs for people to dance to.

ST: Where are you and what are you up to these days?

NW: I spend my time working at my office, creating new art work, and showing my work in small galleries and museums. Currently, my collage “Nightmares H(a)unt” is on display in the group exhibition “Dia del Los Muertos; SACRED MEMORIES: Contemporary and Cross Cultural Expressions of the Day of the Dead” presented by El Pueblo in Los Angeles, and am preparing for an upcoming show in New York.

ST: What is your favorite place to create?

NW: My favorite workspace is at home, in Brooklyn, New York. I love to create moving back and forth between the length of my living room floor and my draft board in my mini home office; while spinning music on my turntables. I’ve started many collages on planes, in hotels, even in New York subways, but my apartment will always be my favorite place to create because I like to have both my music and my books close at hand when I create.

ST: Anyone in particular that has inspired you or inspires you now?

NW: I am inspired by being raised in a diverse, multi-cultural, multi-national family immersed in the arts in many forms from visual, to rhythmic movement, in dance or sport; lyricism, in poetry as well as in story-telling.

I have too many inspirations… Junot Diaz’s stories,  Andrew Dosunmu’s photography, DJ Rich Medina’s music, Phyllis Galembo’s photography, Malik Sidibe’s photography, Jean Michel Basquiat’s artwork, Ndong  Essinga’s music, and Gee’s Bend quilts…But I think I’m most inspired by Romare Bearden’s mixed media collages. His artwork tells stories about his life and his travels using pieces of paper and cloths, paints and pencils.

Although I am still developing my artistic process, I’ve been inspired by curator, creator, semiotician, Arlene Tucker’s Translation is Dialogue series; which has allowed me a new space to consolidate and express my interests in the arts and cultural research in mix media collage.

ST: When did you start making art and how did it begin?  Was there anybody in your life encouraging you, if so who?

NW: I’ve always been making art. I believe I completed my first mural when I was 4 years old. My parents were supportive, though they would have preferred that I painted on paper instead of my bedroom wall. My most inspirational instructor was my school art teacher, Richard Marcucci, who was both an artist and DJ.

ST: What do you hope to communicate with your art?

NW: I aspire to sample, layer, and rhythmically repeat ar(t)chitectural ideas about culture and space; people and place; in new ways that still document and archive. I hope that the stories in my artwork change/evolve with each collage series. I hope to communicate our distinct languages in ways that show that we, regardless of our backgrounds, are interconnected.

ST: Do you have a craft, piece of art, or art technique you can share with our Scribblers for them to make at home?  (you can send picture of this)

NW: I usually start new collages by spreading a long roll of paper the length of the room. I then layer different images, objects, paints, and finally pencil lines to tell a story.

ST: Thank you for taking the time and please let us know of your future shows and projects!  And for the Scribblers, we’d love to hear what stories and thoughts come to mind when you see Nate’s artwork.  For example, why do you think the lady below is so happy and smiley?  I think it’s because she just danced her heart out!  With love!

For more information on Nate Williams please go to http://nate-art.com/