Upon entering Professor
Randy Williams’ class it's not hard to feel immediately welcomed. He takes a
slow walk between his students’ workspaces, giving just the right amount of
instruction and covers moments of silence with intriguing conversation and humor.
His students find it hard to quell their smiles and laughter. When I met with
him to talk about his work, he offered me a cup of tea, and sat across from me
inclined, his expression genuinely interested, as if my questions were as
interesting as the answers he gave me.
Influential, is the
first word that comes to mind after learning about Williams’s expansive career.
An artist himself, he also educates and organizes young artist shows, which
means that he has some weight in New York’s art scene, especially considering
he’s worked at some of its most famous museums.
Randy Williams was born in New York City in 1947. He
maintains two active careers, both as a visual artist and an educator of over
42 years. Williams is an instructor of studio art and art education at
Manhattanville College, an instructor and educational consultant to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and he is the Artistic Director of
the New York State Summer School of the Visual Arts where he has been a master
teacher for thirty–two years.
Williams first
discovered an interest in art while he'd set out on a completely unrelated
career path. "I went to
school to be a doctor. That was my intention,” he says- “I found my way into
the art department because I needed a job. There I learned I could take things,
deconstruct them, reconstruct them and make beautiful things-- I could take
things that happened to me and not necessarily turn them into something good,
but I could change them. I could see them in a different way than from when I
was a kid -- I learned that art was also a kind of medicine”. Williams received
a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from New York University and a Masters
Degree in Art Education from Sir George Williams University in Montreal.
As an artist, Williams has won numerous prizes, awards
and honors, including the 1982 Fellowship from the National Endowment for the
Arts and the American Academy in Rome. He also has been recognized by the New
York State Council on the Arts, Visual Arts Division, and the New York
Foundation of the Arts with a Fellowship in sculpture. He received the
Manhattanville College Excellence Award in 1995 and 2007. His work has been the
subject of more than thirty-eight national and international solo exhibitions.
He’s had scores of special projects, and has exhibited in over 100 group
exhibitions. His artwork can be viewed in a number of public and private art
collections.
Williams often stresses
the importance of art and its effect on society, and especially its effect on
the individual who creates it.
“Most people don’t think art is important,” he says..-
“They wonder ‘how can it change anything in the way that science or politics
can change things.” However, Williams firmly believes that art does have the
power to change things. He describes art as both a medicine and a weapon, in
that art can help a person deal with their past as well as help make a
statement when fighting injustices.
Williams often alludes to these applications of art in
his own work.
“Memories play a very, very important role in my work,
especially my childhood memories.” Williams said in a previous interview with
Dan Mills. Williams’ own Artist Statement starts with, “The content of my
artwork explores the tangible experiences of my past as well as the current
events that I experience presently... Often I explore elements of my past that
were harmful to me as a Black- American... Now that I am older and stronger and
have a capacity to view the world differently.”
Williams recently had a piece in the Arthur M. Berger Art Gallery, here at Manhattanville, in the 2012 Studio Art Faculty Exhibition. His mixed media piece was entitled, “Race, Religion and the Laws of Gravity: Cultural Diversity in the Workplace.”
Williams recently had a piece in the Arthur M. Berger Art Gallery, here at Manhattanville, in the 2012 Studio Art Faculty Exhibition. His mixed media piece was entitled, “Race, Religion and the Laws of Gravity: Cultural Diversity in the Workplace.”
“Manhattanville’s own castle insignia is on the piece
which represents how this is an issue that occurs even here.”
Williams’s beautifully crafted work shows the unique
style of deconstruction and, reconstruction, it’s large reaching over the
viewers head and is outlined in dark colored pieces of wood with frames within
it that protrude, supporting and containing images or pages from books with
significant text. It calls to mind the recent incidents involving
discrimination and respect with Manhattanville’s own community with familiar
images. It is a visual aid working to ask for change, the same way a formal
speech might.
-
Alexa
Montalvo
Randy Williams
914-323-5331
