Putting the Arts Back into the Culinary Arts: Nancy Willis, Artist + Activist + Educator

Nancy Willis is an artist, activist, and educator. Until the pandemic, she taught "Principles of Design," an art class for pastry students at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Napa Valley. As an artist and chef, Nancy works to bridge the divide between the culinary arts and the fine arts through exhibitions, workshops, and her art practice. We spoke about her work at the CIA, activism with the Yazidi refugee community, and Nourish, an exhibition project she curated at the Napa Valley Museum. 

Her course at the CIA taught students traditional design conventions and how to look at art and analyze it through their own experiences. She required students to visit a gallery or museum and select a work they could translate into a plating design. For many, it was the first time they had been to a museum. In this intensive course, many students had profound responses that allowed them to work through past trauma.

In 2015 Nancy curated NOURISH, an exhibition that brought together chefs and artists, including Anne-Sophie Pic, Grant Achatz, Richard Diebenkorn, Miro, Picasso, and Wayne Thiebaud. Through a Kickstarter campaign, she was able to present a diverse group of works across all media. She also traveled to Valence, France, to install a Nest camera in the kitchen of Anne-Sophie Pic, one of four female Michelin starred chefs, that live-streamed the kitchen during service into the museum. 

In 2017 she was invited to participate in an exhibition related to President Trump's travel ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, which allowed her to engage with the Yazidi refugee community. She traveled around the world to conduct monotype workshops with Yadizi refugees of all ages. On a trip to Europe, she met Nadia Murad, a recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize (2018), and led her and her husband through a monotype workshop in her hotel room. 

In conducting workshops with diverse communities, Nancy brings her extensive background in hospitality to art-making that fosters intimate exchanges that are often transformative. 

36:51 Lightning round questions.
51:35 One work of Art she would own.
57:22 Wish for the Art World.

We recorded this episode on May 28, 2020.

More about Nancy:

Artist Nancy Willis lives and works in the Napa Valley. As a painter/printmaker she works with themes of intimacy and social connection by creating series such as The BED, RSVP, the CHANDELIER and TERRAIN. With paint or printing ink, Willis uses an additive and subtractive process to explore how color, light and atmosphere can instill meaning and evoke a sense of place.

Until the Covid-19 restrictions, Willis taught classes at the Culinary Institute of America/Greystone, Nimbus Arts and the Napa Valley College. She quickly pivoted to offering online classes out of her studio, including Bake Like an Artist, and Postcards from the Edge. Her entrepreneurial projects include Path of an Artist tours, leading artists to France and Sundance for annual painting workshops. Willis' curatorial projects include Discrepancy/living between war and peace (2011) and Nourish (2015). Her recent exhibitions include NEXT: Print Matters in Houston, Texas and her solo exhibition, Savor the Moment, in Oakland which was an homage to Paris. In 2018/19, Willis was awarded two Community Fund Grants for her project Conflict Zone, a collaborative printmaking project with Yazidi women, men, and kids from northern Iraq.       

Learn more on her website: https://www.nancywillis.com

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License).