MIDTOWN, NY — Art & Design High School senior Cherish Williams has joined the ranks of Tracy Reese, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Andy Warhol and Amanda Gorman.
They’ve all received Scholastic Awards as teens.
Williams, 18, was awarded a Gold Medal Portfolio Award this year— and a $12,500 scholarship — for a painting portfolio called “Self Identity.” Her work explores concepts of self and memory by also examining the conduit of nostalgia — the photograph.
“My portfolio basically is showing massages that you can get from family photos, or just photos in general,” Williams said. “I wanted to take a photo and not only paint what was in it, but also the actual artifact.”
In one painting called “Memories,” Williams used creases to depict a memory folded over and over again, stashed in a pocket, and even included the timestamp in the corner of the image.
Another painting called “Younger Self,” Williams deliberately uses color to convey the complex relationships that we all have with nostalgia, which she described as a “warm glow” surrounding darker, more complicated emotions.
Williams was always into drawing, but didn’t start painting until two years ago.
“The first time I painted, I absolutely loved it,” Williams said.
“I love the diversity you can have in terms of like the colors you use and your composition, and how there’s not really any guidelines,” she said, “so the possibilities are endless.”
After she entered the Scholastic Awards (“our teacher makes us,”), Williams heard nothing for months.
But one day in February, as Williams walked into her first period class, her teacher told her that some people from Scholastic wanted to talk with her.
“They just basically told me that I’m a gold medal portfolio recipient, and I will be receiving $12,500,” Williams said.
“I was very confused — I really honestly didn’t believe they had the right person.”
But they did, and they were blown away by her body of work.
“They were talking about my work on like a level not a lot of people can appreciate it,” she said, “and it just made me feel seen and heard and really delighted to be a part of this system.”
In the fall, when Williams attends Brooklyn College — an easy commute from her Prospect Heights home — she’ll be studying Childhood Education, not studio art. But she’s thinking about picking up a fine arts class or two.
And she’ll still be thinking about memory and identity.
“Memories can be positive and negative — they can make you feel any emotion that you want — it’s just how you take that emotion and make it what you want,” Williams said.
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“Different parts of your lives can be seen at different parts of your life,” Williams shared, “which is why most of my paintings are like, including cold and warm tones, because there’s a mix of what I felt in the past and what I feel today.”
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