Interview by AFA Intern Franny Daleo-Clark in Spring of 2025
Q: Who are you?
Natalie: Natalie del Villar (My middle name is Bianca, but I don’t use it, although I love that name and maybe I should start!).
Q: How did you get involved in your specific discipline of art?
Natalie: That’s a hard question to answer because I don’t necessarily have a “specific discipline”. I am a visual artist, and I love to explore many different kinds of mediums and forms of visual art.
Q: What role did the arts play in your upbringing?
Natalie: Growing up, I always drew and created my own art projects since I was very little. I used to use the album cover art in my parents’ record collection as reference, and I used to use family photos and photos from magazines as reference as well. So, I grew up drawing. At the same time, I used to create all sorts of things, like activity books with word finds, recipes, crossword puzzles, etc. I created my own comic books, starring a character named Nellie. I used cardboard boxes to create little doll houses out of. Those early years of my life are where I developed my love for mixed media because I would essentially use whatever I could find around the house to add details to my art projects. I did things independently, and honestly I used to hate school and plan art projects in my head while I was at school. I would stare at the clock until the day was over and run home to work on my own personal projects, it was always my passion. I loved picture books. Gyo Fujikawa was probably the first children’s book illustrator that really deepened my love for art. There was a particular illustration in a book called “Oh, What a Busy Day,” by Gyo Fujikawa, that took up two pages; it was an illustration of a bunch of children sitting around a long table overflowing with breakfast items. I used to stare at that illustration and wish I was in it (my mother bought me a copy of the book as a gift for my 40th birthday).
In junior high school, I entered an art contest and won first place, and the prize was free art classes at Jamaica Arts Center, in Queens (now known as JCAL, or Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning). That began a very strong relationship between myself and that organization, and I had an instructor named Jean Segarra that I still keep in touch with to this day, who encouraged me to apply to LaGuardia High School and celebrated with me when I was accepted.
Q: What is your educational background?
Natalie: I first want to say that my view and my experience has always been that education can often be independent of, or outside of schooling. What I mean by that, is that, since I was very young, I sought my own art education independently, in bookstores, through giving myself projects and challenges, etc. Having said that, I was also fortunate enough to attend an amazing high school, LaGuardia High School of the Arts, where I was given very in-depth art instruction for four years. After high school, I attended Queens College, where I majored in Art History. These days I take figure drawing a couple times a month at The National Arts Club with Drawing New York, to stay inspired. I also frequent museums and art exhibits.
Q: What was your “path” in getting where you are? How did you get here as a teaching artist, and did you always want to do what you are doing now?
Natalie: My path has been very unconventional. I will try to be brief, but, essentially, I had children relatively young and ended up struggling a lot. I landed in the hospitality field and had art on the back burner for many years. However, throughout my hospitality career, art always did call me back somehow, and that same compulsion I felt as a child to create art would enter my life, leading me to produce many paintings and personal projects, as well as commission pieces over the years. In 2022, a good friend who is a visual artist and a paraprofessional referred me to a position as an art consultant at a NYCHA Community Center (he had been asked to fill the role but didn’t have the availability). I was contracted to create a summer art program and work with teens, and it went great. Since then, I remain a staple at the center, creating and facilitating art programs for groups of teens and older adults. Doing that work led me to the realization that I find a lot of fulfillment in seeing other people discover and thrive artistically, through my guidance. As I mentioned, I had an art instructor at a community center when I was 12 who encouraged me so much, and made me a better artist, and having the opportunity to be in the same position as her really felt like a full circle type of situation, and a blessing. So, with that as my start, I began developing workshop ideas and that is what led me to being a teaching artist.
Q: Did you experience a particular “aha” moment when you realized visual arts was your passion?
Natalie: About ten years ago, I took my children to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan and discovered the artwork of Red Grooms. I had never seen his work, and I didn’t know anything about the exhibit until we got there, but I was very deeply inspired by his work. Red Grooms basically makes work that feels as though you can walk into it, or live in it, even if it is small. He uses cardboard a lot in his work, and he layers things. He has many 3D pieces, some life size, some small, some are reliefs, and some are just paintings and drawings. His work embodied a lot of what inspired me as a child, and what I aspire to as an artist, which is basically creating work that transports the viewer into something like their childhood; art that is alive, detailed, playful, colorful, nostalgic, and not at all stuffy or pretentious. It made me happy, and I would consider that an “aha moment.” Seeing the way in which his art doesn’t stick to a certain set of rules and guidelines, and how he used many different mediums and methods to create his work really deepened my love for mixed media.
Q: How do the children you work with inspire you to continue being a teaching artist?
Natalie: In so many ways. For one thing, I don’t think about any problems or drama when I am working with children – or with adults, for that matter – as a teaching artist. I am always in the moment, with nothing else on my mind, and I love that. I love to see the world through the lens of children, because they always have such an amazing and fresh perspective, and it rejuvenates me. The children also inspire me to make more of my own artwork, because I’m driven by a feeling of wanting to make my students proud. I want them to see my art one day and say, “I know who did that, she was my teacher!” I want little artists to feel seen and understood, because I was like them when I was little. As artists, we inspire each other, regardless of age.
Q: What is one of the main takeaways you hope students gain from your classes?
Natalie: Believe in your vision, and if you see it, you can create it.
Q: What drew you to Arts For All? What are some of the projects you have been working on with students so far?
Natalie: My mission as a teaching artist is aligned with Arts For All in the sense that I want art instruction to be accessible to All children, of every demographic. So far, I have done workshops on Takashi Murakami, and Piet Mondrian. I start with a little art history lesson, and I encourage the children to really study artwork and make observations about the physical properties of a piece of art, as well as to think about what the artist might be trying to convey and how it makes them feel as a viewer. After we observe art, children make their own pieces inspired by what we just saw and the artist we just learned about.
Q: Do you have any favorite in-classroom moments working with students?
Natalie: I have many. I love it when children surprise me with how much they know. One specific great moment working with Arts For All was when a very young student raised his hand and pointed out that the painting we were looking at was “abstract.” That made my day, because I didn’t expect him to make such a sophisticated observation without me even bringing up the word.
Q: How do you see art in your daily life?
Natalie: I’m not even going to attempt to answer this question because it is too broad! I will definitely say everywhere… Maybe more so in the buildings I see stacked on top of each other (I love those layers), and in food because there are so many amazing textures and colors.
Q: What does art mean to you?
Natalie: Art means that life is worth living.
