Writer and Unabashed Dabbler: Brandy Williams
By Celeste Roche | Correspondent at April 17, 2024 | 8:00 am | Print
The New Britain City Journal is currently running a series of articles introducing residents of the New Britain Artists’ Cooperative. This article is the seventh of the series.
Brandy Williams, 34, is an artist who has experimented with different media and forms throughout her life. She considers herself to primarily be a writer and a social entrepreneur, though “not at the right pay level,” she jokes. Williams has been living in the New Britain Artists’ Cooperative for over a year.
“[New Britain] is an emerging city,” she says. She moved to the city because she thought that the Cooperative would be an interesting place to live. “I didn’t have any prior knowledge of [New Britain].” Williams says that living in the Cooperative has helped her to network with artists she wouldn’t have known otherwise, but if she didn’t live there, she would be in Phoenix, Arizona.
“[Art is] the most rewarding occupation that I’ve explored,” she says, but she acknowledges that she has had struggles including “societal pressures to conform and shifts in the market.” Her greatest artistic achievement is opening a publishing company and publishing her first works.
Williams says she values art as a method for sharing, communicating and educating, and that her own art is informed by her life experiences, particularly struggles.
“[Art has] allowed me to be more resolute in my self-exploration,” she says. When asked what her art reveals about her, Williams comments that it gives people insight into “experiences with [her] parents and their lack of involvement throughout [her] childhood.” She’s particularly excited to share her work with children, stating that they are often looking for direction and in need of positive role models.
Discussing room for improvement in the New Britain Artists’ Cooperative, Williams says that she would have liked for “funding for the arts [to be] more integrated into business development.” She says that she thinks there is room for the Downtown Gallery to “be used in a more collaborative way between the Co-op and other city entities,” but that the success of the Cooperative will ultimately come down to members’ striving to follow through with the group’s mission.
Her neighbors hold a diversity of opinions of her, calling her “methodical” and “inspirational,” and saying that she has “good connections.”
Fellow writer Sean Vivier says that Williams has brought a high level of leadership to the Cooperative, stating that she “knows how to value everyone’s contributions and keep everyone on task.”
“I like her initiative and that she’s working really hard,” says resident Elliot Vallez, “but she can be condescending; she doesn’t want to ask questions and include everybody.” He claims that Williams doesn’t accept the democratic process of the Cooperative.
“She’s got good energy,” says neighbor Nick LaPorte.
“I think that the best way to sum up Brandy is that she put in a genuine effort, but it wasn’t always thoroughly informed,” says another resident of the Co-op. “As a group, we’ve been dealing with lots of little upheavals. You can’t sail like it’s a sunny day when you’re going through a storm.”
Williams states that she remains optimistic about the future of New Britain and the Cooperative and that she is excited to see what develops in the neighborhood.
