Nicole Chmel Brown Art Exhibit
Exhibit Viewing Hours: Monday – Friday 9 AM – 5 PM, Saturday 9 AM – 3 PM
Nicole has been doing art all her life.
She went to summer camp at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1989 and then to college at S.U.N.Y. College of New Paltz, NY. (1991-1993). She then spent 7 months studying abroad in Florence, Italy (1993-1994) and finished up her education at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. (1997-1999).
Since 2015, she has been in over 18 exhibits. Most of her art can be described as abstract, collage paintings using wood, metal, wire, beads, yarn, and recycled items. Though she received her BFA degree in metalsmithing and a diploma in jewelry repair, some years later, her passion for creating art went back to abstract collage, transferring her jewelry making skills onto canvases. When she begins a piece of work, she has an idea of what she wants to create, but then it takes on a mind of its own and goes off in a totally different direction than what she was planning to do in the first place. She has no idea where this journey is taking her, but she does know when it is complete. As she finishes a piece of work, she feels a void within her filled. She feels a sense of peace and accomplishment, a feeling of growth and completeness.
In 1995, Nicole was diagnosed with a mental illness called Schizoaffective disorder and depression. The craziness of the voices she was hearing and the feelings of sadness and distress was driving her to distraction. The only way she could find peace was through creating art. As she escapes through her art, she receives within herself a sense of tranquility knowing yes, she can do this. “My sickness will not run my life or overcome me. I feel like a pearl within a clam. We are all pearls within a clam. The sand (like life, its lessons, and its difficulties), scratching against me and all of us forming us into a pearl within a clamshell. No one sees the sand forming that pearl. People only see your shell. They do not see that pearl within that shell, but they do see that pearl within you and others when they see your art. Like all artists and myself, I want my pearl to shine through my work. What we can’t express through our personality, we can express through our art. As I create and see what other artists create, I feel my art and their art tells a story of who I am and of who we all are. What we can’t say in words, we can say through our art,” explained Chmel Brown.
Nicole is inspired by the Mandy Aftel quote ‘As you begin to pay attention to your own stories and what they say about you, you will enter into the exciting process of becoming as you should be, the author of your own life, the creator of your own possibilities.’ She clarified, “I feel that my art helps me to fulfill this quote in my life. I feel that this quote fulfills all of us as artists in our lives as we continue on our path toward growth and self-expression.”