A Tour of Diane Williams’s Art Collection
Diane Williams in her home, 2018 (All photos by Bill Hayward)
Diane Williams is renowned for her short, distilled works of fiction. In addition to her work as a writer, she is also the founder and editor of NOON, a literary annual whose next edition will mark its twentieth anniversary.
Diane’s curatorial vision extends beyond the pages of NOON, where we are the senior editors, to the walls of her apartment. Some of the treasures we have glimpsed during our staff meetings, which take place in her home: a portrait of a pangolin cross-stitched by her young niece; a watercolor by Henry Miller; original early ink drawings donated to NOON by Raymond Pettibon; as well as the many, often anonymous, artworks and other curios collected from roadside markets and the Outsider Art Fair.
On a late August afternoon, over cakes and tea, we spoke with Diane about how her attention to art and to objects has informed her editorial sensibility and inspired her fictions. For the first time, we asked for a guided tour. Our tour lasted well over three hours, and a small fraction of it is reproduced here.
In our conversation, as in her work, we began to notice a link between Diane’s penchant for living among sculptures made of broken dishes, stitching around stains in her clothing, and her editorial process at NOON where, she reminds us, all powerful sentences can be saved and made use of. When asked why a flaw or fracture can turn the familiar—in life, and language—into something more arresting, or frightening, or delightful, Diane responded: “We’re all walking around damaged, dirty, broken, and ashamed, and the
