For Lindsay D’Amour Williams, art begins where certainty ends.
The contemporary multidisciplinary artist, who lives and works in Truth or Consequences, has spent much of her career moving across creative borders —between illustration and fine art, performance and publishing, narrative imagery and abstraction. These days, however, she finds herself drawn to a quieter but more mysterious territory: the space in between.
That evolving territory has become the focus of her current body of work, an abstract series she calls “Thresholds.”
“It's kind of exploring this in-between space,” Williams says. “I feel that there's something really interesting about the energy and space between everything else — things we can't quite grasp.”
Working primarily in works on paper, Williams describes the series as an investigation of emergence and instability — images forming, dissolving, and reassembling within a field of color and gesture. Shapes drift between geometric and biomorphic forms, suggesting architecture one moment and organic growth the next.
The process itself is deliberately intuitive.
“I give myself rules of the making of the art,” she explains. “But I never have a plan.”
Instead, Williams sets parameters — time limits, restricted palettes — and then allows chaos onto the page. The result is a kind of visual mapping of subconscious impulses.
“I'll say, ‘Okay, I'm going to completely put chaos on this page for a certain amount of time and then stop,’” she says. “That way I know when to step away before it goes too far.”
Sometimes she does exactly that: steps away.
“I make it, put it away, and come back to it days later,” she says. “Sometimes I look at it and think, ‘Oh my gosh, I hate it.’ Then I come back and realize, actually, that's pretty badass.”
A Life in Motion
Williams’ path to the desert — and to abstraction — has been anything but linear.
She grew up in Smithtown, a small town on Long Island, New York, in a family steeped in education. Her mother taught French; her father taught English before both eventually became school principals.
“I’m kind of operating on the lineage of them with art education,” said Williams. “Which is funny, because at first I didn't want to do that.”
Her artistic ambitions led her to New York City, where she studied illustration at Parsons School of Design. She graduated in 2008, unfortunately timed with the global financial crisis.
“The economy was horrendous,” she recalls. Her early job at a Brooklyn micro-publisher paid little, and she soon found herself juggling freelance illustration with unexpected detours, including a stint as a hairdresser on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Life took a more dramatic turn when she met musician and performance artist Nick Williams on a blind date.
“He said, ‘Lovely to meet you. I’m moving to New Orleans,’” she remembers. “I thought, okay—let’s see what happens.”
She visited him in Louisiana, never boarded her return flight, and soon found herself immersed in New Orleans’ underground performance scene. Together, the couple staged avant-garde cabaret shows and street performances that blended theatrical spectacle with visual art.
That experimental spirit eventually led to an unlikely stage: “America’s Got Talent.”
The duo submitted an act almost as a joke. Instead, they advanced all the way to the quarterfinals in 2019, gaining international exposure before an abrupt and emotionally difficult exit from the show.
“It messed with our heads pretty bad,” Williams admits.
But the experience also opened doors, launching several years of international travel and performance. The couple performed in Italy, Spain, Romania, Germany, and Australia, living what Williams describes as a kind of creative whirlwind.
A Desert Reset
By 2019, though, both artists felt the need for a reset.
They had been visiting Truth or Consequences for several years, drawn by its desert quiet and eccentric character, and decided to relocate permanently. Within days of arriving, the COVID-19 lockdown began.
“We were here for three days,” Williams. “Then everything shut down.”
The sudden stillness became an unexpected creative opportunity.
During that period, she began what would become one of the largest illustration projects of her life: The Desert Illuminations Tarot, a Southwest-inspired tarot deck celebrating the mythologies, landscapes, and archetypes of the American West.
“I wanted to make something as a love letter to the Southwest,” she says.
Williams illustrated and designed all 78 cards along with a guidebook. Initially self-published, the project eventually caught the attention of U.S. Games Systems, the world’s leading tarot publisher. In 2024 the deck was released globally, reaching bookstores and online retailers worldwide.
Yet while the tarot project brought recognition, Williams found herself increasingly interested in pushing beyond narrative illustration.
“I got to a point where I was tired of derivative narrative work,” she says. “I wanted to break through a wall.”
Enter the Threshold
The shift began while teaching a class on surrealism.
Revisiting the techniques of artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint reminded Williams of the power of automatic drawing and subconscious exploration. She began experimenting with spontaneous abstract mark-making—allowing forms to appear without predetermined meaning.
The results became “Thresholds,” a growing series that reflects both psychological and environmental states.
“I think order comes from chaos,” she says. “Maybe stability is actually within the chaos itself.”
The concept resonates with her own life journey, which has ranged from New York’s art scene to New Orleans cabarets to international television stages.
“I've thrived in chaos, but I also am learning to thrive in peace,” she says.
The work continues to evolve. One current piece stretches seven feet long — the largest she has created in the series so far. Eventually she hopes to take the process outdoors, creating what she calls “transmissions” in different landscapes by mapping the energy she senses in a particular environment.
“It’s almost like meditation,” she says.
The Teacher’s Studio
Today Williams balances her artistic practice with another role she once resisted: art teacher.
In 2024 she accepted a position teaching middle-school art in Truth or Consequences, returning in some sense to the educational tradition of her parents.
The experience has proven deeply rewarding.
Middle school students, she says, still possess a sense of creative freedom that adults often lose.
“They're not trying too hard to be cool yet,” she explains. “They still have that whimsical imagination.”
Williams introduces them to color theory and foundational drawing early in the year, then gradually lets them explore projects ranging from street-art concepts to skateboard design.
“It’s about building that foundation and then letting them loosen up,” she says.
Staying Weird
Underlying all of Williams’ work, whether tarot illustration or abstract painting, is a long-standing fascination with symbolism, spirituality, and philosophy.
She traces that curiosity back to her teenage years.
“When I was 16 I started getting really interested in philosophy and spiritual ideas,” she says. “It was a lonely path because nobody really understood it around me.”
Looking back, she marvels at how different she felt from her classmates.
“I was definitely weird compared to my peers growing up with when it comes to that stuff,” she says. “And you know, I just stuck to my weird.”
That willingness to follow her instincts, across cities, disciplines, and artistic forms, has shaped a career defined by transformation.
And now, in the quiet desert town of Truth or Consequences, Williams finds herself standing in a new creative doorway.
Right where she likes to be.
At the threshold.
For story ideas and profile suggestions, Brian D’Ambrosio may be reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com
