About Art of Noni

Meet Noni, an engineer by training, a learning and development professional by trade, and an artist and Art Healing Coach by heart.

For more than two decades, she worked in corporate and healthcare environments, leading learning and development programs for teams across the country. Her professional world was built around structure, systems, and solutions, things I could organize, measure, and manage.

Then she lost my father.

Two weeks after he passed away, Noni began studying Tezhip, the centuries-old art of Islamic illumination. She took her first classes from her father’s bedroom in South Carolina, while helping her mother pack up the home they had shared for 25 years.

Noni didn’t begin Tezhip because she was looking for a way to heal. But somewhere between the repetition of a brushstroke, the concentration required to paint the smallest details, and the hours spent creating intricate patterns, she discovered that art was giving her grief somewhere to go.

It gave her a place to focus when her mind felt overwhelmed. It helped her sit with emotions she couldn’t always put into words. And for a little while, when Noni was creating, everything else became less loud.

That experience changed her relationship with art.

Noni began to understand creativity not simply as a way of making something beautiful, but as a way of reconnecting with ourselves. She became an Art Healing Coach and began creating workshops and experiences that help others explore art in this way, without needing to consider themselves artists.

But workshops can only reach the people who are able to be in the room.

Noni created The Illuminated Letter as a way to bring this experience to more people, wherever they are. Each month, subscribers receive a creative experience centered around a theme, combining art, reflection, simple creative practices, and tools they can return to when life feels overwhelming.

Noni’s hope is that opening the Letter becomes more than opening an envelope. It becomes a reason to stop for a little while, to make something, breathe, reflect, and interrupt the cycle of stress and overthinking. Even if that reprieve lasts only twenty minutes, those twenty minutes matter. And over time, she hope subscribers build their own collection of creative tools for navigating worry, burnout, grief, and the emotions that are simply part of being human.

The Illuminated Letter also allows Noni to share another part of what changed her own life: Islamic art. Tezhip is her primary artistic practice and a tradition she deeply love. Through her artwork and the Letter, Noni hopes to introduce more people to the extraordinary beauty, history, and craftsmanship of Islamic art, including people who may never have encountered it before. Art can sometimes open a door that words cannot, offering another way to experience a culture or tradition beyond the assumptions we may carry about it.

And Noni wanted the Letter to reach beyond the person receiving it. A portion of every subscription supports organizations helping children in need, so that something created to bring a little goodness into one person’s life can also contribute to the life of someone else.

Today, Art by Noni brings all of these pieces together: my work as an artist, the art and wellness experiences I lead, and The Illuminated Letter.

Although they take different forms, they all come from what Noni experienced during one of the most difficult periods of her life, how creating art can give us space to process, breathe, and reconnect with ourselves.

Awards/Recognition
Not an award but I am a certified Art Therapy Practicioner (not a clinical Art Therapist – whihc is why I tend to use Art Wellness Practicioner instead to avoid confusion. My certificate says Art Therapy Practicoiner throught).