Rooted in Heritage: The Artistry of Noemi Hernandez-Balcazar

What are your creative/cultural/art practices?

As a 3-D folk artist, Noemi shares her insights and experiences through the arts with school-age children, formal educators, and fellow artists. Her work draws from a deep well of personal and cultural memory. “Many of my projects draw inspiration from each individual’s identity — cultural or ethnic — also from family traditions and country of origin,” she explains.

Noemi helps learners connect with the materials and traditions of her homeland, and she takes great care to guide educators in facilitating respectful, meaningful learning about cultural traditions. Her first-hand knowledge helps connect communities across cultural celebrations, such as her well-known sugar skull workshops during Día de los Muertos. 

In these hands-on sessions, learners explore how sugar skulls connect to larger cultural concepts, how monarch butterfly migrations reflect our shared connectedness, and how artmaking can open the door to STEM integration. For Noemi, the smells, colors, and symbols of these festival traditions form a direct line from craft to heritage — a reminder that art tells a story.

That belief traces back to the people who shaped her. “I spent a lot of time with my grandmothers and learning from them — their fabulous stories helped me learn how to do art, how to sew,” she says. “Never underestimate what you can learn from elderly people.”

Why do you teach?

For Noemi, teaching is inseparable from her conviction that opportunity changes lives. “I have learned the importance of education in this country because it gives you the options to grow,” she reflects. As a mother and an immigrant to the United States, she recognizes how access to educational opportunities can improve a person’s circumstances and quality of life. She believes everyone deserves the chance to grow, and that exposure to high-quality artistic experiences is a human right.

“One of my missions in life and at work is to help every student, regardless of where they come from, have access to great opportunities and resources that help them have a great life,” she says. “This world wouldn’t be what it is if we didn’t have great architects, artists, musicians, or dancers. The arts are more important than people think.”

How do you see your work connecting to themes of democracy, wellbeing, and belonging?

Working within so many different communities has affirmed Noemi’s belief that when we come together to learn, we make positive contributions to culture. “All of us define what American culture is by contributing in a positive way,” she says. “If you have a healthy passion — the arts, athletics, any club — you will develop skills that help you become a better American, regardless of where your parents are born. Those skills and experiences will contribute to this country and help you become a stronger community member.”

Noemi sees teaching artists as an essential part of that equation, because their practice gives back to communities. Teaching artists help learners who feel lost, guide them toward their passions, and support them in building skills that strengthen the world around them in mutually beneficial ways. “If you feel completely lost and you don’t know what you love, teachers are the helpers who can support you,” she offers. “America is a great country, but it can become even better, thanks to you.”

Submitted by: Reilly Jensen, Arts Education Program Manager, Utah Division of Arts & Museums

About Reilly
Reilly is an arts educator with a special focus on community impact and international heritage collaboration projects. Her research draws on social practice to examine the construction of knowledge, meaning, and memory, along with the potential of cross-disciplinary learning. Reilly teaches community education, scientific illustration, and visual arts both in the field and in classrooms across Utah. She holds an MFA from the Community-Based Arts Education Program at the University of Utah, an MA in Middle Eastern studies, and a BS in anthropology.