Jamela Winocour  ’23 (BFA)

Public Housing Inspired This Former Teacher to Become a Designer

Jamela Winocour grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, where sewing drapery was part of her family tradition. Her father is an artist and maker of hand-carved bowls. Winocour has always adored design, but there was no option to study it at the university level in Trinidad when she was young. After a career as a Spanish teacher, she immigrated to the United States in 2009 with her four-year-old son and at first, life was a struggle. She lived with friends in NYC public housing and continued to work as an educator at a nursery school. She says, “When I lived in public housing, I thought, Why does it have to look so institutional, so depressing? All people deserve to have their mood lifted by good design.”

Winocour eventually married and moved. When she renovated her own home, she realized she had the talent to be a designer, but didn’t yet possess the technical skill. A design fan, she was roaming the New York Design Center in 2019. There, Winocour ran into a family friend who introduced her to James Druckman, president of the New York Design Center and a trustee of NYSID. Druckman encouraged her to look into NYSID. She started as a BID student in 2019. 

She was awarded the NYSID BFA Trustee Scholarship and the NYSID Diversity Scholarship. “I am just so grateful,” she says. “Getting these scholarships made me feel recognized. It meant that I didn't have to choose between my 17-year old son’s college education and my own.” She adds, “I will find a way to extend my expertise to people who don’t have an abundance of money. I have been given this chance and I am making the most of it.”