{"id":9932,"date":"2021-07-28T16:55:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T16:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=9932"},"modified":"2021-07-28T18:20:56","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T18:20:56","slug":"of-chicken-myths-fantasy-the-storied-life-of-della-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=9932","title":{"rendered":"Of Chicken, Myths & Fantasy:\u00a0The Storied Life of Della Wells\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of Chicken, Myths & Fantasy:\u00a0The Storied Life of Della Wells<\/h4>\n
by D. Amari Jackson<\/pre>\n
\u201cI think of myself more as a writer and storyteller\u2026 When I was a kid, I used to want to be a writer and, in my artwork, I actually have created what I call this magical land, \u2018Mamboland.\u2019 It’s run by Black women because I know a lot of strong Black women and they\u2019re based on a lot of Black women that were in my life\u2026 so, basically, in my magical land, Black women rule\u2026\u201d —<\/em>Della Wells, Milwaukee\u00a0<\/em>Magazine,\u00a0May 2020<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The story goes that, for the majority of her 70 years\u2014despite selling her first work of art to a junior high school teacher at age 13\u2014Della Wells did not<\/em> want to be a professional artist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought artists didn’t make any money,\u201d acknowledges Wells who, growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, \u201cwanted to be a fashion designer, because I was really into fashion.\u201d Even so, her art teachers at school recognized her talent, including one who had her class drawing cowbells and cockroaches. \u201cIn my 12 and 13 year-old mind, I thought that man was crazy,\u201d recalls Wells, noting \u201cI didn’t understand until much later that he was talking about seeing the beauty in all things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, countless others see beauty in the things Wells creates. Since beginning her art career at age 42, Wells\u2019 work has graced galleries across the country and in Europe. It has appeared in several publications including Evelyn Patricia Terry\u2019s Permission To Paint Please: A 150 Year History of African American Artists in Wisconsin<\/em>, and Betty-Carol Sellen\u2019s Self-Taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources<\/em>. Wells\u2019 life and art were also featured in the stage play, \u201cDon\u2019t Tell Me I Can\u2019t Fly,\u201d performed at venues in her home state of Wisconsin and at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s not get ahead of the story since Wells\u2019 career success, in significant part, can be attributed to her indelible childhood encounters with fantasy, myths, and, yes, a chicken.<\/p>\n
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My Peace Lives in My House, Della Wells<\/p><\/div>\n
First, the fantasy. Wells, who considers herself a storyteller at least as much as an artist, was prompted to create many of the colorful stories, images, and characters that are present in her collages from her mother\u2019s recollections of growing up in North Carolina during the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century. Her mother depicted vivid accounts of rural life in the South, of friends and family, of dramatic events and relationships, of heroes and villains. Such rich imagery would have a lasting impact on the young Wells, her creativity, and, ultimately, her art.<\/p>\n
Next, the myths. Many of these accounts were untrue. \u201cMy mother really didn\u2019t have a very happy childhood,\u201d says Wells, revealing the family matriarch suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia that went untreated for two decades. \u201cShe used to tell me these fabulous stories about her childhood,\u201d remembers the artist. \u201cAnd then, many years later, I found out that they weren\u2019t true.\u201d Angered by his spouse\u2019s erratic behavior and its impact on his engineering career and aspirations to become a writer, Wells\u2019 father nonetheless instilled the value of education in his eight children while further expanding the scope of Wells\u2019 imagination by regularly bringing books home. \u201cMy father blamed my mother for a lot of stuff, and he would also blame some of my siblings for his problems,\u201d she recounts, noting \u201cit\u2019s easy to take stuff out on your family, particularly when you can’t take it out on the outside world.\u201d However, despite his harshness, \u201cour father actively pushed education, and one of my brothers got a degree in chemistry, another got a full scholarship at Dartmouth and has a degree in mathematics, and another is an accountant.\u201d So, continues Wells, \u201cI think his harshness helped them succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, the chicken. \u201cWhen my father got paid, he would bring home treats. Sometimes it would be baloney sandwiches, donuts, liver, liverwurst,\u201d says Wells. \u201cThis particular time, he brought home a chicken, and I had to be about seven or eight years old, so I thought my daddy had brought us a pet. I was happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not for long. \u201cI was wrong. My mother killed that chicken right in front of me,\u201d wringing its neck as the body bounced about the kitchen. Horrified, the young Wells screamed and sought refuge under her bed. It didn\u2019t help that the deceased bird was on the menu that evening. \u201cI refused to eat chicken for a long time,\u201d she reports, and \u201cthat was one of the first truths I learned in life, that some things had to die for other things to live.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cI used to think food came in nice, neat little packages,\u201d continues Wells. \u201cI didn\u2019t know they were killing stuff and it really scared me.\u201d Later, in her work, the chicken became a symbol simultaneously representing one\u2019s truths and fears, particularly in a country where Black youth coming of age are regularly presented with the harsh realities of death and survival. \u201cIt was a very important lesson for me to learn because I would have kept on believing in these fairytales.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she grew, such harsh realization combined with her troubled home life to challenge the struggling teen. \u201cI was an angry young woman,\u201d acknowledges Wells. \u201cI would never mess with people but, if anybody messed with me, I was gonna make it worse. And that\u2019s because I grew up in a dysfunctional family with my mother being sick.\u201d Still, Wells was fascinated with books. \u201cI used to read a lot of fairy tales, but I used to think my life wasn\u2019t no fairy tale,\u201d she says, pointing out that, because of such negative feelings, \u201cI didn’t feel empowered. I think about that a lot in my work and particularly about the empowerment of Black women, because I felt my mother didn\u2019t feel empowered as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
This began to shift for Wells upon meeting and engaging with other people, particularly at age 19, when Wells happened to stop by a Milwaukee-based venue called Gallery Toward the Black Aesthetic. \u201cThat was the first time I actually learned that there were Black artists,\u201d she reveals, noting prior to that, \u201call I knew about were white men and white women artists.\u201d Despite the connection, \u201cI still wasn\u2019t making art, but the reason why I wasn\u2019t was that I didn\u2019t have the patience to do it and I didn\u2019t have anything serious to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two decades later\u2014after working various jobs, writing, and years of schooling in sociology, psychology, women\u2019s studies, and African American studies\u2014this would change. At 42, Wells began using art to speak to her life experiences, her disposition as a Black woman, and \u201cthis imaginary land because, to me, America is all about fairytales. They tell you George Washington didn\u2019t tell a lie, but that\u2019s a big lie.\u201d The country is steeped in such lies \u201cso I decided I\u2019m gonna create my own world where Black women rule. And instead of getting mad, now I create a piece of art.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Our Ancestors Remind Us That We Will Survive This America, Della Wells<\/p><\/div>\n
She does it well. \u201cThe first time I saw her work, at that time and even now, I felt it was very reminiscent of Romare Bearden\u2019s work,\u201d says fellow artist, Mutope Johnson, who literally met Wells by accident at a Milwaukee gallery in the late 90s. While \u201cgallery-hopping\u201d on a lunchbreak from his downtown job, Johnson visited the David Barnett gallery \u201cnot knowing what to expect. I saw this body of work that she had, which was a collection of collages and pastels. And as I was walking the gallery and turned the corner, I practically ran right into her,\u201d laughs the Milwaukee-based painter, curator, and art educator who grew up in the same Bronzeville neighborhood as Wells. Describing her work in that initial conversation, an impressed Johnson told Wells, \u201cYou\u2019re like a female version of Romare Bearden.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two artists stayed in touch and, not long after, in 2001, Wells, along with Johnson, fellow Milwaukee artist Evelyn Patricia Terry, and several others formed ABEA (African-Americans Beginning to Educate Americans about African-American Art). The group was launched to promote and advocate for Black artists while educating communities about them, their cultural significance, and their work. \u201cWe would often hear that the general population could not find African-American artists,\u201d says Johnson, that, allegedly, \u201cthey could not locate us and didn\u2019t know where we exhibited. So this stigma was placed on us when I don\u2019t think they were really trying.\u201d With ABEA, \u201cwe embarked on this journey to really share our work with people who said they couldn\u2019t find us. And that\u2019s how our close-knit arts community began to grow\u201d in Milwaukee, \u201cspecifically a group of African-American artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Johnson, Evelyn Patricia Terry, who credits Wells as the major force behind ABEA, had an impressionable first encounter with her longtime friend and artistic colleague as well. \u201cI had seen her around and didn\u2019t really know her, but she came to an exhibition,\u201d recalls Terry of that special day in Milwaukee in 1991. \u201cI had an installation and the people who visited the gallery were encouraged to write on pieces of paper what they felt, because many people would feel things about my installations and they\u2019d be angry or have some other emotions,\u201d reports the prominent painter, printmaker, and mixed media artist. \u201cSo I always had them write it out.\u201d But instead of making a comment, \u201cDella drew a picture of a woman birthing a child,\u201d laughs Terry. \u201cI was like, oh my God, who is this person? So then I was very interested because I knew whoever it was, they were an artist.\u201d Terry soon invited Wells to her studio and asked her to draw a picture. \u201cShe decided to draw a mermaid and she filled up the whole paper,\u201d remembers Terry, noting \u201cmost people don’t do that. Della filled it up and did two of them, and they were beautiful, with pastels. So I was like, wow, who are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew she was an artist, but she hadn\u2019t really been out there,\u201d continues Terry. \u201cAnd now, she\u2019s finally, like, everywhere and doing extremely well with a lot of commissions, articles, and sales. She\u2019s phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s also phenomenal is Wells\u2019 ability to take her childhood fairytales and fantasies, her mother\u2019s myths, and her own life lessons and tell compelling stories through her art, ones simultaneously unique, provocative, impactful, and ultimately\u2014like Mamboland\u2014magical<\/em>. And, fortunately, these magical stories are far from over as Wells is currently focused on the circle of life and the apparent parallels it presents as our struggling society moves forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going on politically in this country right now is really influencing a lot of work that I do,\u201d reports Wells. \u201cYou know, I’m 70 now, and I think we’re at a significant moment, and it reminds me of when I was a teenager and a young woman,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was the same sort of turmoil.\u201d Back then, like recently, \u201cpeople wanted to call them \u2018riots\u2019 but I call them rebellions. There were protests then, and I\u2019m seeing the similarities and it is really influencing the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, adds Wells, \u201cI\u2019m going to create my own narrative about what has happened, particularly from the perception of a Black woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Della Wells & Mamboland:<\/strong><\/p>\n