sankofa: a love letter to artist elders
Della Wells at Kentuck Festival artist party. Photo by rosy.
6/7/22
14 years ago, I met Della Wells. I was a young single mom juggling work and a full time course load at Alverno College, editing the newspaper and serving as a radio station manager. I wanted to cover a conference called “Jim Crow: White Black and Beyond” for the paper and found myself overwhelmed by works in the accompanying exhibition. In all of my young life, I’d never seen a Black art show. I was 21 years old.
While much of the conference is a blur to me now, I’ll never forget the swelling of my heart when I heard Della, Mutope J. Johnson, Sonji Hunt, and Evelyn Patricia Terry talk about their works and experiences. I needed to know more. I set up interviews with Della and Mutope, as well as poet and activist Peggy Rozga. I’d spent my youth time pouring over protest history, folk music, and any art books I could get my hands on: these were among my first concrete interactions with adult creative professionals whose work aligned with my activist heart.
For years, I stayed in touch with Della, hounding her with questions about how to be a real artist. I would run into her at local events, abandoning my table to sneak in a few more questions. Eventually, she invited me to accompany her as driver and booth assistant at the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Tuscaloosa Alabama. Over the course of that week, I was given an immersive introduction to the world of the working artist. I saw works in every medium by artists from around the country, asked questions and took photos. There was an on-site iron pour, live folk and gospel performances. I had my first encounter with Black printmakers: Debra Riffe and Amos Kennedy. I met quilt maker Yvonne Wells, and sat with her for a while.
It was at Kentuck that Della got a peek at my sketchbook. Everything that excited me was happening at that festival, and there were elder Black folks willing to answer my unending stream of questions. I’ll never know where those deep reserves of patience came from, or how I was so lucky to be there with them.I was scribbling notes and reactions to everything I’d seen when Della looked over the page and asked, “Have you ever considered being an artist?” I had not. Until I met Della, it had never occurred to me that “artist” was a real job choice. The seed was planted then and there under the pines growing tall from the red dust.
On our way home from our second trip to Kentuck a few years later, we stopped at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky to see the exhibit there. I didn’t know quilts were considered art: I’d grown up in proximity to quilts, and like most folks took them for granted. When we walked through the doors, my mouth fell open. I knew then: I can do this.
It took years for Della’s words to fully take root, but by the time we’d gone back to Alabama, I had in fact started to consider being an artist. When I wasn’t working in a kitchen or shelter, I was making quilts and practicing printmaking. I took my first commission. Eventually, I was invited by the badass yoga nun Hong Gwi-Seok back to Detroit to make quilts. Yogis and poets know about practice, and the same concepts apply to grief, love, and art-making. For an adventurous month, I was an artist in residence at the New Work Field Street Collective, and I picked up the practice of making art. That was seven years ago, and I haven’t stopped since.
2022 marks 5 years as a full-time working artist, but I’ll spend as long as I can learning from elder artists about sustaining practice, techniques, and “the business.” I’m feeling grateful for this journey that’s showed me everything (anything) is quite possible, and the chance to develop a practice that is central to who I am becoming. I’ve done fellowships and residencies, artist talks and projects. My work has been seen in museums and galleries around the country and in neighborhoods around Milwaukee. When I sit back and think about it, I’m tickled pink. Every time I do, I wonder where would I be now if Della hadn’t asked that one question. Now, I’m asking you, just in case no one has yet: