Art City: Della Wells connects generations of black artists

Della Wells was an angry young woman, she says.

She struggled to process her childhood and family dynamics, a mother whose schizophrenia went undiagnosed for many years and a father she describes as hard, mean.

“People who’ve known me for a long time will say, ‘Don’t mess with her, don’t mess with Della,’” says Wells, 65, whose caustic ways yielded to generosity and directness long ago.

When she was 18 or 19, waiting for a bus at 4th and Garfield, though, she spotted The Gallery Toward the Black Aesthetic, a venue at the heart of the black art movement in Milwaukee at the time. Curious, she peered through the windows for weeks until one day someone stepped outside and invited her in.

That’s when a world of art opened for her — a first exposure to black and female artists.

“It never occurred to me that anyone besides white men made art,” says Wells, now a nationally recognized artist who was recently named one of two artists of the year by the City of Milwaukee along with poet Dasha Kelly.

Today, Wells routinely and rigorously returns the favor. She spends time each day inviting people to experience the work of African-American artists, especially women, through a voluminous outpouring of links and images on her Facebook page.

“I want people to know about the history of African-American art here,” says Wells, who is working on a documentary film about the rise of the black art movement in Milwaukee in the 1960s and `70s. “A lot of people say stuff that is so dead wrong.”

Some of this digital advocacy has had real-world impact. When she posted images of work by Milwaukee artist Rosemary Ollison, who has been quietly making and exhibiting art here for years, it caught the eye of Debra Brehmer, director of the Portrait Society Gallery. Brehmer in turn gave Ollison her first significant solo show, which in turn caught the attention of the Chipstone Foundation in Fox Point, an internationally recognized decorative arts organization, which acquired her work for its collection.

“Della brings this wealth of historic knowledge,” says Jon Prown, executive director of Chipstone, which is collaborating with her on the documentary film. “She’s really emerged on the scene as someone who is just so highly thought of and respected.”

“She’s really developed a following,” says Milwaukee artist Evelyn Patricia Terry.

As for Wells’ own art, the deeply personal experiences that fueled her anger when she was young are part of what inspires her work. Art is a form of storytelling for Wells, who makes colorful collages, drawings, dolls, assemblages and quilts. Narratives are everywhere implied but never overt in her work, pieced together from fragments of memories, scraps of magazines and fabric, and other raw materials.

A friend's encouragement

The path from those early encounters with The Gallery Toward the Black Aesthetic to becoming a nationally known artist whose work was recently purchased by the Smithsonian was not direct or quick.

Wells volunteered at the gallery, where artists from Chicago, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Detroit and of course Milwaukee connected, socialized and exhibited work.

A portrait of Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X’s wife, based on an Ebony magazine cover was one of the first works to capture her imagination.

“That piece drew my eye,” she says. “I remember that.”

She also formed one of the most important friendships of her life at the gallery. It’s where she met Terry, who told her then and for many years after that she should make art.

“I would see her through the years, and she would always tell me that I was an artist and I was like ‘Yeah right.’” says Wells.

“I saw a drawing that she had done early,” says Terry of a chalk drawing of a woman Wells made on black rag paper, a therapeutic exercise she did for herself. “It was very simple but it had a kind of style to it.

“I was like, ‘Whoa, who are you?’”

In some ways, Wells has been making art her whole life, drawing Picasso-like women, for instance. But she didn’t think of herself as an artist for many years.

Instead, she spent 20 years working various jobs for Milwaukee County, doing data entry, working with computers, as an admitting clerk and working in group homes with adults who had disabilities and children with emotional problems.

It was during those years of challenging service that she met many people with hard lives and unexpected back stories, some not unlike her own.

“I have always been interested in other people’s stories,” she says. “At some point, you realize you don’t know what people went through. It took me a long time to come to that realization.”

That growing awareness allowed Wells to begin to let go of the bitterness she had about her own upbringing, including the day a social worker removed her mother from her home. Her mom spent a year in a mental hospital and never came back, Wells says.

“So, I have learned, even with my mother,” Wells says, “everyone has a story and you really don’t know what that story is.”

Wells attended Milwaukee Area Technical College, where she took her first art history course and wrote a paper about Terry, as well as the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she studied sociology. At UWM, Africologist Patrick Bellegarde-Smith gave her a grounding in African religions and the study of civil rights movements.

While deep into her studies of Yoruba, a religion of West Africa, Terry invited Wells to an exhibit at the Peltz Gallery, owned by the late Cissie Peltz, a longtime champion of artists of color.

“When I was in this exhibition, this might sound crazy, but a voice told me to go create art,” says Wells, crediting the connections between the art and her studies.

A few weeks later, at the age of 42, Wells joined Terry in the studio. She started with a monoprint and a few pastel drawings, all images of the female form. Before long, she had a disciplined schedule in the studio.

“I didn’t understand that I had something to say,” says Wells. “I think it’s very important for artists to have something to say.”

Giving artists a voice

Driving through Bronzeville, a more vibrant past lies just beneath the surface for Wells, who grew up in the neighborhood. She points out where a popular club used to be, as well as a beloved beauty shop, galleries, a mural that’s long since been painted over, the studio of late artist Prophet Blackmon, and the offices for Echo magazine, which was devoted to black culture.

The infrastructure that existed then for the black art movement — galleries, publications, meeting places, the Inner City Arts Council — didn’t persist like it did in other Midwestern cities, Wells says.

Still, there is a thriving, if less evident, network of artists here, she insists. This is part of what Wells tries to make apparent online, showcasing artists such as quilt and textile artist Sonji Hunt, mixed-media artist and illustrator Brando Calmes and painter Madge Scott.

It was about three years ago that Wells took to the internet in earnest, often using just her mobile phone while watching her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was the year Milwaukee lost Peltz. It was also the year that potent and at times breathtakingly blunt artworks about black identity took up residence at the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of the “30 Americans” show.

That nationally traveling show was accompanied by “Wisconsin 30,” a flawed but important event that brought 30 local black artists together. By then Wells, was one of the matriarchs.

She had participated in major art fairs such as the Kentuck Festival of the Arts  for many years and had gallery representation with Peltz and across the south. She collaborated on a play inspired by her life, “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Fly,” commissioned by First Stage Children’s Theater and written by Y York.

A wonderful exchange between younger and older African-American artists occurred as a result of the show, documented by a group photograph that sits in a place of honor in Wells’ living room. But a question from the youngest artist in the group, Christopher McIntyre, just 23 then, stayed with her.

“He asked why this older generation of artists didn’t pass the torch,” says Wells, who remains close to McIntyre, adding that he reminds her of her nephews.

“There is a lot of talent here that people don’t see, and not just in the African-American community” says Wells, who says the absence of Native American and Hmong artists in Milwaukee is palpable, too.

“There are communities we don’t see,” she says. “It’s really about documenting history and giving some of these artists a voice.”

Wells' collages will be sold at the National Museum of African American History and Culture when it opens in September. Her dolls are sold at Intuit in Chicago. She’s also been writing columns for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (and is an Art City contributor for the Journal Sentinel). She also recently illustrated a children's book, “Electric Angel” (Wooden Nickel Press) by Nanci Mortimer.

Mary Louise Schumacher is the Journal Sentinel’s art and architecture critic.