The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells

Paperback, 360 pages. Published: September 2024 Book measures: 11 x 1 x 10 inches. Beginning when she was nearly 40 years old and without formal training, Wells created her first quilt for practical use but was soon hand stitching appliqué figures into bold, original designs that unleashed her voice as a storyteller. Incorporating a wide variety of symbolic materials and unconventional objects—“anything I can stick a needle in”—Wells’s vivid story quilts reveal a fearless and encyclopedic vision ranging from the intimately autobiographical to iconic scenes from African American history, the Bible, Southern culture, and contemporary headlines. The result of years of close collaboration between Stacy I. Morgan and Wells herself, The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells is richly illustrated with more than 100 quilts accompanied by narratives about each, told in the artist's own words, and interspersed with in-depth essays documenting Wells's unique artistic practice and creative journey during her five-decade art career. The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells by Stacy I. Morgan and Yvonne Thomas Wells Foreword by Gail C. Andrews Yvonne Wells's story quilts have been exhibited at such prestigious venues as the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Her art also has traveled from her home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to international shows in Japan, France, and Italy. Reproductions of Wells's quilts have even crossed over into popular culture with a series of Hallmark cards. Yet, her path to art world success has been an unorthodox one. Wells is connected to folk art through the medium of quilting and her passion for storytelling, and she parallels self-taught artists like Lonnie Holley and Thornton Dial in her use of found materials, but she has shaped an expression all her own. Unlike most traditional folk artists, Wells did not make her first quilt until she was nearly 40 years old and did so without the guiding hand of a mentor. After a brief period of stitching her own colorful versions of traditional quilt patterns, in the early 1980s she began creating story quilts with appliqué figures that explored diverse subjects such as her religious faith, the Civil Rights Movement, children's nursery rhymes, popular musicians of varied genres, and characters from her own imagination. In her innovative body of work, Wells's ingenious artistry as a storyteller injects even more vitality into her already vibrant visual art. The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells is richly illustrated in five thematic galleries featuring more than 100 of Wells's quilts accompanied by narratives about each told in the artist's own words. The galleries are interwoven with three essays by scholar Stacy I. Morgan detailing the defining traits of Wells's unique artistic practice and charting her movement across varied art fields and institutions-folk, African American, Pop, commercial, and contemporary craft. As the first book devoted specifically to the art of Yvonne Wells, The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells affirms what her exhibition history and many accolades already attest: that Wells is a major artist of significance to both folk art and the art world writ large