G Profile: Zan wells

Zan Wells has a literal body of work scattered throughout her studio, a converted home adjacent to her Paris Mountain abode. Cabinets aren’t filled with glass and china but clay masses and sculpture models instead. In one room rest clay pieces of Dr. Charles Townes, the inventor of the laser and one of Greenville’s most notable residents. In the basement, molds of Romeo and Juliet are stacked like a work of art themselves, only facial lines distinguishing them from lumps of clay and wax. And beside them is a portion of Jennie Gilmer’s clay dress before she was dressed to stand—with child—at AnMed Medical Center, which Gilmer helped found.

In all, Wells has completed more than thirty commissioned sculptures throughout South Carolina, from a sprawling modern steel piece outside University Center to more classical statues in Orangeburg, Barnwell, and Clemson to name a few. But she will forever be known for some of her tiniest creations found right here in Greenville.

“I think it’s absolutely hysterical,” says Wells, whose hands are responsible for crafting the popular Mice on Main statues that pepper downtown’s sidewalks, spawning T-shirts, postcards, and even a new children’s book. The idea originated from local high school student, Jim Ryan, and quickly took on a life of its own. “I have put together historical figures of the state, but when people hear my name, they say, ‘Oh, you’re the mice lady.’ I guess that’s a part of who I am now.”

Indeed, it is. But the real story of “who” Wells is actually starts seven decades ago in Sumter. Her father, Robert Lee, was a mathematician. Her mother, Jean Riley, was an accomplished seamstress whose eye for art was far more subtle than one might expect. Wells and her three siblings were taught to pay attention to the lines of a drawing, the color of a car, or the composition of a painting. There was nothing “artistic” about any of it, she recalls. It was more an observation than anything.

Growing up, Wells parlayed her mother’s “right” brain attitude with a bit of her father’s “left” brain practicality. In high school, she would draw and doodle anything she could, but put it to good use for the school’s annual. Her love of lines, colors, and contours was innate and couldn’t be explained by herself or even her teachers. And Wells couldn’t pinpoint what it was she wanted to do with her talents.

“Very early, I wanted to be a fashion designer,” Wells says. “We had a home-ec class, and everyone was making aprons and curtains. I made a navy blue kimono with an embroidered dragon and white satin bias piping.”

She went on to college, prepared to study oils, watercolors, and pottery, but her father expected her to study math instead. She tried to appease him for a “short time” at the University of South Carolina, but eventually left and never looked back.

In 1971, at age thirty-six, she married Joel Wells, an All-American football player from Clemson University who played in the Canadian Football League, later for the New York Giants, and happened to be her neighbor when she was three years old. All the while, she held down a number of jobs from secretary to beer distributor, and spent a time as the president of the South Carolina Women’s Golf Association. She never stopped dabbling in art, however—mostly in drawing and pottery.

In between working and raising a family, she found time to take pottery classes and also experimented in mixed-media work. But when she moved to Greenville in the early 1970s and took a class in sculpture, something clicked. “I loved making the model, but hated the rest of it,” Wells says. “I would think about it, but wouldn’t go further than the model. When I learned someone would do the rest of it for you, I was in.”

So, at age 55, Wells added the last piece to her extensive resume, “sculptor.” At the time, she expected to do small pieces for galleries, selling a work here or there and generally going unnoticed.

It started at the Llyn Strong Gallery when Wells debuted a small, bronze mask as her first “official” piece. About a year later while showing a portrait bust of a child at Louis and Nancy Jaramillo’s gallery in Greenville, Wells received more notice than she ever expected: Harriet Rogers, who was working on behalf of the library in Travelers Rest saw the portrait and asked Wells to create a large, outdoor piece specifically for the library. Wells, being new to the trade, agreed, not realizing the nearly two-decade path it would lead her down.

Since that fateful day, Wells has not been without a commissioned piece on her calendar. Some thirty-three sculptures later, her work can be found from the Upstate to the coast, and still there are those who barely know her name. Which is fine by her. This artist, who shares six children between herself and her husband and fourteen grandchildren, has a hard time talking about herself.

All too often, her thoughts stream to a work she bought from an up-and-coming artist or to her favorite room in the house, the screened porch that features goldfinches and hummingbirds just feet away. Or to the newly released book that she illustrated and Linda Kelly wrote based on those famous mice. She also reminisces about the traveling she has done with her husband, sketchbook in hand, to places like Italy, the sculpture capital of the world, or Spain where Pablo Picasso’s “wonderful diversity” shines through.

Wells plans to continue sculpting and completing commissioned work, but on a smaller scale. She is interested in unconventional pieces such as the one she did for University Center that represents the seven schools located there. She also can’t wait to dive into the world of “found art” like the cogs and gears she discovered one day and added a human face to. “I want to take found pieces that are art in and of themselves and turn them into something completely different,” she says, smiling.

And she wants to do more portrait work. But after eighteen years of sculpting in the spotlight and devoting her time to more traditional artwork, Wells is looking to delve into the abstract, among other things.
And where that will take her, is anyone’s guess.