We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Olivia Wells a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Olivia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

My first introduction to art outside of the usual finger-painting and doodling in which all children engage — human beings are inherently artistic creatures! — was learning to oil paint from an elderly neighbor, Miss Freida, when I was 7 or 8 years old. It was my first time being given structure around art, rules to follow, or principles to adhere to. I found this very freeing, and that it removed some of the intimidation surrounding the dreaded blank canvas.

My most formal training so far has been in mosaics; I attended a 3-year professional course in Spilimbergo, Italy. Mosaic is by definition restrictive: you are using materials that already exist, either in nature (stone) or have been produced by an expert factory (smalti); there is no mixing on your palette to make a new color. The material is also rigid, and each tessera must be cut exactly to the correct size. You cannot overlap things, or approximate; you have a certain amount of space, and a certain amount of material will fit within that space.

The curriculum of mosaic school was very traditional, in that the main focus was to learn how to make a mosaic correctly, and that has little to do with creative expression. Mosaic began in the ancient world as an architectural trade, and it is only in relatively recent history that it is considered more of an art form than a craft.
The first 2 years of my studies were very technical, which could be frustrating for an impatient 19 year-old such as I was. We learned how to draw andamenti (maps of how you will place your tesserae within a space), cut material to exact dimensions using a traditional hammer and hardie, and had hours-long discussions on additive color theory – it turns out you can mix colors together if you know what you’re doing, with a method you also see in Pointillism paintings. We were given exercises to create, with which we learned different mosaic styles (Roman, Byzantine, portraiture, etc). We studied the chemical compositions of adhesives and substrates, and learned to install industrial-style mosaics before moving on to the more artistic kind.

It wasn’t until the third and final year that we were set free to design an art piece of our own design. I made a piece I called “Rupture”, which I still consider to be one of my best works, even now 10 years later. It did not follow any traditional rules, but it was still built upon that framework. I knew the rules well enough to break them, and break them well.

This arduous process of very intense training before creativity was enlightening to me. My whole life I had had a fairly romanticized view of the artist; I believed that the artistic personality was able to simply invent from nothing, knocking aside any barriers to entry of the desired medium. Essentially, I once considered prodigy synonymous with creativity.

While every generation there are indeed a few artists for whom everything seems to come naturally, I now understand that it is the process of learning and practice that makes a successful artist.
This process also allows me to appreciate the creations of others more deeply, which is another crucial artistic skill. Seeking to understand someone else’s work beyond simply its beauty, looking into the framework behind it, allows for deeper connection and inspiration.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have finally gotten over my nonsensical hangups and accepted that I am an artist.

For a long time, I considered myself specifically a mosaicist, and a lot of my background is on the fabrication side of the mosaic world: a public art project is awarded to an artist of any medium, and then they hire a fabricator to translate it into mosaic. My biggest solo project was the creation of an 80 sq ft mural for a restaurant in Manhattan called Daddies Pizza.

Recently, though, I find myself moving away from mosaic as an artistic medium, and I nowadays I sculpt, draw, and write flash fiction or song lyrics with my brother, the talented musician Peter Wells. (My favorite projects respectively have been: a porcelain ring dish I sculpted to look like an oyster-shell, an alcohol-marker and colored pencil drawing of a grotesque, bulge-eyed floating orb, and a flash piece called Something Wicked.)

And so my self-imposed definition of MOSAICIST has had to be re-evaluated and tweaked to encompass that, and now I am ARTIST.

I am passionate about learning and creating, whatever mediums that takes on, and I also really enjoy teaching. I do mosaic classes from time to time with adults and children alike (my youngest pupil has been 1 1/2 years old; children take to it surprisingly fast).

As an overall mission statement, if I think about it, I guess it would be to make creativity feel accessible as a skill you can develop, rather than something you are either born with or can never have. Everyone is creative, even if they are letting those muscles lay dormant for now.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I think creatives are the greatest resource for anyone pursuing creativity. Most of us want to talk about what we are making, and how.
For me personally, it is also the most impactful way for me to learn. If someone is telling me a “story”, I will remember it much more than if I am reading a paper on the same subject.

I wish I had been aware of that when I was younger; I’m sure I missed out on countless fascinating and inspirational conversations because I was too timid to ask.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Viewing art as essential is probably number one. I think in the US, art is considered superfluous, or something you do when you have extra time; a leisure and a luxury. But art is necessary for life, and if it was recognized as such, we would all benefit. Artists should be paid for their creativity and expertise, and the observer benefits from the innovation that becomes possible in that environment.

I also resent the false dichotomy of Art vs Science or Art vs Math. These things are all connected, and benefit each other. There is much creativity required in the field of science (as I’ve learned from my chemist friend when they explain their attempts in the lab to isolate compounds), and any mathematician will be able to describe the beauty of numbers to you. Art uses these “more intellectual” principles for everything from composition to creating paints.

In mosaic, the chemical composition of a stone is what gives it its specific color. Art and science cannot, and should not, be separated. Doing so only results in loss of information and insight, while accepting their collaboration allows for greater discoveries to be made.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://oliviawellsart.com
• Instagram: @oliviawells.mosaics

Image Credits

Trevor Chun