Mykl Wells

photo © Jeff Smith 2010

You’re Mykl Wells? You?

How many times has someone said, “did you see that giant cardboard sculpture” or “have you ever been to the All Souls Procession”? I’ll say, “been to? I helped start it” or “I built that piece” and that’s when I hear it. Always accompanied by that bewildered, disappointed look, like they had answered a personal ad for a tall, high-powered executive who, “knows how to really listen”. Only to be confronted at the door by a dumpy, halitosis-reeking, megalomaniac.

It’s been said of me that I’m reckless and self destructive. There have been things said about me, mostly by ex-girlfriends, that are considerably less flattering.
It’s true that I find a woman with a gun, a fast car and a bottle of pills extremely sexy.
It’s true that I’ve woken up in a strange house wearing nothing but knee-high rainbow toe socks.
So it shouldn’t come as any big surprise that I haven’t carefully and painstakingly documented every detail of my Artistic Endeavors. Like everything you reap what you sow. After a lifetime of making art and building community lots of people know my art or know me but have never connected the two. And unless you have the pictures to prove it your claims to fame amount to nothing but bragging rights.

Several years ago I was laid off from my job as an I.T. director. I was so emotionally scarred from corporate life that in comparison being a working artist looked extremely attractive. Art was the one thing I was good at and the only thing I was passionate about. I had even tried to leave it behind and like a junky just couldn’t. So I decided to recommit to being an artist. This meant not only was I going to make great art but I was also going to learn the business of being an artist. I’d document my work, have a real portfolio, build a website, print business cards, schmooze and get shows. Easier said then done, call it a work in progress. So if my CV looks skimpy, the photos not as professional as they should be, have mercy. After making art for my entire life I’m just getting started.
 
 

Popular Projects

GLOW!
Southern Arizona’s Annual Illuminated art extravaganza.

The Lantern Project
Beautiful cardboard lanterns that seemd to take over my life but the results were worth it.

Chimera
A monumental cardboard and resin sculpture

The Time Machine
A collaborative project involving seven artists in four different cities coming together on the Playa to make art.
 
 

Story Time

Perhaps it was my close personal relationship with industrial solvents but I never grokked that those tales of adventure, the ones the other boys were telling girls at the party, were enormous lies. I thought they really had fought polar bears in the arctic. So I set off to cultivate an adventure resume, something that would surely win the hearts of and panties off of every girl I met. All these years later, looking more like a crazy quilt of scar tissue than a man I’m starting to get a sneaking suspicion that maybe that wasn’t such a great plan. I’m not nearly as foolhardy as once upon a time. I settled down a lot after I met my wife. She may be human equivalent of lithium.

I’ve lead an interesting if not terribly sensible life. One might say I wandered right off the path less traveled and into the bush. In those years I’ve collected a number of tales. My poor wife just rolls her eyes and sighs softly when I segue into one of my ripping yarns. Even the dogs leave the room when I’m on a roll.

Click here to listen to my Tales of Woe Podcast

Stories need to be told. I love to hear a good story but you’d better be quick because faster than you can say, a long time ago there was…
I’ll be bending your ear. Occasionally I add a new Tale of Woe, little stories from my life. They are all entirely true except for the embellishments, fabrications and outright lies.
 
 

A Brief Bio

I was born in the mid-sixties in Beloit Wisconsin where I lived for a whopping three days. My parents were graduate students studying art history and geology. From the get go I was immersed in a world of art and science. I believe that this has left a rather indelible finger-print on the person I am today.

My whole life I’ve gravitated towards art and it is the medium through which I filter my experience. I found school horribly boring and wasn’t a particularly good student. In high school I spent most of my time either listening to punk rock or lost among the stacks of the University of Arizona’s libraries.

I spent my early twenties in a manic haze traveling the world. Spending two years in Europe and North Africa. I lived in Fez, Morocco for six months. I often found my way to Bristol England where I had friends and could always pick up some work. In 1987 I returned to the States and Tucson, my home town. I would work for six months at some menial job then spend the next six months traveling in Mexico and occasionally Central America. Mexico holds a special place in my heart and it’s culture has deeply influenced me and my art.

In 1993 I met my wife and settled down in Tucson.

I did not go to university, though I often snuck into lectures most of my education has been because I am an obsessive autodidact. I’ve had a number of jobs and careers over the course of my life spending from 1997 to 2007 working as the I.T. Director for a medical supply company. The company sold to the plastic surgery market. I know more about liposuction than I care to admit. When I left I decided it was time that I became serious about being an artist.

Through all of this the common thread of my life has been art. It’s why I get up in the morning.
 
 

Artists Statement

Do you really care if I’m an abstract geomorphic expressionist who’s trying to blur the lines between homoerotic subtext in socioeconomic micro-cultures of the bandy legged yak?
Really?
Art is visceral, a concept grabs you or it doesn’t. There are a few things I want you to know and I’ll spare you the rest.

Almost every thing I use comes out of dumpsters. The surfaces I paint on, much of the paper in the wire sculpture, even the oil paints! You may wish for its hasty return to the dumpster after perusing the offerings.
However, if you have the discerning taste, moral caliber, towering intellect, good looks and mountains of cash that it takes to truly enjoy my work, I want you to know that this garbage is affordable and odor free.

I like those dirty things that lounge about the periphery of our minds. Mystic carrots, axe wielding bunnies, kittens performing pre-internet searches, it’s all just a bit twisted. I had a lot of fun doing it. Doing something because it’s joyous and wonderful and playful seems like a great reason to me. I hope that some of that joy rubs off on you and leaves an indelible stain on your brain.

Love and Kisses
Mykl