By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

For Carla Wells, art is both medicine and meditation. It’s a salve and salvation.

Wells creates vibrant, thought-provoking, sistah-celebrating, museum-worthy pieces. One would not guess she’s only been painting and creating in earnest for the past six years.

At age 51, Wells began tapping into her “inner artist.” She’d already left her job at a Roseville interior design firm, sold her antique store, and walked away from a fiance and their toxic 10-year relationship. The path to living her best life is as colorful as the art she now creates.

“I don’t necessarily have a style per se,” she says. “One of my favorite modalities, or mediums, is collage. I would consider myself to be a mixed-media artist. I grab whatever I want, to create. I’m not a purist in oils. I’m not a purist in acrylics. I’m not a purist, period. Whatever comes and it’s in my reach and I’m trying to express, you know, the emotion, or the feeling, I’m grabbing it.”

A self-described “serial entrepreneur,” Wells puts on interactive art events through her business, Art and Soul. She also operates several supportive living spaces she calls “Well Living.” She and her husband, James, operate eight homes in Oak Park and South Sacramento. She also has spaces where she hosts art sessions and creativity retreats. Her Intimate Venue Space in Oak Park is designed with teal and gold furniture and art that exudes peace and tranquility.

“I want women, especially women of color, to give ourselves permission to play,” Wells says. “That’s really what this is: let go, let loose, just be, and create.”

Wells recently completed a six-week “Paint with Purpose” healing arts wellness program. She hosts the program once a year, but is considering more sessions. She also works with other local organizations to provide healing through art opportunities. She has worked with St. HOPE Public Schools, Roberts Family Development Center, and the Greater Sacramento Urban League.

Her sessions are her own brand of therapy.

“There’s so much that we hold on to that we don’t know how to release,” Wells says. “Even though I think it’s improving, we, as a culture, as a Black culture, we don’t necessarily always go to a psychiatrist. We don’t always lay on the couch or sit on the couch, but we do do Sister Circles, community circles, where we come together and just talk it out.”

Soul Of A Woman

Wells doesn’t teach from the sidelines; she’s an open-minded participant in the sessions and is actively doing her own “work.”

“I went back to age 8. I realized that’s when I started to hide from myself,” she says. “At age 8 I was in special education. I was ashamed of that. I didn’t know what that was, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t a learned child. I didn’t learn easily, so I struggled.”

Wells shrank in special education. Educators at the time didn’t know how to reach her or teach her. Decades later, she has developed an art education curriculum to reach youth where they are and hopes to unlock hidden talents.

“It wasn’t that they treated me badly,” Wells says of her time at Cordova Lane Elementary School. “I just didn’t understand why. I do now. I think part of the calling is to go back and help other children understand that it’s OK to learn in a different way.

“I tell people, ‘I’m not teaching you how to do art.’ That’s not what this is. I’m teaching you how to use it as a conduit to connect. Creativity sparks things. Let’s use that as a spark to see where you’re going to go.”

Wells had previously taken a healing arts program at the Wellspring Women’s Center, also in Oak Park, and decided to revisit what she learned.

“I went into an immersive, deep dive with myself,” she says.

She wasn’t one to write her feelings in a journal and needed another outlet.

“It’s not easy because we hide, we run. It’s painful,” she says. “I learned to process my pain through art – through intentional, hard questions I asked myself and then the answer came out through art.”

Today, Wells’ pieces speak to her journey, her evolution. Pieces have names like “Surrender,” “Shattered,” “Promise,” and “Black Butterfly.”

Wells originally wanted to be a fashion designer. Motherhood shut down that particular dream. Instead of clothing, she now puts her ability to mix patterns and colors to use on another kind of canvas.

“It’s there,” Wells says. “It’s just coming out in different ways, but I’m open to evolving and growing into whatever that is. I’m open to it.”

Wells is the featured artist for Sac Open Studio 2024’s Create and Connect event on Saturday, Sept. 21. The event is 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at her space, located at 3068 Third Ave. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.com. Learn more at artsoulhealing.com or welllivinghousing.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This Sensational Seniors article is a part of OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow’s special series, “Senior Moments: Aging While Black.” The series is being supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and is part of “Healing California,” a 2024 reporting Ethnic Media Collaborative venture with print, online, and broadcast outlets across California.