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Valori Wells

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I always wanted to be an artist. My mom told me, “Of course, you can be an artist — but you may have to have an ‘A’ job, ‘B’ job, and ‘C’ job.” At a young age, I took this to heart as I found myself with my hands and heart in multiple jobs and projects.

I grew up in my mom’s quilt shop, the Stitchin’ Post, in Sisters, Oregon. At 13, I discovered photography, working in the darkroom and developing film and photos that captured what I saw and felt. I love how photography can capture a moment and tell a story inside and outside the frame. I love how it captures the finest details of nature and can encompass emotions, moments and lives.

I graduated high school in 1991, and after a year I felt lost and needed to find my path. My stepdad gave me a job as a waitress in his restaurant, where I worked hard and, with the help of my mom and her friend, put together a portfolio for Pacific Northwest College of Art. In 1993, I started my journey in art school. I learned so many new mediums and styles of art, and found myself always going to the subject matter that I loved the most: nature.

Between my junior and senior years in college, my mom hired me to do the photography for one of her quilting books, and that is when I discovered my love of fabric. I was in awe of the palette Mom had to choose from and how she painted with fabric. I even had her give me a refresher course on quilting.

After four years of exhausting all of the photography classes offered at my school, I filled my credits and passion with block printing and screen printing, not to mention the four years of required life drawing. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine art in 1997.

Later that year, I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. My mom and I were working on a book at the time, and I was making a quilt for it — my first real quilt. Don’t get me wrong: I had sewn most of my life, and had learned a lot from watching Mom, but I had no interest in quilting. When I was ready to machine quilt, I called my mom for advice, and she sent me to a local quilt shop that sold Bernina sewing machines.

I ended up working at Fran’s Quilt Shop. This job sparked a desire to design my own fabric and bring something fresh and modern into the quilting industry. In a conversation with my mom, I mentioned this, and she immediately knew someone to introduce me to: the design director for a fabric company called Quilter’s Only, in Charlotte, North Carolina. I gathered up a portfolio of my nature photography, hopped in my red Jeep, and drove to Charlotte. This was the beginning of my fabric designing career.

After a year in North Carolina, I was extremely homesick and found myself yet again calling my mom. I asked if she had any job openings at the shop (I knew she wouldn’t make a special job just for me). Luckily, the buyer of books, patterns and notions was retiring. I got the job. This became my “A” job. My “B” job was designing fabric; and my “C” job was writing how-to quilt books.

Over the next several years, my mom and I created seven books together, and I did all the photography. I was becoming a quilter after all. As I learned new techniques, I would become obsessed and work on them until I had exhausted my curiosity, which led to four of my own books.

The evolution of my art over the years and my desire to continue to grow is evident in my career as a fabric designer. My first collection started with a studio using my black-and-white photography and creating repeats and color stories for the fabric. I found myself wanting to have my hand in the designing, so I set forth and learned how to draw repeats and create color callouts.

After a year, I realized I wanted to be the one painting the designs, not a studio. With a lot of practice and tips from a fellow artist, I learned how to paint with gouache. I designed in this fashion for years, until I started getting curious about using Adobe Illustrator to color, change scale and create repeats — all of the things I did by hand that were very time-consuming. At the time, I had little children, worked at the shop, and wrote quilting books.

During these years, I started block printing and screen printing again, purely for myself. As I got deeper and deeper into carving and printing, I decided it was time to incorporate them into my fabric design. The first collection of block-printed designs came out in 2018, and I haven’t exhausted my curiosity or enjoyment of creating in this way. It allows me to make intricate layered pieces that tell a story.

As a teenager, I dreamed of visiting Morocco. I was drawn to the art, culture and color. In 2014, I attended an artist retreat in Marrakech and fell in love with the city from the minute I stepped off the plane. That trip changed my life; my art exploded, and I was able to return in 2016 to teach at a retreat. My “C” job of writing quilting books had transformed into teaching, whether it was in Morocco, our shop, or other quilt shops and conferences in the U.S.

It was also in 206 that I met a woman who would change my life. The best way to describe Kelly Sheets is as an “artist of life.” Her profession was business
mentorship and life coaching. She came into my world when I was dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety, feeling lost as I juggled life. I was tired and unfocused, expending all my energy outward on work and my young family.

Kelly taught me how to break old habits and the thought patterns that kept me from being my true self. The work I did with Kelly gave me the confidence to start taking over the shop, allowing my mom to semi-retire. The prospect had always scared me, and I wasn’t sure I was capable. In January of 2018, I officially took it over (though Mom is always nearby and ready to help).

Kelly and I became friends outside of the work we did together, and we started dreaming of creating our international retreats. Just as I loved Morocco, she had the same love affair with Bali. We wanted to create something different from other artist retreats, to incorporate Kelly’s work and wisdom to expand our clients’ ways of thinking and creating. Our first Creatives Retreat was in the spring of 2018 in Ubud, Bali.

The retreats have been one of my greatest joys in my career as an artist. I teach photography, drawing, block printing and stitching, while Kelly gives morning “energy” talks about creativity and how to become an artist of life. We take classes from local art masters and experience museums, culture, food and friendship, which allows the group to form a unique bond.

In 2020, when COVID hit and we had to close our shop doors to the public, my life turned on its heel, and my focus went to the “A” job. At first, it was my 12- and 14-year-old daughters and me answering phones and filling online orders. I realized very quickly that I needed some of my team back if I was to save the shop and not kill my kids. I brought back four of my key people, and we started brainstorming.

Our shop was built on education and inspiration, and over the 45 years in business, we had created a community that needed us. We got extremely creative with our newsletters, curbside pickup, how-to videos and new products, perfect for people stuck at home. It was one of the hardest and most rewarding times in my life. I would come home absolutely exhausted, but joyful that we were still there and were connecting with people.

COVID prepared me for another twist in my life: In January of 2021, my husband unexpectedly announced he wanted a divorce. As you can imagine, this sent my three kids and me into a tailspin of grief and change. I went into survival mode, keeping myself above water and available for my kids. I paused my fabric design and focused on my family and the shop.

I was drowning in grief and wondering who I was without my husband of 18 years. My creativity was stifled, but I needed something, so I bought a roll of canvas and started painting huge canvases to feel something besides sadness. I would paint, and the next day paint over it. I did this for months. What I didn’t realize at the time was that creating in this fashion connected me to my soul, my truth and my creativity, which was always there waiting for me. Nothing ever has come of those paintings, but the act of painting my emotions is something I still do, sometimes painting repeatedly on a canvas and sometimes finishing one and saying: You can stay for a while.

I have spent my life as a working artist, always thinking about how I can make money from what I create. My paintings are rarely seen by others, and I have less attachment to the outcome. It’s about being in the moment of creation where nothing else in the universe matters. This self-reflection brought me to wonder what my purpose is in this life. I look at my mom, and I know her purpose is to educate. My inward reflection took me on a journey, and I realized that my purpose is to inspire and be inspired.

In the spring of 2022, I decided to do the #100dayproject on Instagram. It is a prompt to create something every day for 100 days, with no guidelines. I have hundreds of blocks in my library and a lot of fabric, and almost every day I would spend half an hour printing a block on a colored piece of fabric. I didn’t have to come up with something new, but just print and play with color. It took me close to 200 days to complete the project, and I would give myself grace for the days I didn’t print. About halfway through, I was inspired to carve something new. It was magical. I finally felt like I was finding myself in this new life.

The ever-patient fabric company I designed for gently asked me if I was up to doing a new collection in the summer of 2022. I was a single mom and needed to plan for my future, so I showed them my new panels. They became my next fabric collection, Grace. On my journey, grace had become the ingredient I needed to get out of my grief and start living my life.

2025 is a milestone year. The shop celebrates 50 years in business, and I celebrate 27 years of designing fabric and inspiring the quilting community and beyond. I continue to design fabric and make quilts, teach classes, travel to Bali and Morocco for artist retreats, and paint my emotions. I find myself grateful for my journey — the successes and failures, the tears and laughter, heartache and happiness — and look to the future with an authentic open heart.

I always wanted to be an artist. My mom told me, “Of course, you can be an artist — but you may have to have an ‘A’ job, ‘B’ job, and ‘C’ job.” At a young age, I took this to heart as I found myself with my hands and heart in multiple jobs and projects.

I grew up in my mom’s quilt shop, the Stitchin’ Post, in Sisters, Oregon. At 13, I discovered photography, working in the darkroom and developing film and photos that captured what I saw and felt. I love how photography can capture a moment and tell a story inside and outside the frame. I love how it captures the finest details of nature and can encompass emotions, moments and lives.

I graduated high school in 1991, and after a year I felt lost and needed to find my path. My stepdad gave me a job as a waitress in his restaurant, where I worked hard and, with the help of my mom and her friend, put together a portfolio for Pacific Northwest College of Art. In 1993, I started my journey in art school. I learned so many new mediums and styles of art, and found myself always going to the subject matter that I loved the most: nature.

Between my junior and senior years in college, my mom hired me to do the photography for one of her quilting books, and that is when I discovered my love of fabric. I was in awe of the palette Mom had to choose from and how she painted with fabric. I even had her give me a refresher course on quilting.

After four years of exhausting all of the photography classes offered at my school, I filled my credits and passion with block printing and screen printing, not to mention the four years of required life drawing. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine art in 1997.

Later that year, I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. My mom and I were working on a book at the time, and I was making a quilt for it — my first real quilt. Don’t get me wrong: I had sewn most of my life, and had learned a lot from watching Mom, but I had no interest in quilting. When I was ready to machine quilt, I called my mom for advice, and she sent me to a local quilt shop that sold Bernina sewing machines.

I ended up working at Fran’s Quilt Shop. This job sparked a desire to design my own fabric and bring something fresh and modern into the quilting industry. In a conversation with my mom, I mentioned this, and she immediately knew someone to introduce me to: the design director for a fabric company called Quilter’s Only, in Charlotte, North Carolina. I gathered up a portfolio of my nature photography, hopped in my red Jeep, and drove to Charlotte. This was the beginning of my fabric designing career.

After a year in North Carolina, I was extremely homesick and found myself yet again calling my mom. I asked if she had any job openings at the shop (I knew she wouldn’t make a special job just for me). Luckily, the buyer of books, patterns and notions was retiring. I got the job. This became my “A” job. My “B” job was designing fabric; and my “C” job was writing how-to quilt books.

Over the next several years, my mom and I created seven books together, and I did all the photography. I was becoming a quilter after all. As I learned new techniques, I would become obsessed and work on them until I had exhausted my curiosity, which led to four of my own books.

The evolution of my art over the years and my desire to continue to grow is evident in my career as a fabric designer. My first collection started with a studio using my black-and-white photography and creating repeats and color stories for the fabric. I found myself wanting to have my hand in the designing, so I set forth and learned how to draw repeats and create color callouts.

After a year, I realized I wanted to be the one painting the designs, not a studio. With a lot of practice and tips from a fellow artist, I learned how to paint with gouache. I designed in this fashion for years, until I started getting curious about using Adobe Illustrator to color, change scale and create repeats — all of the things I did by hand that were very time-consuming. At the time, I had little children, worked at the shop, and wrote quilting books.

During these years, I started block printing and screen printing again, purely for myself. As I got deeper and deeper into carving and printing, I decided it was time to incorporate them into my fabric design. The first collection of block-printed designs came out in 2018, and I haven’t exhausted my curiosity or enjoyment of creating in this way. It allows me to make intricate layered pieces that tell a story.

As a teenager, I dreamed of visiting Morocco. I was drawn to the art, culture and color. In 2014, I attended an artist retreat in Marrakech and fell in love with the city from the minute I stepped off the plane. That trip changed my life; my art exploded, and I was able to return in 2016 to teach at a retreat. My “C” job of writing quilting books had transformed into teaching, whether it was in Morocco, our shop, or other quilt shops and conferences in the U.S.

It was also in 206 that I met a woman who would change my life. The best way to describe Kelly Sheets is as an “artist of life.” Her profession was business
mentorship and life coaching. She came into my world when I was dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety, feeling lost as I juggled life. I was tired and unfocused, expending all my energy outward on work and my young family.

Kelly taught me how to break old habits and the thought patterns that kept me from being my true self. The work I did with Kelly gave me the confidence to start taking over the shop, allowing my mom to semi-retire. The prospect had always scared me, and I wasn’t sure I was capable. In January of 2018, I officially took it over (though Mom is always nearby and ready to help).

Kelly and I became friends outside of the work we did together, and we started dreaming of creating our international retreats. Just as I loved Morocco, she had the same love affair with Bali. We wanted to create something different from other artist retreats, to incorporate Kelly’s work and wisdom to expand our clients’ ways of thinking and creating. Our first Creatives Retreat was in the spring of 2018 in Ubud, Bali.

The retreats have been one of my greatest joys in my career as an artist. I teach photography, drawing, block printing and stitching, while Kelly gives morning “energy” talks about creativity and how to become an artist of life. We take classes from local art masters and experience museums, culture, food and friendship, which allows the group to form a unique bond.

In 2020, when COVID hit and we had to close our shop doors to the public, my life turned on its heel, and my focus went to the “A” job. At first, it was my 12- and 14-year-old daughters and me answering phones and filling online orders. I realized very quickly that I needed some of my team back if I was to save the shop and not kill my kids. I brought back four of my key people, and we started brainstorming.

Our shop was built on education and inspiration, and over the 45 years in business, we had created a community that needed us. We got extremely creative with our newsletters, curbside pickup, how-to videos and new products, perfect for people stuck at home. It was one of the hardest and most rewarding times in my life. I would come home absolutely exhausted, but joyful that we were still there and were connecting with people.

COVID prepared me for another twist in my life: In January of 2021, my husband unexpectedly announced he wanted a divorce. As you can imagine, this sent my three kids and me into a tailspin of grief and change. I went into survival mode, keeping myself above water and available for my kids. I paused my fabric design and focused on my family and the shop.

I was drowning in grief and wondering who I was without my husband of 18 years. My creativity was stifled, but I needed something, so I bought a roll of canvas and started painting huge canvases to feel something besides sadness. I would paint, and the next day paint over it. I did this for months. What I didn’t realize at the time was that creating in this fashion connected me to my soul, my truth and my creativity, which was always there waiting for me. Nothing ever has come of those paintings, but the act of painting my emotions is something I still do, sometimes painting repeatedly on a canvas and sometimes finishing one and saying: You can stay for a while.

I have spent my life as a working artist, always thinking about how I can make money from what I create. My paintings are rarely seen by others, and I have less attachment to the outcome. It’s about being in the moment of creation where nothing else in the universe matters. This self-reflection brought me to wonder what my purpose is in this life. I look at my mom, and I know her purpose is to educate. My inward reflection took me on a journey, and I realized that my purpose is to inspire and be inspired.

In the spring of 2022, I decided to do the #100dayproject on Instagram. It is a prompt to create something every day for 100 days, with no guidelines. I have hundreds of blocks in my library and a lot of fabric, and almost every day I would spend half an hour printing a block on a colored piece of fabric. I didn’t have to come up with something new, but just print and play with color. It took me close to 200 days to complete the project, and I would give myself grace for the days I didn’t print. About halfway through, I was inspired to carve something new. It was magical. I finally felt like I was finding myself in this new life.

The ever-patient fabric company I designed for gently asked me if I was up to doing a new collection in the summer of 2022. I was a single mom and needed to plan for my future, so I showed them my new panels. They became my next fabric collection, Grace. On my journey, grace had become the ingredient I needed to get out of my grief and start living my life.

2025 is a milestone year. The shop celebrates 50 years in business, and I celebrate 27 years of designing fabric and inspiring the quilting community and beyond. I continue to design fabric and make quilts, teach classes, travel to Bali and Morocco for artist retreats, and paint my emotions. I find myself grateful for my journey — the successes and failures, the tears and laughter, heartache and happiness — and look to the future with an authentic open heart.

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