A conversation with Zan Wells on her creative journey
Zan Wells’s art has always fostered play, encouraged community connections, and supported education. The sister of American artist Jasper Johns, Wells grew up in Aiken, was raised in Sumter, and now calls Greenville home. She has crafted more than 150 public sculptures—a legacy fueled in part by her persistence, comaraderie, love for the artistic process, and natural curiosity. In 2025, Wells received the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor.
TOWN spoke with Wells while she was spending time at the beach; always making something, she was immersed in crafting colorful yardsticks for her grandchildren to measure themselves against.
Q&A with Zan Wells
TOWN: Zan, you’re always making things and being creative. Before your mid-fifties, when the commissioned work took off, what was your art practice like?
Zan Wells: Ever since I was a child, my whole family was artsy. My mother was an excellent gourmet cook and a good seamstress. In high school, I had great art teachers. I wrote my senior term paper on Michelangelo. After that, when I had children, I made clothes and took tailoring courses up to the point that I made my daughter’s wedding dress with all kinds of fancy Belgian embroidery all over it. I also did pottery. I don’t think there’s a kind of art that I haven’t tried. I had my finger in art all my life.
Your figurative pieces appear to move and even possess thoughts. How did you learn to capture emotion and realism in your sculptures?
The first time I did a piece that I thought was going to be great and had it cast, it was terrible. I thought, ‘I can either keep on with this, or I can just play golf.’ I decided to keep up with it and I went to the Scottsdale Artists’ School. There was a guy there who was an orthopedic surgeon who was also a sculptor. I took two weeks with him and I learned a lot. Other than that, I guess it was my high school art teacher who used to crack me in the head with a T-square and tell me I wasn’t doing it right.
The sculpture of a child reading a book, located outside of the Travelers Rest (Sargent Branch) public library, was your first commission. How did that happen?
A friend had a frame shop, and I was doing these pieces for myself. She asked me if I would put some [pieces] in her shop. A lady came in and started questioning her about them, and then she and I met—that was Harriet Rogers, who was working with the community to get a sculpture in TR. After that, I was never without a commission.
You sometimes incorporate subtle messages in a piece for a close observer to discover. Any you would like to reveal here?
Oh, yes. Let’s talk about that. There are three in particular. One is at the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities; Virginia Uldrick commissioned me to do a sculpture right inside the entrance gate. I tried to incorporate every subject that’s being taught in the school in that sculpture. That piece is worth studying. The other two are the Dick Riley piece, in the book, and the book in the Traveler’s Rest piece; I put an homage to another artist in there. I want people to look in those books and try to figure it out for themselves. Don’t tell them!
When you’re commissioned to do a sculpture of a notable person, what’s your process like and what kind of research do you do?
The first thing I do is ask what size they are thinking and where they’re thinking of putting it. I ask questions about the person. I want to make sure the clothes are right and correct for the time and for the person. I try to get personality into the clothes as well. I make sketches and tiny notes everywhere—there’s a lot that goes into it before you ever get started putting the clay on. Sculpture, of course, is 360 degrees; you want to have something interesting that you can see from all sides. You plan all the way to the very end, to the way it’s installed and who is installing it. I want to know everything before I start.
Were there any commissions that surprised you?
All of them have been exciting, just an unbelievable experience, but when I got asked to do one for Brookgreen Gardens [in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina], that just blew my mind. I did a very complicated origami design, 85 butterflies. They were talking about where to put it, and I said, ‘I don’t care, it can be in the swamp.’ It’s just such an honor to have one in a place like that.
Do you like to make art that tells a story?
I like whimsical art, and sometimes that tells a story and sometimes it just makes you smile. I’ve never wanted to make any kind of political statement or do any tragedy that may have befallen me. I think people have enough tragedy in their lives that they don’t need to look at someone else’s mess. I like happy art.
A Walk with Wells
Zan Wells loves when the public interacts with her art. Take a walking tour to appreciate some of the artist’s prominent downtown Greenville sculptures. The one-mile route takes around 30–45 minutes to complete.
Vissi D’Arte
Begin at the roundabout in front of the Governor’s School entrance. There, you’ll see a statue of Dr. Virginia Uldrick, a pioneer in education and the founder of the South Carolina Governor’s School for Arts and Humanities as well as The Fine Arts Center. “Virginia was fabulous because she was alive when I did it,” Wells says, “I was so honored that she was thrilled with it.”
Proceed through Falls Park, emerging on Main Street next to Spill The Beans coffee shop. Cross Falls Park Drive to arrive at Wells’s sculpture of Charles H. Townes. Townes was a Greenville native who attended Greenville High and graduated from Furman University. His groundbreaking research led to the development of the laser and earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964. “When I was doing him, I would send him pictures, and I sent part of his head and he wrote back, ‘I think I had more hair.’ Wells also incorporated the argyle socks Townes wore the moment he made his “eureka” discovery. (Bend down to examine the pen he’s holding—it emits a green laser-light beam.)
Dick Riley
Walk North on Main to Graham Plaza in front of the Peace Center to find Zan Wells’s sculpture of her cousin, former South Carolina Governor and US Secretary of Education Dick Riley. “We moved it all over town before deciding where that was going to go,” Wells says. Unveiled in 2018 and depicting Riley reading to a young boy and girl, the sculpture promotes the importance for everyone in a community to be directly involved in the education of children.
Continue north, crossing East Broad Street and look for an open suitcase in front of City Hall. This piece, commissioned by former VisitGreenvilleSC president Chris Stone, artfully depicts items a tourist might pack for their visit to the city. In addition to pants, a rolled shirt, socks, binoculars, and a clever “Zanzoom” camera, try to identify the two sweet treats Wells included inside this bronze sculpture.
Joel Roberts Poinsett
Head towards the Westin Poinsett hotel where Joel Poinsett’s sculpture emerges as the prominent figure in Court Square. The nineteenth-century diplomat, statesman, botanist, and scholar is captured in a moment of reflection, feather pen in hand. Get close enough to read the message Poinsett has written on the page in his lap.
Mice on Main
Leaving Poinsett in the heart of downtown, it’s time to hunt for the beloved bronze Mice on Main. In 2000, inspired by the children’s book Goodnight Moon, high school senior Jim Ryan conceived of the idea for a whimsical scavenger hunt that Zan Wells then sculpted. There are nine mice in all and “Aunt Mifflin” is waiting at the corner of TD Bank (102 South Main Street). Continue searching both sides of Main Street for mice until you arrive at the Hyatt Regency. Need a few clues? Find them at visitgreenvillesc.com/mice-on-main.
