About Art: Victoria Wells
About Art: A place where artists talk about art. Interviews with actors, comedians, writers, and visual artists discuss what inspires them, the truth about their industries, and what they hope to achieve.
About Art’s interview with multimedia artist, Victoria Wells.
This interview has been condensed for clarity
Victoria Wells is an artist of many mediums. She is a visual artist as well as an improviser in Toronto, Canada. She is married to Duncan Lincs who is a musician and improviser. They have two daughters. We met during lockdown via The Second City improv program and finished it together. Her current work is in consumable art such as bath, and beauty products that look like food. Her work can be seen and purchased on her Instagram @ yrulikethisshop and Etsy.
About Art: When did you realize you were a storyteller?
Victoria Wells: When I was in middle school I loved drama class. I loved art class. I was writing sketches. I was performing sketches in front of my classmates and loved taking up that space just absolutely loved it. I think this is developmentally normal and something that gets a little socialized into you as a woman, I started shrinking in high school started moving away from situations where I might get noticed or attention.
Even in university, even doing my fine arts degree, I remember in my fourth year, we were doing end of degree level shows and people were like, “Oh you’re an artist, right?” And I’m like, “I don’t know about that. I’m in art, but I’m not of it”. It’s hard for me to shake this idea that I can claim artistry. Being able to name it and say it has been something that’s a lot more recent. Within the last five years or so, have I been able to actually say yeah, I am an artist. I create art. I am a storyteller. I am a performer.
About Art: What medium do you primarily work in (what form(s) does your storytelling usually take)?
Victoria Wells: Usually it’s a space-based issue. In terms of my visual art side of me that has shifted from photography and painting into what right now I would consider multiples.
You’re able to create multiple identical objects. It’s an art style that lives in this space of consumerism, but still maintains its artistic integrity within it. It’s usually book work.
I do a lot of hyper realistic food soap and candles. The nice thing about that is it’s small, I can make it within my kitchen, and it’s a consumable. I really like that element in art.
Soap doesn’t take up space like a painting. It can get used and at the end of the day, it maintains. I do like the environmental aspect that I’m creating art that doesn’t just get added to the junk heap of life. This is something that through the process of using it will cease to exist and I like that. There’s a performance element to buying something really beautiful and you have to commit to destroying it. The preciousness with it kind of tickles me.
I also do improv which feels like a completely different world. Improv doesn’t take up any space, but it does take up a lot of time and that’s not something I have a lot of right now as a parent.
About Art: What drew you to your art?
Victoria Wells: I consider myself to be a funny person and I did try a little bit of stand-up when I was in my 20s. Stand up always felt a bit harsh then I found improv and it was suddenly I wasn’t in competition with people. I was collaborating. I could use my voice to save a scene that somebody else was in and save their ego. Being in that space as a performer, you are as valid as the gregarious, six-foot six guy who walks in. It’s very liberating and let me claim my own space.
In counterbalance to that, my visual art is very independent, and it doesn’t require anybody else’s input.
I think they work in harmony together. They’re both needed.
About Art: What do you wish you had known before you started this journey?
Victoria Wells: I really wish in my teen years that I had known that it wasn’t all or nothing thinking about like a career in the arts. the way that it’s painted to you as a young person is very much like you’re either the famous artist or you’re a failure.
There is space in between those two options and that it’s a valid space that you can make a living as an artist. without compromising your vision. So like right now, I’m an art teacher and I still have time for my own practice.
About Art: What are you glad you didn’t know?
Victoria Wells: That talent has very little to do with success. it’s also luck. It’s timing.
I’m not good at networking and I feel like there’s very little space for that.
Your networking is more important than your talent and I don’t like that, and I don’t want that to be true. I’m glad I didn’t know that as a teenager.
About Art: What makes you passionate about your art?
Victoria Wells: It grounds me. It’s a way to get back to myself. Improv is a way for me to take up space, take and give and support. With my visual art, it’s a way to explore my own ideas and take the claim the time for myself as a parent. It’s very, very hard to give yourself that permission to take time to do a task when you have a baby. It’s hard to convince yourself that this is the right thing to do.
I sell the work in a couple of spaces and that incentivizes me to take the time to restock. It’s an opportunity to just be me.
About Art: An artist’s journey can be a lonely one. How did you find support and collaborators to keep going and not give up?
Victoria Wells: I married my biggest fan [Duncan Links]. Duncan and I met working in an arts booth together. It’s always been a thing that we’ve shared. We both value it. He’s more on the musical side. I’m more on the visual arts side. It hasn’t been a lonely journey because we have each other. I’ve met people through improv as well that are more visual arts related and that’s been a really great connection to keep.
I wanted to talk about the last part the not giving up part. I think it depends really on what giving up looks like. I can’t not make art. It just keeps coming out in surprising ways. I thought I’d given up then suddenly a new art form starts pouring out of me. The tap never turns off. Sometimes, it’s water. Sometimes, it’s wine. Sometimes, it’s fire but the tap’s going.
About Art: What is your ultimate goal? What does “success” look like to you?
Victoria Wells: I think I’m a very effective artist and I think I’m a very talented person and I value that more than being just successful. I think I’m successful in my own way, but I value that I have talent above being able to network dinner or something like that.
About Art: What would you like to change about your industry?
Victoria Wells: I can have an entire conversation about the distribution of wealth here, but I’ll try to simplify. We need to invest more in the arts. Period. Fund it. We need to make sure that there are viable careers in it because it is the thing that changes our lives from survival to living. If the pandemic taught us anything, it should have proven to everybody how vital arts are in life. This is what makes life worth living so fund them.
Make sure that people can create this art don’t exploit. It’s not a coincidence that the writer’s strike happened after the pandemic and people realizing how much they need engaging media. It needs to be monetarily valued as the life-altering service that it is.
About Art: Do you feel your journey would be easier or harder if the industry was more inclusive?
Victoria Wells: I’m white so I know that there have been fewer boundaries put in my way. I’m also a woman so I think the sexism is pretty obvious for anybody who’s part of it even if it’s not explicit. I don’t feel particularly hard done by as a as a white woman. I’m not the one that has been the most hurt by discriminatory policies. I can’t claim otherwise.
About Art: How do you use your art to affect change?
Victoria Wells: I think it depends on your personal experience with my art. I think the work that I do is light-hearted. There is a gentleness to my art. I’ve seen people pick up the art and it makes them smile. It’s a very positive moment and I like that and that’s what I’m chasing.
There is an environmental perspective that I do build into my work that is an active part of change from a business perspective. I’m always thinking about “How can I be the company that I want to see? How can I carry myself in that way?” So sustainable packaging that’s definitely part of it. The fact that the product itself is consumable and the way that it gets consumed is not harmful to the planet.
There are certain candles that when you burn them they do create fumes that are not healthy for the planet. There are other waxes that burn clean. I feel that it is necessary to give the best product possible that benefits the planet so packaging is minimal plastic. The ingredients are all fair trade and they’re all clean burning if they’re burning or if it’s the soap that they don’t use harsh chemicals.
I can live my values through the way that I produce the art.
About Art: What does an artist need most to make really good art? Passion? Talent? Something else?
Victoria Wells: I think it requires a drive. I think it requires you to be able to sit through the training that you need to go through. None of us start out as amazing artists. Great art also has to involve ideas and being able to contribute meaningfully to a conversation that is happening and that requires that you to experience the world a little bit. You have to be engaged in conversations and not start out thinking that you know everything. There’s a little humility that I think is required in all of this as well. Be patient you need to be dedicated to the craft and be willing to expand yourself as you go alone. Expose yourself to new ideas, new situations and be reflective within yourself. I think that great art comes from a place of an artist really knowing themselves.
There’s not a lot of accidental great art. It’s usually the product of a lot of intentionality.
About Art: What are you working on next?
Victoria Wells: I’m building on ideas that I explored a little bit last year just sort of exploring new forms, but a lot of my inspiration comes from sort of happenstance. Whenever I’m creating my new soaps, my new candles, I start out by going to the secondhand store. See if there’s any vessels that I can use that I can get inspiration from. Like I made a lip balm because I found these lip balm containers that were only 99 cents. I had to get them.
I’m really trying to focus on “how do I make sure that somebody just doesn’t end up with a bunch of stuff that they don’t need?” and the reaction of the receiver of the gift which is surprisingly hard. How can I make useful things that will not be burdensome to the person who receives them?
You never know what people like or what they will be able to use or if they will even be able to bring themselves to use it, but I can put that thought in. So that’s what I’m working on currently.
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