I'm Valori Wells. I make things because apparently I don't know how not to.

I paint strange, emotional crow portraits. I carve blocks. I design fabric. I photograph the hell out of the places I travel. I stitch, draw, teach, wander, collect textures and stories, and follow whatever idea is currently refusing to leave me alone.

I grew up inside Stitchin' Post, the creative business my mom started in 1975, surrounded by cloth, color, makers, teachers, and people who believed creativity mattered. That world shaped me, but somewhere along the way I had to figure out what was mine.

Turns out, mine is a little hard to categorize. 

My work is built in layers. Sometimes literally - cloth under paint, block printed marks over fabric, paint over paint, and then probably more paint. Sometimes the layers are memory, place, emotion, color, pattern, grief, joy and whatever else I happen to be carrying.

I love letting one thing build on another until something unexpected begins to emerge. That instinct runs through almost everything I make - paintings, prints, fabric, photographs, and Crow Cafe' with its whole cast of emotional portraits disguised as crows. None of it lives neatly in one category, and honestly, I don't really want it to.

I live in Sisters, Oregon, surrounded by high desert, mountains, big skies, and a family that is woven into everything I do. My kids, my family, and the landscape around me are a constant source of inspiration, showing up in the way I see color, notice details, tell stories and make my way through the world.

Travel is woven through nearly everything I do. I'm endlessly interested in how place changes what we notice - color, pattern, architecture, people, light, ritual, ordinary moments - and how those observations find their way back into the work. 

Mostly, I believe creativity begins with paying attention. Looking closer. Following curiosity. Making something before you're entirely sure where it's going.

This website is where all of my weird little creative worlds finally get to live together. 

Welcome to my world!