Despite coming from a region renowned for African-American quilters like
Mozell Benson,
Nora Ezell, and the quilter's cooperative in
Gee's Bend, Wells did not grow up in a tradition of quilting and did not began her craft until middle age. She made her first quilt in 1979. In 2011, Wells said that she had begun using a quilting frame, but that most of her work still took place sitting on the floor. In the mid-1980s, Wells began creating her signature "story" and "picture" quilts, incorporating a diverse range of found materials and sewing mostly by hand. Her 1986 quilt, "Crucifixion", which depicts the biblical scene, is the first example of a story quilt in her oeuvre. At her most prolific, Wells has said she produced "about twenty quilts a month," even while teaching full time. Since then, Wells has exhibited quilts in galleries and museums including the
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the
International Quilt Museum, and the Flint African American Quilters Guild. Wells's quilts have also appeared on
Hallmark cards, and in 1993 she was invited to design an ornament for the
White House Christmas Tree. In an interview, Wells said, "My work is not traditional. I like it that way. If people tell me to turn my ends under, I'll leave them raggedy. If they tell me to make my stitches small and tight. I'll leave them loose. Sometimes you can trip over my stitches they're so big. You can always recognize the traditional quilters who come by and see my quilts. They sort of cringe.” Wells has received the 1998 Alabama Arts and Visual Craftsmen award and the 2019 Governor's Arts Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts., Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, The
Birmingham Museum of Art, the Kentuck Arts Center, the
National Museum of African American History, and the International Quilt Museum. In 2018 and 2019, Wells served as Creative Director for the Tuscaloosa 200 Bicentennial Project, where she oversaw the creation of a collaborative quilt commemorating the occasion. New York Times art critic
Martha Schwendener called Wells's 1989 quilt "Yesterday: Civil Rights in the South III" an "epic quilt that shows the Mayflower arriving in North America, with a black man rowing a white man ashore." Schwendener compared Wells's quilting practice to that of
Harriet Powers, a 19th-century slave in Georgia who made quilts that told stories from the Bible. In 2024, Wells and her work were the subject of the book and catalogue raisonné
The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells. ==Noted works==