Jeanne Wells

Jeanne Wells is familiar with and uses many alternative photographic processes, but for the past 12 years has worked mainly with an intaglio press. She first learned the polymer photogravure process from artist Josephine Sacabo and her assistant, Meg Turner at Josephine’s studio in New Orleans. She has also studied with Clay Harmon at North Light Photographic Workshops, master printer Paul Taylor at Renaissance Press, and direct-to-plate pioneer Silvi Glattauer of Baldessin Press in Melbourne, Australia.

Through daily practice and combining the best of her mentors’ methods, Jeanne has found a unique way of working and teaching which relies upon the craftsman’s way of working with the hands and the artist’s way of seeing and thinking, and less upon the technological exactitude of digital workflow. The result is a way of working that is intuitive, tactile, and nuanced in a way that is nearly impossible to accomplish unless working by hand. 

Wells’s work is collected and exhibited internationally. She has published in many contemporary photo magazines, was awarded a merit prize from Black and White magazine, and has been a top 200 Critical Mass finalist.  Over the past 20 years, she has been represented by many international agencies and galleries. Her work and methods are featured in Polymer Photogravure, by Clay Harmon, and Digital Negatives with QuadtoneRIP by Ron Reeder and Christina Anderson, both from Focal Press’s Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography Series.

Jeanne was born and raised on the Maine coast, where she has lived most of her life. She studied literature and writing at Lesley College in Cambridge, MA.. She still uses anything from a cell phone to an 8×10 view camera to capture the world around her. You can find her teaching and working at her studio, Things of This World Press, in Aroostook County, Maine. She was an artist in residence at the Nantucket Artist’s Association in 2023 and 2024 and has taught beginning and advanced polymer gravure at Maine Media Workshops and College since 2021. Her early life in music and poetry continues to influence and inspire her visual work.