Stella hails from a creative family. “My mom’s mom is a sculptor,” Stella explains, “and my dad’s dad is a painter.” Her grandfather also was an art professor at LSU and opened the Baton Rouge Gallery. Both encouraged Stella to be creative, exploring any art she “could do to express” herself. Thanks to her grandparents’ encouragement, Stella does a variety of art like painting, poetry, short stories, and screen writing, which she cites as her favorite. To Stella, screen writing is the combination of all artistic mediums.
For the first two and a half years at LSU, Stella had one major, creative writing, but when she added screen arts during her fifth semester, everything changed. She had “always” “been interested in the behind the scenes” of film making. However, Stella says, “I never really realized I could do that.” “I thought I would just be the writer behind the scenes, but then we opened the new screen arts department, and I got involved with that, and now I have my own camera and I’m so excited!”
Stella professes admiration for two particular artists, the poet, Langston Hughes, and filmmaker Ava DuVernay. Langston Hughes “is so amazing,” Stella says. “I’ve always been in awe of all of his poems.” While Ava DuVernay “opened up the door for me because she only talks about important issues that are happening in this world." With DuVernay’s documentaries like 13th and When They See Us, DuVernay showed Stella she “can rewrite some wrongs that have happened in history.”
Stella’s inspiration behind her artwork, Wavy, and her poem, “Writhing,” both relate to one person. Stella painted Wavy “for a girl” she “was seeing at the time.” Stella says, “She really liked tennis shoes and I thought she was a very colorful person, so I wanted to make something about shoes and also colorful, but then it’s kinda funny to me because I didn’t end up giving it to her.” Stella and her girlfriend got into a fight and broke up before Stella had a chance to give her the painting. After their traumatic breakup, Stella sees Wavy “symbolizes” “taking” her “own freedom back.” She wrote “Writhing” after the breakup, which shows “the disposition of” their “two different ways of thinking.”
Stella learned how to write from reading a multitude of books “back in middle school and high school.” “Now, I watch a lot of movies and read more screenplays than I do books,” Stella says. “While I’m watching a movie, I’ll break it down into my head." Stella points "out each part in the movie" so she "can imagine the screenplay" in her head. Even though Stella has learned so much, she believes "there's still lots to learn."
Perched on her inner bicep, Stella has a tooth tattoo which she lovingly calls her “tattooth.” Her “tattooth” was inspired by two traumatic events. When Stella was four, her cousin, Suz, “accidently” tripped Stella “with her jump rope” and knocked out her tooth. Around this time, her grandfather from her mother’s side, a periodontal surgeon, died. These events prompted the two girls to later share the same tattoo. In a way, her “tattooth” connects Stella to both sides of her family. “It’s like the roots to my family tree,” she says.
When Stella has some free time, she enjoys watching either comedies or longer, more dramatic shows. Currently, she’s watching Mind Hunter, but she's also watching The Mick on Hulu. While most watch shows to be entertained, Stella treats this as an opportunity to learn. She will watch different genres to note how each are different. By doing so, Stella hopes to perfect her craft.
After Stella graduates, she plans to return to New Orleans for a couple of years, “getting experience immediately” by working with a few film makers “down there.” Then, Stella plans to move to Austin, Texas, where she mentions the film community is “really good.” Overall, Stella says she needs to “keep” her “enthusiasm going” so she can achieve her dreams.
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The Delta