From Bascom Hill to Hall of Fame: The Allee Willis Archive, Creativity Commons coming to UW–Madison Libraries
In the world of Allee Willis, creativity is worth its weight in gold records.
“I’m always excited. That’s the key. You gotta remain curious,” the late University of Wisconsin–Madison alumna, Songwriters Hall of Famer, and artistic polymath told On Wisconsin in 2019 about her creative process. It’s one that earned her, among other accolades, gold, platinum, and multiplatinum records for songs like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.”
In the coming months, some of those gold and platinum records will find their way to the UW–Madison campus.
The UW–Madison Libraries announced on April 10 the donation of the Allee Willis Archive — including photographs, lyrics, and her 1986 Grammy — to Mills Music Library. The donation is coupled with a $1.5 million gift to campus from the Willis Wonderland Foundation that will fund the construction of a multidisciplinary makerspace in Memorial Library called the Allee Willis Creativity Commons, as well as ongoing programming and technology upgrades. Together, the forthcoming space and endowment will be dedicated to transforming the artist’s creative vision into a reality for students.
“As Allee’s example shows us, some of the most meaningful work comes from bringing different ways of thinking together and simply seeing what happens next,” Dean and Vice Provost of Libraries at UW–Madison Erla Heyns said in her remarks Friday. “In other words, [the Creativity Commons] will be a place where the next Allee Willis might get their start.”
Established after the artist passed away in December 2019, the Willis Wonderland Foundation aims to carry forward Willis’s vision primarily through Musical Wonders, a creative music-making educational program that empowers the next generation of creative thinkers.
“Allee dedicated her life to exploring the edges of what’s possible,” says Vincent Beggs, Willis Wonderland Foundation executive director. “She never stopped pushing, and watching her do it changed what you thought was possible for yourself.”
Friday’s announcement came before the sold-out screening of The World According to Allee Willis at the Wisconsin Film Festival. This year’s Chancellor’s Choice, the 2024 documentary is an exploration of the decorated artist’s joie de vivre and Technicolor worldview, evident in everything from her vivacious fashion sense to her bubblegum-pink home decked in midcentury-modern kitsch.
The film also made one thing clear: Nothing Willis did was conventional.
Willis graduated from UW–Madison in 1969, a journalism student with a knack for copywriting and visual arts like papier-mâché. But it was a love of Motown that led her to Los Angeles to try her hand at songwriting.
Years of struggle turned into success when she penned megahit “September” for Earth, Wind & Fire in 1978. About its infectious chorus (“Ba-de-ya”), Willis told NPR in 2014 that she “never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.” She would go on to sell 60 million records, earn a Grammy Award, and score the Broadway production of The Color Purple, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination.
Willis operated as a kind of creative medium, translating inspiration from everyday objects into expressions of joy and examinations of the human spirit. Her creativity wasn’t confined to a single genre — she was a visionary multimedia artist, a set designer, a party thrower, and even a digital pioneer who launched the first interconnected social network in cyberspace, called willisville, in 1993. Her approach to music production was especially fearless and unshackled: A power tool was an instrument, a dripping faucet — the beginning of a beat.
When the Allee Willis Archive comes to campus in the coming months for processing, students, staff, and the greater community will get a firsthand look at her inventive approach to art. Nearly 80 bankers boxes filled with Willis’s creative musings will arrive at Mills Music Library, including photographs with collaborators like James Brown and sheafs of her handwritten lyrics.
“What’s really valuable about the archive is witnessing Allee’s process and witnessing how her brain works,” says three-time Emmy-winning creative visualist Prudence Fenton, Willis’s partner and creative collaborator of 28 years, adding, “I think it’s her process that she mostly wanted people to understand. That, you know, it’s choices. It’s decision-making.”
It’s a chance, says Interim Head of Mills Music Library and Head of Kohler Art Library Anna Simon, for students to tap into Willis’s creative genius in unexpected ways.
“The archive really illuminates how Allee thought about music and the world around her,” Simon says. “She wrote 500 to 600 songs a year at one point, so the opportunities to explore are virtually boundless.”
Fostering creativity on the UW–Madison campus
In the same way Willis created masterpieces through dauntless trial and error, the Allee Willis Creativity Commons will invite UW–Madison students to test the limits of their imaginations and blaze their own trail.
To be housed on the second floor of Memorial Library near the Digital Scholarship Hub, the 3,245-square-foot space will channel Willis’s signature aesthetic — complete with candy-colored exterior and items from the artist’s collection of atomic kitsch — while serving as the physical center for future creative projects at UW–Madison.
“To know that her memory is an engine for art and creation at her alma mater? That’s the perfect expression of Allee’s memory,” Beggs says.
Expected to open in 2028, the Creativity Commons will be anchored by an expansive creativity zone that will include flexible setups for programming, community events, and independent study. To the side, a dedicated makerspace will support the creation of physical media and art.
Most dramatic, though, is The Studio, which will include state-of-the-art production equipment, such as microphones, headphones, sound mixers, and studio monitors. Students will also have access to visual production equipment like mirrorless cameras and ring lights.
The modern space isn’t just about keeping pace with the forward march of technology — it’s about setting a new stride. The Allee Willis Creativity Commons will give students, researchers, scholars, and the larger community the chance to reimagine ways to tell their stories.
And, of course, to remain curious.
That’s the Willis ethos: Art isn’t only in the output; it’s also in the discovery. The Creativity Commons, says Fenton, is exactly that.
“It was thrilling [to hear the plans] because I realized students will be wandering through there … and making a podcast, or making music creation,” she says. “You know, doing exactly what Allee would have done all hours of the night — which is how she worked.”
A second screening of The World According to Allee Willis will take place on Monday, April 13, as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival. You can also stream the documentary on Hulu.
All photos courtesy of the Willis Wonderland Foundation.