The Barn Owl Inn c Kristin Helberg 2020
If you like tavern signs, I have a selection of them for purchase at the online American Artisan Show at the Wilton Historical Society until December 5th. Just look for the Kristin Helberg artisan page on the website.
The Barn Owl Inn measures 17” w x 16 3/4” h. The owl image is acrylic paint and the sign itself is paint with a vinegar patina. For inside use only.
The Two Brothers c Kristin Helberg 2020 acrylics on canvas
This is the 35th year for the American Artisans Show at the Wilton Historical Society in Connecticut. This year it is online. You can shop for hundreds of handmade items from the safety of your home.
In my section you will find whaling paintings, tavern signs and grained boxes. The story of poor Captain Pollard of Nantucket who survived the Essex after it was attacked by a huge whale, A few years later he was given the command of another Nantucket whaler named The Two Brothers, which sank in the Hawaiian islands. He survived this disaster to return to Nantucket a broken man.
wiltonhistorical.org/events/american-artisan-show
Nov 5th to Dec 5th
My niece Nya and nephew Andre who lived on Martha’s Vineyard in 2009 were helping me invite the Obama family to come see my portrait of them at the Martha’s Vineyard fair. We knew the Obamas were visiting on the island in late August/early September.
September fairs are a wonderful American tradition and they will return again when we are all safe from Covid..
WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?
Yup, dont you feel like this little lamb? Where is the Sheep and Wool Festival?
Well, the great folks at Sheep and Wool are spending many hours creating the first online festival for May 2nd and 3rd.
Go to this Facebook account online on May 2nd and 3rd and join the fun. The show will go on.
facebook.com/groups/mswfOnline Community/
I will be around to answer questions. kristinpaints@gmail.com
We hope you will all come online and browse the vendors booths. I will be available all weekend for questions and sales. Info is on my website.
My Forest Dream c Kristin Helberg 2015 24” x 36”
So here we are in the midst of a pandemic. Our President has declared a war on Covid 19. And the United States does seem to be caught in the fog of war. Decisions are being made on a daily and hourly basis.
For me it feels less like a war, and more like a fog that has settled in around us. There is danger out there, but we can not see it. It lurks around every corner and we know we must avoid it.
But there is also a surreal quality to daily life now. I created this painting in 2015, out of a sense of a great personal loss. Losing someone can seem so surreal, you wake up in the morning,and for a moment, you think they are still alive. Suddenly you remember your loss, nothing is the same, but you continue with your life in a surreal fog. .
Go Down Moses c Kristin Helberg 2012 24”x 24”
Go Down Moses , was one of two paintings that I created for possible inclusion in a show at the Reginald Lewis Museum In Baltimore, that honored Harriet Tubman in 2012. The second painting, which was a scene entitled Underground Railroad, was acquired by the museum for their permanent collection.
Before beginning the portrait, I read quite a bit about Harriet Tubman and I was struck by a remark that she made about her gun. She said that she carried it not only to protect herself from bounty hunters, but any slave that accompanied her to freedom was warned that if they decided to turn back, she would have to shoot them.
This was a woman of great resolve, a woman who saw the bigger picture and understood that any slave that would turn back, could be tortured into disclosing all her escape routes.
An astounding woman in American history.
Navajo Panel 2019 Resurrection St. Paul School
Every year, the school at Resurrection St. Paul, gets a grant from the MD State Arts Council to have me work with the entire 4th grade to create permanent murals for the school. This year we did four Native American Tribes - Seminole, Navajo, Iroquois Nation and Plains Indians. The four panels, each 2 ‘ x 8 ‘ will be installed above the students lockers in the fourth grade hallway. Already the teachers are using it as a visual learning tool for their unit on Native American Tribes. It was a wonderful project. Here are details from two of the panels.
Plains Indians mural 2019 Resurrection St. Paul School
Vinegar Grained box c Kristin Helberg 2019
Come and see all my new work at the American Artisan Show at the Wilton Historical Society in Wilton, Connecticut. November 8th and 9th from 10 - 5 each day.
Tornado c Kristin Helberg 2019
For about two years, I had been thinking about doing a tornado painting. What inspired me to create such a painting was a memory of being in the midst of one when I was a child living in Arkansas and recollections of the terrifying tornado scene from the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz.
After watching a TV special about the devastating tornadoes that occur in Oklahoma each year, I was compelled to create it. When I finished the painting, I found it difficult to look at…….it frightened me.
Sometimes our attempts to slow down global warming seem impossible but we have to keep trying..
Stove By A Whale c Kristin Helberg 2019 acrylic on canvas
I have been spending the summer creating paintings and vinegar grained boxes for my upcoming Fall and Holiday shows.
This painting, depicting the last day of the doomed whaling ship, The Essex, out of Nantucket will go with me to the American Artisan Show at the Wilton Historical Society in Wilton Connecticut.
The show is November 8th and 9th. For more information artisanshow@wiltonhistorical.org
Kristin Helberg painted boxes
Please come join me and fellow artisans this coming Saturday for the Takoma Park Holiday show. There is no admission fee and parking is available.
TAKOMA PARK HOLIDAY ART SALE
Saturday, December 8, 2018
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Takoma Park Community Center
7500 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park MD 20912
I will have a large assortment of painted boxes as well as my tavern signs. See you there.
National Portrait Gallery reception
On Saturday November 10th,, artists from across the United States who had artwork in the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, were honored at a reception called Face Forward to celebrate contemporary artists and the power of portraiture.
I am fortunate to be one of those artists. It was a wonderful event with music, food, and a chance to sit for a sketch done by a team of quick sketch portrait artists. We were also able to see the newest exhibition called Eye to I:Self Portraits from 1900 to Today which was curated by Brandon Fortune, chief curator at the Portrait Gallery.
Guests could sit for a quick portrait
The Whale’s Revenge c Kristin Helberg 2018
Please join me and other artisans for the 33rd annual Show at the Wilton Historical Society in Wilton, Connecticut on Friday November 2nd and the 3rd from 10 to 5. There is a special preview party on the evening of November 1st.
I will be selling vinegar grained boxes, whaling and nautical boxes and paintings and Tavern signs.
For more information: The Wilton Historical Society 203-762-7257
$10.00 admission
Resurrection St. Paul school mural
I just completed a four week artist in residency at the Resurrection St. Paul school in Ellicott City, last Friday. I worked with the entire fourth grade and the school art teacher, Michele Rupert. The project was jointly funded by the school and the MD. State Arts Council.
We painted four 2 ‘ x 8’ panels that depicted a gardens. Two of the panels were created in an up close perspective of the flowers and garden creatures. The other two panels depicted before and after views of the students creating a garden. The school is a designated butterfly garden and they do a monarch release each year as well as build bird houses and boxes for mason bees.
The Owl Nest Inn c Kristin Helberg 2018
With the approach of Autumn, I always think of owls. Perhaps, because as a child, I always associated them with Halloween.
Those big scary eyes, the way they could turn their heads around, and their haunting night calls, made me think that they were somehow spirits of the night.
I created this Tavern sign, imagining an old Inn in the mountains, where you would fall asleep in your soft bed, to the sound of their calls.
www.kristinhelberg.com
The Whales Revenge c Kristin Helberg 12" w x 9.5" h x 7" d
August and September are wonderful months to see whales in New England. During the height of the whaling era, Nantucket was the center of the world whaling industry.
For years I have read accounts of the men who worked on the whaling ships and I don't know who had it worse, the men or the whales. Many times the men would not live out the length of the voyage which could last several years, or they were not paid at the end of the journey. They were the coal miners of their generation. They took on very dangerous work to keep the world in whale oil to light the lamps.
I have created grained and painted chests depicting some of the whaling stories. For more information you can contact my website. www.kristinhelberg.com
Nantucket Sleigh Ride c Kristin Helberg 2018 22"w x 7" h x 12" d
Graining students
I had a wonderful group of students attending my vinegar graining class at Common Ground at Mcdaniel College, the week of June 25th through the 29th. During the 15 hours of instruction, they learned the basic formulas for mixing vinegar paint and the techniques to create the textures and final varnishing.
Each student took home a small chest, and an assortment of small boxes and frames which they had grained.
Student grained boxes at Common Ground class
Grained boxes and frames by Kristin Helberg
Come and join me for a week long class on Vinegar Graining at Common Ground on the Hill at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD from June 25th through the 29th. During our 15 hours together, you will learn the vinegar grain formulas and techniques that date back to George Washington's time.
You will return home with a jewelry box and some small frames and the knowledge to let you tackle bigger pieces of furniture. I only take 8 students. Must be 16 or older.
For more information and registration www.CommonGroundOnTheHill.org
Or call 410-857-2771
Alan Bean NASA astronaut and artist died on May 26, 2018
I am a teaching artist with the MD State Arts Council. In 2016 I created a mural with the fourth grade at an Ellicott City school, to honor the men and women in science. I told the children about Mr. Bean and how he walked on the moon and then decided he wanted to become an artist and make paintings of his experience on the moon.
I sent a photo of his image on the mural to Mr. Bean and asked for letter that I could read at the mural unveiling. This is what he sent:
Hello Kristin:
Talk about amazing! What a great project to inspire young (and older) minds.
Thanks for putting me near Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein.
I was fortunate to be the first artist with the opportunity to be in the center of the action to capture what I saw and felt and bring it back to earth to share with generations to come. It is my dream that on the wings of my paintbrush many people will see what I saw and feel what I felt, walking on another world some 240,000 miles from my studio here on planet earth.
Our generation will be remembered for many achievements, and one of the greatest will be our movement off the earth, from its gravitational pull, to begin our future generations’ exploration of the universe. My paintings record the beginnings of a quest never to end, our journey out among the stars.
All the best wishes and congratulations,
Alan
