Mary Helsaple
Mary Helsaple moved to Sedona Arizona in 2008, where she found home among the spectacular "red rock" art scene and where she collaborates with other art advocates and national wildlife conservation organizations. She is currently working on several small books on Nature Journaling, The Techniques of Watercolor, and an illustrated journal book entitled “A Hat for the Rainforest.” Along with fine art paintings depicting desert wildlife, Helsaple continues to push the boundaries of preserving wildlife habitats and equilibrium for the all the inhabitants of the planet. Helsaple is dedicated to quality Fine Art painting and projects that foster art education, creative learning, and building a compassionate world of sustainable conservation and peace.
Mary Helsaple is among the contemporary painters in the West, in the difficult medium of watercolor. She began creating large detailed paintings of nature in the late '70s after mentoring by contemporary master artists Sondra Frecklton and Jack Beal. Although she grew out of the traditional medium of works on paper, she brought a far different, yet fresh approach to watercolor in favor of a constructed personal vision, that looked at humans and wildlife with a contemporary eye to convey a modern conservation narrative.
In 2004, Chief Curator and Exhibition Tour Director David J. Wagner, rediscovered Helsaple’s poignant watercolors and chose her work for "Art of the Rainforest," and the blockbuster exhibit, “Environmental Impact,” to travel across the country to such museums as; Roger Tory Peterson’s Museum in New York, The Canton Museum of Fine Art in Ohio, Wildlife Experience Museum, CO and Brookgreen Gardens, SC. Her work continues to gain national attention along with worldwide known environmental-focused artists.
Above: Doves in the Garden, watercolor on clayboard, 22(29.5F) x 30(37.5F), framed without glass.
Throughout the '80s and '90s, Helsaple worked her way up into the contemporary watercolor exhibition circuit by being juried into regional, state and national venues like the Rocky Mtn. National Watermedia, Colorado -American Realism Exhibition, Parkersburg Art Center, West Virginia - Celebrating the Art of Clean Air, American Lung Association. - Smithsonian's Rainforest Exhibit, ‘A Disappearing Treasure’ – ‘Interpreting the Landscape’ and ‘Painting Down the Rapids’ – culminated in an exhibition at the Forbes Magazine Gallery, NYC and San Francisco, securing her place in numerous art collections.
With the Girl Scouts, Women of Distinction Award, Colorado Governors Art Advocacy Award, key works like full sheet watercolors entitled Trouble in Paradise, Existence at a Price, Diversity vs Destruction (works that show what is lost when the rainforests are clear-cut) began to appear in traveling exhibitions.
Helsaple was raised on the west coast in the Bay Area of California, and received a BFA with Life- Sciences minor from San Francisco State University. By the age of fifteen, she had a brother/sister art show at SRI industries in Palo Alto, CA, and began showing with the Palo Alto Art Club. She moved to Colorado and collaborated with Stanford entrepreneur and filmmaker, Neal Williams. Producing nature films in South America while running an Inc 500 manufacturing company afforded her intimate access to natures' diversity on a world scale. With support and encouragement by nature conservation and non-profit arts advocacy organizations, she created a 20-piece collection of artwork which continues to circulate into museums nationwide.
Helsaple and her contemporaries premiered their conservation nature documentary, "Spirits of the Rainforest," produced for the Discovery Channel, that lead to an exhibition of watercolor nature paintings on both coasts in conjunction with Discovery’s world premieres. Following this Emmy award-winning project, Helsaple’s local debut in a one women show, with 130 running feet of thought provoking nature-related watercolors, was shown on the Symphony Hall and grabbed the public’s full attention.
Art Collections:
- Conservation Treaty Support Fund – CITES Washington DC
- Department of Natural Resources, State of Georgia
- El Pomar Foundation Collection, Colorado
- Forbes Magazine Corporate Collection, New York
- Grand Canyon Land Trust Foundation, Arizona
- Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado Collection
- University of Wyoming Art Collection
United States of America, Department of the Interior, US Fish & Wildlife, Washington DC, USA
