Photo © David Helbraun, 2021.
Gratitude and the search for meaning drive my inquiry into existential questions of pain, fragility, and the human striving, throughout our history, to become greater than we are. A printmaker who turned to photography in the digital age, my composite images and rich layers have found a home in fine art photography.
I use the camera as a form of journaling, trusting my subconscious to produce a trail of meaningful images. Even as bodies of work emerge, I may not be able to articulate what the images are about; writing then helps me to discover the subterranean world underlying the images.
I moved to Northern California as a young adult after growing up in upstate New York. I studied printmaking at the State University of New York College of the Arts (Purchase), and San Francisco State University. When I learned darkroom photography so many years ago, it became central to my printmaking. I worked for a time in a silkscreen studio, and later explored serigraphy more fully at Mission Grafica in San Francisco, and at the Women’s Studio Workshop in New Paltz, NY.
Over several decades, I earned my living with the pen—writing about critical social issues for nonprofit and government agencies. Periodically I’d retreat to my art practice and explore lifelong themes: finding solace in the landscape, grounding myself in spiritual practice, and awe at the human effort to create meaning.
For over 20 years, I’ve resided in a rural Sonoma County home that my husband Dave and I built as a collaborative work of art. After we lost him in 2016, an online photography class reinvigorated my art practice and led me back to the work of my soul.