Artist Helen Hardin

Bird by Helen Hardin, image used by permission of Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery

I love the paintings of Helen Hardin, aka Tsa-sah-wee-eh, Little Standing Spruce. Her work is both interesting and beautiful, using Native imagery and symbols in an original, creative, innovative way. She was an innovative and meticulous artist.

Helen Hardin, Two Coyotes, image used by permission of Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery

As a writer, I know that there is a power in folk stories and myth. I believe that power is not diminished by mixing it with the present day, but integrated into it, grounded in the eternal passing through the present moment. In my own work, it’s reformulated by mixing history, economics, spirituality, science and myth with magical realism in the novel (and which is magic and which is real is a matter of debate!). So I love to see how other creative people do that, remixing the traditional, combining styles.

Helen Hardin, Prayers of the Zuni Healers, image used by permission of Len Wood's Indian Territory Gallery

Helen Hardin’s paintings are dynamic, uplifting, and just simply beautiful. Her unique style took a lot of time and meticulous effort. I both admire and identify with the hard work needed to bring about an uncommon vision.

Helen Hardin, Listening Woman, image used by permission of Len Wood's Indian Territory Gallery

She had a difficult life, which I can also relate to, and, with no gentle place to fall, she didn’t have family support. Her mother, a well known and longer lived artist, undermined her. But even so, and even through her own final illness, Helen Hardin continued to paint in her unique style, expanding and exploring her creative spirit.

In reading about her life, (Changing Woman: The Life and Art of Helen Hardin by Jay Scott, now out of print but available at Abebooks), I’m struck by her determination, sometimes obsessive determination, in bringing to life her creative vision.She did this despite criticism and a market which rewarded a folk art style of Native imagery or portrayals of traditional Native life.

Autumn Hunt by Helen Hardin, image used by permission of Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery

Instead, she used the imagery while infusing it with her own twentieth century life, her experience, her views and understanding of herself and the world.

Her visual vocabulary included all of it, the pain and the joy, the traditional and the modern, the spirit and the brush. I wish she was still alive so that I could tell her how much I admire her work. I bet she knows.

For more information on her life and other paintings, see the Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery. Her paintings are also available at Len Wood’s Indian Territory Gallery.