Helaine Ettinger, Seattle
Member Since August 2008
Artist Statement I was born in New York City, and spent my younger years in both New York and the New England areas. My interest in art began to grow when I was in junior high school. I spent Saturdays at the Museum of Modern Art (in Manhattan), attending art classes for kids. It was an exciting time for me because the students had free rein of the museum, exposing us to a wide spectrum of the modern art world. It was then that I became intimate with many paintings and the artists who created them. A real love began to flower for Matisse, Monet, Pollock and Mark Rothko, amongst others.
In the early 1970s, I married a painter whose art was shown around New York state and particularly in the SOHO district of Manhattan. He had a profound influence on my work that was yet to come. During this time I was busy learning ceramics and after a few years of working on my own, I was admitted to Alfred University (well known for ceramics), in upstate New York. I was given special student status and my own studio space. I mostly worked with clay, but studied other art forms as well. After a year I left school and began to make my living as a ceramicist. I met with some success. My work was shown and sold in numerous galleries and shops around the United States. Some photos of my pieces appeared in magazines and a textbook on low fire ceramics.
My life took many twists and turns, and in the mid 1980s I moved to Washington state, where I began to paint using watercolor. From there, I soon expanded to pastels, and then moved on to acrylic on board and canvas.
Presently my work is primarily about exploring color and form, using multiple mediums and modes. My approach to painting also includes shifting themes and forms, moving between the representational and the abstract. I primarily choose to paint the landscape. I attempt to capture the beauty of the Northwest that surrounds me, translating it back using a medium that is both pleasing to the eye and fulfilling to me as a painter.
Hopefully what emerges from my effort is an intimate familiarity with the beauty of nature that is both recognized and loved by all of us.
H.E.
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