Helen Redman, MFA, is a widely exhibited figurative painter, teacher, feminist commentator and grandmother who shares her art in the context of life issues. She has taught at the University of Colorado and the University of Iowa and has lectured and exhibited her art across the United States. She has been an active force for gaining support and recognition for women in the arts, co-founding Front Range Women in the Visual Arts in Boulder, Colorado, in the 1970s, and serving as the first president of the San Diego Women's Caucus for the Arts in the 1990s.

For nearly five decades, her work has centered on her life passages--including pregnancy, mothering, illness, healing and the death of a child--and on various stages of her children's growth.

Redman, who was born in 1940, has focused in recent years on exploring women's journey through menopause and old age and contradicting the negativity provoked by aging in a sexist and youth-oriented culture. In the tradition of artist as shaman, healer and educator, she uses her art and teaching abilities to encourage women to claim their age as a time of heightened creativity and spiritual growth.

Redman's work serves as a catalyst for others to explore the issues she raises, and for women to communicate their knowledge with one another. She presents her work in a diversity of forums -- from universities, health, community and fine arts centers, to home and studio gatherings.

RECENT SPONSORS INCLUDE

Thacher Gallery,University of San Francisco, S.F., CA
New York Open Center, New York, NY
Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary's College, Moraga, CA
Veteran Feminists of America, National Arts Club, New York, NY
SCWCA Symposium, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA
University of San Diego, San Diego, CA
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
California State University, San Marcos, CA
University of Colorado, Boulder and Denver campuses, CO
Brandeis University National Women's Committee, La Jolla, CA
Children's Museum/Museo de los Ninos, San Diego, CA
Boulder Public Library, Boulder, Colorado, CO
National University, San Diego, CA
Ink People Center for the Arts, Eureka, CA
Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL
 

CRITICAL RESPONSE

"All who linger at www.birthingthecrone.com enter a metaphorical terrain resonating with transformation. Here visual and written works course with ethereal energies as age erodes the protective shell of hidden fears, revealing the honesty that comes with mortality.... Look and be renewed." --Kristin Spence, Wired Magazine

"Redman offer[s] a visceral sense of artistic growth and new vitality.... In reclaiming, through language and images, the potency of post-menopausal women, Redman continues the invaluable work of feminist artists who for more than thirty years have been re-envisioning female potential. Birthing the Crone: Aging into Full Creativity functions as a kind of tapestry, weaving alternative visions of beauty found in experiences lived, love shared, pain survived, wisdom earned." --Debra Koppman, Artweek

"In Helen Redman's work we experience something quite extraordinary.... It is a kind of transparentizing vision that allows us to see the not normally seen, and to experience the not normally known." --Roland Reiss, Chair Dept. of Art, Claremont Graduate University 

ON A PERSONAL NOTE:

Since this website is an intergenerational collaboration, I want to acknowledge my  granddaughter, Shira Barchilon Frank and my son Paul Barchilon who helped redesign and update the site. I also wish to thank my son-in-law Kevin Frank (www.kevinfrank.com), who designed and constructed the original web site. My daughter, Nicole Barchilon Frank, and my husband Kenny Weissberg have also helped with ongoing text edits.