"The subject matter of Helen Lea's painting is essentially flowers, in garden settings, in landscapes or arranged in a vase, a delightful theme that in Lea's hands gains in substance and depth. Flowers are the ideal raw material for generating the rich visual vocabulary that fills her paintings. Gardens present her with all the pictorial elements an artist needs, endless opportunities of compositions, color variations, paths to lead the eye and resting places too, energizing her painting process. As she says, "I find the wealth of visual stimulation so exhilarating that my hand almost responds automatically, my brush working rhythmically through areas of thick and thin paint. I love the process of handling pigment, the way the brush passes its color to the canvas and the texture it creates. In a successful painting, my love for the process shows itself in the final painting." - Molly Siple, Contributor: American Artist magazine and Workshop magazineBorn and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, I earned an undergraduate degree in Art History from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Further study was done at the Universita per Strainieri in Perugia, Italy. Returning to Kansas City after traveling through the Far East, I worked as an artist at Hallmark Cards. However, a year later, I began a career in New York City as a stewardess for Pan American Airways traveling around the world and often, on publicity assignments. Three years later, I returned to my art background and joined the staff at the Frick Collection in New York. Upon meeting my husband, Al Lea, I returned to Kansas City, and spent the following years raising two boys and four stepchildren while taking another undergraduate degree in painting from The Kansas City Art Institute, participating in painting shows and licensing to companies worldwide.
Listed skills include Artist, Craft, Oil Painting, Photography, and 27 others.
