Helen info
México DF
Mail. bickhamhb@yahoo.com
http:// bickhamhelenart.blogspot.com/
A rtist Helen Bickham produces artwork not only for its own sake, but to open people´s eyes to the richness and complexity of life.
"Not everyone has to be rich. But there are opportunities (art) can make for people to allow themselves to enjoy their universe," said Bickham in a recent interview with The Herald Mexico.
Coming from a poverty-stricken family herself, Bickham may know a thing or two about the transformative power of art.
The acclaimed expat painter, whose work is now showing in Mexico City, lived much of her childhood in San Francisco´s Russian ghetto.
Born in Manchuria in 1935 to a Ukrainian-Asian mother and U.S. father, the painter lived in China, Japan, the Philippines and finally emigrated to the United States, all before the age of 7. She lost her father soon afterward, and she and her mother struggled to get by.
Bickham says she knew from a very early age that "an awful lot depended on me as to what qualities I was going to find in myself."
Judging from her accomplishments, Bickham seems to have teased out all the right ones. They include her artistic success, commitment to community service, and a do-it-yourself attitude that has her riding her bicycle all around Mexico City.
Bickham decided to move to Mexico in 1962 for practical reasons. When her son became seriously ill, Mexico was the only place where she could afford full-time care for him without going on welfare. With two kids under the age of 5, and recently divorced, Bickham struck out on her own in her new home. "I remember thinking ´now there´s no one to blame but me,´" she says.
Her first job in Mexico was as a bilingual high school teacher. She rented an apartment in the Zona Rosa near the school so that she could rush home during recess and lunchtime to give her sickly son his injections. Her doctor had taught her how to administer the shots, and word got around the neighborhood. She was soon making house calls to the sick, who sometimes needed several doses a day.
At the time, Bickham´s career as an artist was taking off. And as her artwork flourished, so did her community activity. In the mid 1960s she co-founded the language school at the National Polytechnic Institute. Today, the Center for Foreign Languages (Cenlex) continues to serve an essential role in language instruction.
After the earthquake of 1985, Bickham organized renters on her block in Colonia Roma to buy up their apartments and create a condominium, saving their buildings from being evacuated and torn down. Bickham has also been very active in preserving turn-ofthe-century architecture and structural safety of buildings in the Roma.
This past Christmas season Bickham ran an art workshop for Fundación Renacimiento, an organization that houses street children. The resulting paintings were sold as Christmas gifts that included certificates saying the money which would have gone into a traditional present was now going to help children in need.
The donations were enough "for food for three months, sweaters for each of the children and a Christmas dinner," said Bickham.
For now, Bickham´s art is taking up much of her time. The sprightly hands-on painter constructed the frames for many of her paintings for her current show, and even replaced the glass of one painting the day before the opening when a spider crawled inside it.
The result is a marvelous art exhibit titled "Al filo de la Memoria," ("On the Edge of Memory"). The show, at the Galería Hecaro, is on until April 27.
A few works of art in the exhibition are done in what Bickham calls hand embossing. By merely pressing molds into paper with her hands, no tools, Bickham has created stark white-on-white images.
Cows, horseback riders and human figures are cut in high relief with this method, lending movement to the images. Some forms have no clear outlines, as they would if a machine press were used. For example, rider and horse appear to be one, and situated at the bottom of the paper they seem to be galloping right off the page.
Another series of oil paintings is dedicated to the women murdered in Ciudad Juárez and other northern cities.
Women representing the victims appear in the desert as mere outlines. They are ghostlike, filled in with beautiful paint strokes that match the surrounding desert. Or they lie in nude poses rendered in rich colors and inviting curves - perhaps not what you´d expect from such a depressing subject.
But rather than downplaying the subject, Bickham is trying to show that there is more to the story than mere horror.
The Juárez paintings "represent the contrast between the horror people can choose to do or be and the absolute beauty of the colors and shapes that you find" in the desert, explains Bickham.
As with all of her paintings, Bickham is looking to contribute a more intricate view of the world, one that celebrates life.
EXHIBIT INFO
"Al filo de la Memoria,"
("On the Edge of Memory")
By Helen Bickham
Galería Hecaro
Salon de la Plastica Mexicana
Expo Frida Kahlo Cuba
