American Indian Artist: Helen Hardin

Because of her unique background, Helen was asked to lecture to the Civil Service Commission Seminars in Colorado, in 1970. The Commission wanted an independent young person from a minority group with positive attitudes who had grown up in a city and achieved success in her chosen field. Enhancing her role as a muse, Helen has appeared on television in "The Enchanted Sands" episode of "America, The Beautiful" series, narrated by Jack Douglas, and also played a part in "Little Bear Died Running," starring Robert Culp. This was one of the dramatic television series filmed in Albuquerque by the producers of "Name of the Game." She is a member of the Pinon Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, and is an active member of the New Mexico Council of American Indians.

Helen Hardin might well be a reincarnated Muse. Slender and beautiful, she could easily be mistaken for an artist's model, rather than one of the leading contemporary young Indian artists in the country today.

Norman Nadel, well-known New York writer who covers the national art scene for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, says of Helen, "What sets Miss Hardin apart is the fact that instead of holding the ancient traditions of Indian art and belief, she uses those same traditions as a point of departure for her own contemporary and highly individual images.

"Like Picasso, she will do one subject in as many different ways as possible, thus continually stretching her imagination and her styles. Her painting is vital and original."

James McGrath has written of Helen: I am of the earth like my mother. When my mother grinds the earths for the colors of her paintings, she is grinding a bit of her own self. When both my mother and I work with scenes and people and images familiar to us, we are looking into the mirror of our people, our dances, our swaying fringes, and moving feathers and over the mountains of the tablita we wear upon our heads at all times.

Helen Hardin was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 28, 1943. Her father Herbert O. Hardin was in the armed service at the time, and she spent her early childhood at her mother's home at the Santa Clara Pueblo. She attended school in Albuquerque, and graduated from St. Pius X High School where she majored in art. At the University of New Mexico she studied art history and anthropology, and later attended Special School for Indian Arts at the University of Arizona.

Helen won her first art competition when she was six years old with a black-and-white pencil drawing of a fire engine. Although the competition was for boys, the judges graciously allowed Helen to remain the winner, and substituted a doll for the fire engine.

At her first one-man show in 1968, which was held at the American Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, Helen sold twentythree of her thirty paintings. When she returned to Albuquerque, she was commissioned by Clarke Industries to illustrate two of their children's books.

Helen's mother, Pablita Velarde, has long been acclaimed by critics as one of the outstanding traditional Indian artists. Pablita still uses a metate, the stone that has been used for centuries by the Indians to grind their corn, to grind white gypsum, chrysocolla, sulphur, coal, and sandstones. She mixes these natural elements to achieve a variety of earth tones for her paintings, much as her Pueblo ancestors did two thousand years ago.

Helen uses acrylics, inks, washes, acrylic varnish, and architects templets; tools and materials as modern as her thinking and designs.

"I am not a traditional Indian and I don't do traditional work. My mother is a great talent, but I don't wish to be compared to her. Our lifestyles are eons apart and so are our concepts. I almost decided against becoming an artist, because so many people used to say, 'This is the work of Pablita's daughter.' I wanted my own identity."

Helen has accomplished her desire. Her work has been exhibited in Colombia and Guatemala, as well as a dozen Western states, where there has never been a connection made between Pablita and Tsa-sah-wee-eh Helen's Indian name, which means Little Standing Spruce. She has received dozens of outstanding awards, including the Grand Award, Best Art Work in the Painting and Sculpture Category, and Best in the Acrylics division of the 11th annual National Indian Arts Exhibition in Scottsdale; First and Second awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market; the Patrick Swazo Hinds award for excellence in painting; has been commissioned by the Franklin Mint to design coins for the series "History of the American Indian"; and has been the featured artist in three national magazines.

Helen is a dedicated and ambitious young artist, determined to reach far horizons. Whether she is meditating alone, amidst the ruins of Puye, or working in her studio, Helen Hardin is a very special young woman.

When I touch the stones When I touch the woods When I touch the marks of the world that are part of my land, I touch the face and heart of my people I touch the face and heart of my self and I am Home.

I can carry my home with me and the reality of my flesh on the flesh of my land remains the one essential seedness of my life as an artist.

That seedness is my source That seedness is my garden in which I grow.

It is as if I am always in a market - not a market as you might think of it but a place where beauty and energy and a sharing of shadows and sounds and smiles exist.

My market place is a great dance plaza - my market place in a widening and narrowing and widening garden where people-butterflies move among people-squash blossoms; where weeds of gossip are exchanged and where at the end of the day, echoes of the dance dance away with me to my home inside. I am always painting in my great dance plaza with butterfly trails and garden soil colors.

There are overlapping energies in the plaza of my studio. I move easily between the four seasons dance-painting my planting songs. dance-painting my gardening songs. dance-painting my harvesting songs. dance-painting my quiet winter listening songs.

In my plaza studio I travel upon the heart line of past and present, weaving in the sun pollen of who I am today, wading in the rain puddles of having too much to say because I must always speak from four directions. It is where I have been. It is where I am going. It is where I move. It is where I am. I invite you into my plaza.

My spirit eyes see the colors and textures and shapes moving up through my spirit entering the brush and making my tracks on the canvas and the paper.

My tracks are my spirit movements in the world and I move lovingly from one place in my home to another place in my home. resting only where my spirit brush stops in its dance.