Kristin Helberg makes her home and studio in the Fells Point area of Baltimore, Maryland. Born in 1947 in Syracuse, New York, her formative years from ages, 1 to 7 were divided between the Lake District around Syracuse New York and the southern town of Eldorado, Arkansas where her father took his first job as a young chemical engineer.
The segregated south of the 1950’s were challenging for the Helberg family but weekend drives in the station wagon opened up the hidden world of Black culture with river baptisms, blues nights at back road gas stations and gospel tents. Those memories still provide visual images for some of her paintings.
Her mother, an elementary school teacher, began oil painting classes and often took her 5 children along as she painted plein-air. On trips north to Syracuse, her mother would take the children to the little town of Eagle Bridge with the hopes of catching a glimpse of Grandma Moses since Kristin had a fascination with the artist.
By 1956, the family had relocated to the York, Pennsylvania area where Kristin was to spend the rest of her childhood. Although art was very much part of her childhood, she decided not to go to art school because she did not like the formal structure of art classes, choosing instead to attend the school of Journalism at Boston University.
For many years as her writing supported her, she created a series of small Naive paintings. In 1986, she took the group of work to New York to show to Jay Johnson, the owner of the Folk Heritage Gallery on Madison Avenue. Mr. Johnson introduced her to a gallery owner in Nyack, NY and to the buyer at the Museum of American Folk Art shop and advised her to come back to him when she was creating larger work. Both referrals took her small paintings and she sold her first painting one week later.
It was also in 1986 that Kristin became interested in Early American vinegar graining, learning the art form from a craftsman in Lancaster, PA who restored antique furniture. She used graining and faux marble on both the frames for her paintings as well as on old chests that she located in Pennsylvania.
By 1988, she began to be represented by the Toad Hall Gallery of Cooperstown and Saratoga Springs, NY and in July of 1991 they gave her a solo show in Saratoga Springs.
In May of 1992, she was in a group show at the Toad Hall Gallery in conjunction with the Fenimore House Museum of Cooperstown entitled, “The New American Primitive” which included the works of Milton Bond, Janet Munro, Malcah Zeldis and Woody Long. She was represented by Toad Hall from 1988 until 2004 when they closed their gallery.
In l991, she was invited to be part of a show entitled “Life in America” at the Eldred Wheeler Gallery in Houston, Texas which featured the artwork of three American Naïve painters. She continued to show work and furniture at the gallery for several years.
The Frank Miele Gallery in New York began to represent her in both group and solo shows from l993 until 2010. Frank Miele specialized in Naïve artists and showed both Kristin’s paintings as well as painted furniture.
It was also in 1993 that she was invited to have a solo show with Very Special Arts Gallery in Washington, DC which featuring her paintings and painted furniture. Naïve and folk art proved to be quite popular for the gallery and she was included in a group show on American Folk Art in 1994 which was followed by a “Things That Go Zoom” group show in 1996.
In 1994, she was one of three American artists to represent the US in the 23rd International Naïve Art Competition in Morges, Switzerland. Her trip to Switzerland to attend the opening inspired a group of paintings depicting the towns and countryside which culminated in a solo show at the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, DC in 1995.
Since 1994, she has had four solo shows at the National Institutes of Health Art Gallery in Bethesda, MD, one solo show at The Vince Lombardi Gallery at Georgetown University Hospital, and one solo show at The Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.
In 1995 she was in a joint show with Ralph Auf der Heide at Galerie Black in Lausanne, Switzerland and was represented by the gallery for the next two years.
In 1997, The America Oh Yes Gallery of Hilton Head gave her a solo show called “Animals in Folk Art” in their DuPont Circle gallery location. The gallery was owned by Joe Adams, a well known collector and curator of Southern Folk Art. Her work was not only shown in both of his galleries but at his booth at the Outsider Art Show in New York as well as Folkfest in Atlanta, Georgia. She was represented by America Oh Yes from 1997 until 2009 when the gallery closed.
The Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, included her work in a group show in 1998 entitled “Taste of the South, A folk Art Sampler” and that same year she was in a group show “Knock Down Grand Opening” at the Intuit Center for Intuitive and Outside Art in Chicago, Illinois.
Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Institutes of Health, The Children’s Inn at NIH and the National Children’s Medical Center as well as the ABC television network which featured her artwork on the sets of “All My Children”.
In 2001, she was chosen to participate in the Fish Out of Water project in Baltimore. Her creation entitled Conefish, received the highest bid of $22,500 during the art auction evening at the Walters Art Museum which benefited art programs for Baltimore City children.
President William Clinton chose her painting “Bill and Elvis” to become part of the permanent collection at his Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2003.
In 2004, Andre Codrescu, poet and NPR commentator, commissioned her to create his portrait entitled The Devil and Andre Codrescu. That same year, Giorgio Ulbaldi, the choir director of the Milan Jazz Choir in Milan, Italy chose her painting Gospel Music makes Me Fly for the CD cover of their 2005 recording of American Gospel music.
In 2011, she was commissioned by Mary’s Center, a new public health center in Washington DC to create a 3’x5’ painting entitled Our Family Tree for the main lobby.
In May of 2011, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution chose Ms. Helberg’s portrait of Grandma Moses to become part of their permanent collection. Kristin had come full circle from her childhood admiration of the artist to having the painting she created in homage to her included in a National Gallery.
Her vinegar-grained furniture has been featured in Country Living magazine and was sold at ABC Home in New York City for many years. Currently her small grained boxes are sold at the gift shop of the National Archives Museum in Washington DC.
She has done artist in residencies in public schools with the Maryland State Arts Council for twenty years producing over 80 permanent murals throughout the state. She has taught classes at the Smithsonian Instruction and currently is conducting a series of vinegar graining demonstrations at the Tucker House in Colonial Williamsburg, VA. She was recently juried into the Waterford Festival of Historic Homes and Crafts in Waterford, VA where she will be an artisan vendor with her vinegar grained furniture.
