“Since I was a young girl, creative expression has helped me connect with the world around me. When I was 7, I had an outdoor painting experience. My picture was of a wonderful old red barn. In the distance was a huge pine. The teacher suggested it would look good behind the barn, but I objected that it wasn’t behind the barn and therefore couldn’t be in my painting. She turned to me and said: “You are the artist. The tree can go wherever you would like it to.” Those words changed my understanding of art, its context, and my entire life.
Over the years the childhood dream of becoming an artist became secondary to the reality of needing to make a living. I first earned a Masters Degree in Mathematics and taught in a school for disturbed kids. That led me to a Masters in Social Work and a long career as a psychotherapist which I loved. Yet, I could feel in my soul that something in my life was missing and eventually figured out that it was my connection to art. I went to art school and even though it still wasn’t my job, art became a much larger part of my life. When I moved to the Upper Valley, I was delighted when I had the opportunity to have a solo show at AVA, the Alliance for Visual Arts at 11 Bank Street in Lebanon. Little did I realize at the time that the support and encouragement I got from AVA and people associated with AVA would launch my third, incredibly challenging and satisfying career—as an artist. I had never realized that my art had the potential to be more than a relaxing pastime and soon I was diving into a full-time art career in my 60s. I am now an active member of AVA and have met people from across the Upper Valley and beyond because of it. I am uplifted by my art and finally get to use it to share and connect with others on a daily basis.
While I have always experienced my art as an intensely internal affair, I found the need to have an outlet that involved others. For many years my husband and I danced; we learned ballroom, swing, Latin, Argentine tango. When I’m painting, I can privately change things I don’t like. When we danced, we danced in public. We endured moments of feeling foolish, and we had other moments of utter exhilaration.
My husband and I loved to travel. Both dance and art are international languages, but it was dance that led us to a little hall in Vietnam where only one person spoke English, but everyone spoke waltz. In Mexico we did pretty well with our Spanish, but better with salsa which everyone knew and even better with “rock y roll” which everyone assumed we would teach. In Japan, we danced Argentine tango. In Costa Rica music from a large wedding spilled into the hotel lobby. Unable to resist, we began dancing. The bride came out and invited us to join the wedding party! I can’t imagine being any luckier—two art forms, painting and dancing that have allowed self expression and connections with people near and far.” -Helen Shulman, Lebanon, NH
