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Growing up in Santa Cruz County, California I was always drawing. My mom said she could tell what was going through my head by the scraps of paper she found all over the house – brides, babies, horses, dress designs and house plans. Art classes in junior high and high school produced posters, prom bids, cartoons for the school paper and the giant Willie Wildcat head that the football team ran through at every home game. Never one to be happy with just one medium, I went on to take lots of drawing and painting classes through various community college and adult education programs. I’ve painted everything from tiny greeting cards to a ginormous sun face using exterior house paint to silk-screening custom t-shirts. My current canvas (a.k.a. home) has a palm tree on the bathroom wall and a "rock" backsplash in the kitchen. My employment resume could hit about 17 pages if it wasn’t abridged. It doesn’t matter now - I’ve been retired for five years. Though it looks like I was a bookkeeper and office manager, there’s also sales and marketing, hotel management, computer graphics, CAD, and a smattering of travel writing. Yes, I’ve traveled. It started with my husband and I and our little girls moving to Australia in the ‘60s. Since then I’ve been to the British Isles a number of times, hiked in Switzerland and spent weeks in the Caribbean. Mexico, Bermuda and Hawaii have all seen my footprints in their sand. We’ve backpacked up and down the Sierras, through the Marble Mountains of northern California, the Jarbidge Wilderness in northeastern Nevada and the White Clouds in Idaho. We’ve been back to Australia, checked out Fiji a couple times, explored Vanuatu, delved into the historical sights of the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, traipsed around the Kingdom of Tonga, and joined into island life in the Cooks. All this time, I’ve been taking photographs and scribbling madly. It’s been great fun and my head is full of fabulous sights and wonderful memories. I have a need to somehow get all this on paper - either with words, pen, pencil or paint. 
My current love is pen and ink with watercolor. Living at the foot of the
Pinenut Mountains east of Gardnerville, Nevada on an old homestead that we’re
slowly renovating has given me the opportunity to absorb the scents and light of
this sage covered landscape. I’m trying to draw or paint it in my few spare
moments. Often it’s little scenes that catch my eye while out on a back road.
But sometimes I find a subject while just stomping around our property in my
boots.It’s been good fun being treasurer of CVAA for the last two years and working with other members on the Association’s shows and committees. I’ve had the chance to meet some wonderful people and I’m sure this is one of the reasons I feel that I’m part of this community after living here only a short time. We’ve visited this valley for decades - so glad we now call it home. And there’s so much stuff to draw! Helen Martin Art Gallery - Click on images for a larger view
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