The Quiet Tree
The “Quiet Tree” was given to me in a ceremony as a
medicine name, but only really came to life for me when I started to
study art as a mature student at college and realised the enormous power
of artistic creativity, a force for healing and development, both
personally and for society as a whole. It excited me as a visual form of
communication often more powerful than words. I have dedicated the last
five years of my life to promoting art in the Peak District and am
totally committed to its healing force.
Artist Statement 2003
I work in a variety of media both traditional and industrial. My work explores process, and a belief that we create our own reality, sadly often painfully. I am fascinated by the process of change and choice both conscious and unconscious.
I have always been very affected by landscape and with the privilege of hindsight and enough years to study I can see more readily the influences in my own work.
My love of all the Celtic areas of Great Britain so often visited as a child and then with my own children, ice pattern wave movements’ rock formations, standing stones and castles, images tumble but a pattern emerges. Cornwall, Iona, Bardsey, Mull a feeling of awe in the presences of such forces of nature. My work is about the process of living, incarnate in a body which will pass away, one that is part of the earth and walks upon it, I use a variety of things for mark making, often taken directly from the landscape I have been affected by, feathers, twigs plastic rubbish, hair to name but a few.
Helen Kippax
Feb 2003
The Offering
Cast silver & ceramic – 2002
Helping Hand
Collograph print – 1999
Form 1
Nylon tube & plaster – 2002
Emerging Form
Screenprint – 2001
Lighten Our Darkness
Digitally manipulated photograph – 2002