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Mallet hits the nail on the head with brilliant art career
By Judith Herman, Special to the Breeze
Helen Moler Mallet has been creating art since she stood up in her crib one day and began drawing a horse. The Hermosa Beach artist is displaying her work in "A Journey of Discovery," the current exhibit in the Upstairs Gallery at the Norris Center for the Performing Arts in Rolling Hills Estates.
The complex, multilayered paintings in "A Journey of Discovery," on display at the Upstairs Gallery of the Norris Center for the Performing Arts in Rolling Hills Estates, brim with stories, like the 82-year-old artist herself, Helen Moler Mallet.
During her world travels, Mallet has painted Bedouin markets, Caribbean churches and Tahitian beaches. Her recent "Celebration of Diversity" series blends sacred images from many cultures into harmonious collages.
Mallet's artwork is built from layer upon layer of randomly torn semitransparent papers -- tissue paper or Japanese washi paper -- some previously stained with watercolor. She develops color, line and design with acrylics, crayons, pencils or ink and subtly blends in photocopied images as well as her own drawings.
This worldly artist, who now lives in Hermosa Beach, began life on the Saskatchewan prairie, in the isolation of a homestead farm without running water or electricity.
According to family lore, Mallet was creating art since the day she stood up in her crib, got a pencil and began drawing what she excitedly called a "hoish" (horse) on the wall.
When it came time for Helen to attend school her family moved to a tiny town nearby, but it did not offer many cultural advantages. Even without access to art instruction or a how-to book, however, the artist emerged.
"When I got older I got in trouble for drawing on everything," Mallet said. "I drew on the magazines, school books, the furniture. If there was any dust, I drew on that. I saw everything in terms of drawing, and I still do."
Mallet's parents, models of Victorian virtue down to their high-top shoes, were careful with their pennies and their praise, but their daughter's talent could not be denied. When she was 10 her father scraped together what was then a considerable sum, 98 cents, to buy her a set of watercolors.
A few years later there was another gift.
"Dad went to the hardware store and got me little skinny tubes of (oil) paint," Mallet said. "He didn't have a clue what you're supposed to paint on, so he got beaverboard, which is like a blotter. I didn't know you were supposed to clean brushes with turpentine so after a while they turned into hard lumps."
Nevertheless, Mallet kept painting. She drew from magazine pictures, life and her imagination. She painted mountains even though, "I had never seen (one) in my life. In Saskatchewan, you know, it's as flat as this table."
By the time she graduated from high school Mallet had compiled a portfolio impressive enough for admission to the prestigious Art Center School, originally in downtown Los Angeles and now in Pasadena.
Her father borrowed money for the hefty $230 tuition and the bus fare to Los Angeles.
"When we got into Alberta, there were the mountains I'd been painting," Mallet said. "I couldn't take my eyes off those incredible things."
After years of dark Canadian winters with blizzards that screeched around buildings, "California was some fairyland on another planet," she said.
Palm trees transfixed her.
"I remember the first time I ever saw the ocean." she said. "I was scared to death of the breakers, because I didn't know how to swim. I was like an empty vessel and everything just sort of poured into me. And I loved Art Center."
Mallet said the two years she spent at Art Center, before she had to leave to work full time, were among the most valuable of her life.
She thought that without a degree she couldn't be an artist, so she took a job restoring imports such as Dresden china that were no longer available from Europe. When World War II broke out she applied to Lockheed and became the first woman inspector at her plant.
Soon marriage and children kept her too busy for art. One evening, however, on a break from her tailoring class at Redondo Union High School, a familiar odor caught her by surprise. Oil paints.
"I was like an alcoholic in a liquor store," she said. She followed her nose out of tailoring and into Davis Miller's art class.
The class brought Mallet back to painting, but it was the divorce from her husband of 16 years and the need to help support their three children that thrust her into becoming a professional artist. Later, she said, she married a sculptor who was very supportive of her art.
Mallet's works were carried by several galleries, including one run by the South Bay Art Association in a fishing shack at the old King Harbor.
"I sold a lot of paintings to the tourists," she says. "If they wanted seascapes I painted seascapes. But they were well painted."
In the '70s and '80s Mallet was active on the Southern California art scene with many solo and groups shows. She was invited to join Women Artists of the West and garnered many awards.
Although established as an artist, she never became complacent. She continued to study new techniques and approaches with artists such as Gerry Brommer, Robert E. Wood, Jake Lee and Mildred Walker.
In 1994 Mallet's work took a dramatic turn when she began studying with Ruth Eyrich at the Palos Verdes Art Center. Mallet had done realistic works in etchings, oil paintings and her favorite medium, watercolors. Eyrich, who taught until a few months before her death April 18, led an experimental mixed media class that influenced many local artists.
It was there that Mallet learned the abstract collage technique seen in most of her works in the current show.
Often listening to sacred choral music as she works, Mallet lets the artwork emerge, she said.
"I just keep on adding as many layers as it takes, five to 20 or more," she said. "The layers build up a richness that you don't have otherwise."
The layers of a life's journey of discovery are visible in her work.
Judy Herman is a free-lance writer.
On exhibit [] "A Journey of Discovery" will be on display through June 16 at the Upstairs Gallery of the Norris Center for the Performing Arts, 27570 Crossfield Drive, Rolling Hills Estates.
The gallery is open during performances and during box office hours, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon-4 p.m. Saturday.
For information, call 310-544-0403.
Mallet hits the nail on the head with brilliant art career
By Judith Herman, Special to the Breeze
Helen Moler Mallet has been creating art since she stood up in her crib one day and began drawing a horse. The Hermosa Beach artist is displaying her work in "A Journey of Discovery," the current exhibit in the Upstairs Gallery at the Norris Center for the Performing Arts in Rolling Hills Estates.
The complex, multilayered paintings in "A Journey of Discovery," on display at the Upstairs Gallery of the Norris Center for the Performing Arts in Rolling Hills Estates, brim with stories, like the 82-year-old artist herself, Helen Moler Mallet.
During her world travels, Mallet has painted Bedouin markets, Caribbean churches and Tahitian beaches. Her recent "Celebration of Diversity" series blends sacred images from many cultures into harmonious collages.
Mallet's artwork is built from layer upon layer of randomly torn semitransparent papers -- tissue paper or Japanese washi paper -- some previously stained with watercolor. She develops color, line and design with acrylics, crayons, pencils or ink and subtly blends in photocopied images as well as her own drawings.
This worldly artist, who now lives in Hermosa Beach, began life on the Saskatchewan prairie, in the isolation of a homestead farm without running water or electricity.
According to family lore, Mallet was creating art since the day she stood up in her crib, got a pencil and began drawing what she excitedly called a "hoish" (horse) on the wall.
When it came time for Helen to attend school her family moved to a tiny town nearby, but it did not offer many cultural advantages. Even without access to art instruction or a how-to book, however, the artist emerged.
"When I got older I got in trouble for drawing on everything," Mallet said. "I drew on the magazines, school books, the furniture. If there was any dust, I drew on that. I saw everything in terms of drawing, and I still do."
Mallet's parents, models of Victorian virtue down to their high-top shoes, were careful with their pennies and their praise, but their daughter's talent could not be denied. When she was 10 her father scraped together what was then a considerable sum, 98 cents, to buy her a set of watercolors.
A few years later there was another gift.
"Dad went to the hardware store and got me little skinny tubes of (oil) paint," Mallet said. "He didn't have a clue what you're supposed to paint on, so he got beaverboard, which is like a blotter. I didn't know you were supposed to clean brushes with turpentine so after a while they turned into hard lumps."
Nevertheless, Mallet kept painting. She drew from magazine pictures, life and her imagination. She painted mountains even though, "I had never seen (one) in my life. In Saskatchewan, you know, it's as flat as this table."
By the time she graduated from high school Mallet had compiled a portfolio impressive enough for admission to the prestigious Art Center School, originally in downtown Los Angeles and now in Pasadena.
Her father borrowed money for the hefty $230 tuition and the bus fare to Los Angeles.
"When we got into Alberta, there were the mountains I'd been painting," Mallet said. "I couldn't take my eyes off those incredible things."
After years of dark Canadian winters with blizzards that screeched around buildings, "California was some fairyland on another planet," she said.
Palm trees transfixed her.
"I remember the first time I ever saw the ocean." she said. "I was scared to death of the breakers, because I didn't know how to swim. I was like an empty vessel and everything just sort of poured into me. And I loved Art Center."
Mallet said the two years she spent at Art Center, before she had to leave to work full time, were among the most valuable of her life.
She thought that without a degree she couldn't be an artist, so she took a job restoring imports such as Dresden china that were no longer available from Europe. When World War II broke out she applied to Lockheed and became the first woman inspector at her plant.
Soon marriage and children kept her too busy for art. One evening, however, on a break from her tailoring class at Redondo Union High School, a familiar odor caught her by surprise. Oil paints.
"I was like an alcoholic in a liquor store," she said. She followed her nose out of tailoring and into Davis Miller's art class.
The class brought Mallet back to painting, but it was the divorce from her husband of 16 years and the need to help support their three children that thrust her into becoming a professional artist. Later, she said, she married a sculptor who was very supportive of her art.
Mallet's works were carried by several galleries, including one run by the South Bay Art Association in a fishing shack at the old King Harbor.
"I sold a lot of paintings to the tourists," she says. "If they wanted seascapes I painted seascapes. But they were well painted."
In the '70s and '80s Mallet was active on the Southern California art scene with many solo and groups shows. She was invited to join Women Artists of the West and garnered many awards.
Although established as an artist, she never became complacent. She continued to study new techniques and approaches with artists such as Gerry Brommer, Robert E. Wood, Jake Lee and Mildred Walker.
In 1994 Mallet's work took a dramatic turn when she began studying with Ruth Eyrich at the Palos Verdes Art Center. Mallet had done realistic works in etchings, oil paintings and her favorite medium, watercolors. Eyrich, who taught until a few months before her death April 18, led an experimental mixed media class that influenced many local artists.
It was there that Mallet learned the abstract collage technique seen in most of her works in the current show.
Often listening to sacred choral music as she works, Mallet lets the artwork emerge, she said.
"I just keep on adding as many layers as it takes, five to 20 or more," she said. "The layers build up a richness that you don't have otherwise."
The layers of a life's journey of discovery are visible in her work.
Judy Herman is a free-lance writer.
On exhibit [] "A Journey of Discovery" will be on display through June 16 at the Upstairs Gallery of the Norris Center for the Performing Arts, 27570 Crossfield Drive, Rolling Hills Estates.
The gallery is open during performances and during box office hours, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon-4 p.m. Saturday.
For information, call 310-544-0403.