Helen Phillips was born in Cincinnati, OH in 1938. One of Helen Phillips' favorite places to play as a child was a burial ground, which probably relates to her current interest in sacred places. She took to drawing naturally and wanted to be an art teacher. She actually began teaching before graduating in 1961. Four years later she traveled with her husband to Okinawa and studied with a potter who had a working relationship with Hamada. Other travels followed: Germany, Hawaii, Santa Barbara, California, and Birmingham, Alabama. In 1974 she received a teaching assistantship at the University of Florida. She has been teaching at the University of Central Arkansas since 1976.
Six years ago a mid-life crisis led Phillips to therapy, Jungian psychology, work with her dreams and the study of African art. Since then her art has become personal and, she reasons, if it can be therapeutic for her, then it can be for viewers as well. She has had the opportunity to study megaliths in Ireland and received a travel grant to the Ivory Coast, where she "found a living connection to the very primitive source of art as a transforming magical activity both for the artist and the viewer." Her motifs include the house, platforms, fish and crucibles. "They represent my life," she says. They are sacred and mysterious places that relate to her many inner selves.
Alan DuBois, Curator of Decorative Arts
Arkansas: Year of American Craft 1993 exhibition catalogue