Helen C. Frederick

Helen C. Frederick (born 1945 in Pennsylvania) is an American artist known mainly for printed media and large scale works created by hand papermaking and the use of language. She is recognized as a distinguished curator, educator, coordinator of international projects, and as founder of Pyramid Atlantic, A Center for Printmaking, Hand Papermaking, the Art of the Book, and Digital Media, Silver Spring, MD. As an advocate for and an active participant in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area arts scene for the last 30 years, she has played a role in the revitalization of the Silver Spring, MD arts corridor, served on the directorial boards of alternative art spaces in D.C., various local and national boards and national peer-review panels. She has exhibited, curated exhibitions, and fulfilled speaking engagements around the world, always emphasizing collaboration across disciplines. Her recent interests lie in understanding how assimilated technologies grow from indigenous cultures and are a primary trajectory of this century. She serves as Professor of Art, School of Art and Design, George Mason University, Fairfax. VA.

A personal memory for me lies with a comment made by the president of my school who visited the print studio. He admired a print on the wall and asked: who is this “guy” Frederick? Now my focus lies in revealing how the chronicling of women who quest in search of greater receptivity, economic and social justice, follows an interesting trajectory when paired with contemporary art, particularly printed media. A wide variety of printed media and written commentary has long served as a democratic voice for artists. Its current media-driven pervasiveness in rapid ever-changing global dimensions provokes challenges in terms of how gender portrayal is understood.I have formally organized the SEARCH Project dedicated to re-examining our interpretations of art and culture by searching narratives in art, myth, ritual and gender struggles of others. Our knowledge is always accompanied by two central questions in our lives: “what do we know?” and “how do we know?” We all cross borders and we all are immigrants.The SEARCH project hopes to provide women, often living in difficult situations, a supportive environment to successfully speak in their full voices, regardless of what borders they need to cross.