Keith Helwig

From an early age, I was drawing, building things, using my imagination. Visual images in magazines held my attention. How-To magazines inspired ways to build with different materials. As a young teenager I worked in a gallery/frame shop mostly cutting and joining frames. Living outside of NYC lead to the constant exposure to the current offerings in the galleries and museums.

Both high school and college provided me with continued studies in the arts. College certainly opened the doors within the Fine Art Department with an array of disciplines offered. I hadn’t chosen a specific path at this point. Clay, jewelry, sculpture, printing, color studies, to name a few. Photography held my attention for years. It wasn’t until my junior year that I painted my first canvas.

Upon graduation my life has always been interwoven with creating art and frame shop/gallery work with residences from Florida to Vermont. Picture framing lead to pursuing the preservation, conservation and restoration of art specifically paintings. Because of my framing knowledge I was hired as a designer at an east coast company that produced awards for the RIAA (Recording Industry of America Association). The awards became a thing of art!

Late 1990’s I was back again owning a gallery/frame shop combined with restoration services. Since 2009 I’ve been mostly full time with my creations. Currently exploring nature with photographs I take around my environment in north east PA, which I then use as subjects for my work. However, every now and then I revert to a more spontaneous approach creating mixed media wall pieces inspired solely by thoughts and imagination.

khelwig50@gmail.com