Today we’d like to introduce you to Helen Lesnick
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I sometimes describe myself as having many roads to unemployment. I have been an actor, artist, playwright, filmmaker, screenwriter, and had a little 3 year stint as a rabbinical student.
I do not have formal training in art. I took a painting class when I was at the University of Pennsylvania, but otherwise I am self-taught. I started drawing as a child and I have always been most interested in portraits. At first, I mainly created pencil portraits of actors. Later on, I was drawn to post-Impressionism and Expressionism. I loved their use of color; I felt it better conveyed emotion, inner turmoil, and joy. Some of the artists who inspired my art are Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Kirchner, and Franz Marc.
I had stopped doing art for a while and then March 2020 hit and isolating at home, I started drawing again. The first person I drew was inspired by Ken Burns’ documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness”, about Jack Johnson, the first Black Heavyweight champion of the world. I was very moved by his ability to keep his dignified composure in the ring surrounded the bigotry of the Jim Crow era.
After Jack Johnson, I drew Breonna Taylor. I was mortified what happen to her and callous disregard the police had for her life. Afterwards, I did three other portraits of black people who were killed by the police: George Lloyd Edwards, Sandra Bland, and Elijah McClain. All their stories were horrible tragedies that are all too common.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think my longest struggle has been with a screenplay I wrote about women’s basketball. “Red Hot Hoops” got close to production a couple of times, but both times it fell through. I have been told numerous times because it is about women’s sports and it would be difficult to get it made. However, in a time when women’s rights are again being assailed, I have felt compelled to persevere with this project because its positive messages of empowerment for girls and women.
One of my biggest struggles was getting my first film made. It was 2001 and the film was in part a reaction to the passage of anti-gay marriage legislation here in California and in part a reaction to a deluge of movies about “coming out”. I wanted to create a romantic comedy in which coming out was not at all an issue and neither was gay marriage. I was basically told by numerous people that I would fail and it couldn’t be done. Production started in January 2001 and after the film premiered at OutFest LA in July 2001, I was then told it was impossible to make a 35mm film in less than a year. Good thing I hadn’t known that. AFA played in 65 film festivals around the world and won five best film awards. Kevin Thomas of the LA Times wrote, “Helen Lesnick’s ‘A Family Affair’ is a serious romantic comedy of strength and substance. It’s an impressive debut for actress Lesnick, who stars in her feature writer-director debut.”
I think the very nature of choosing to work in the arts is choosing a path that will not be smooth. I believe great art, but also good and even mediocre art, is born of obstacles and challenges. I believe we create art not so much that we want to create art, but that we are compelled to express ourselves in art.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I create large portraits (20” x 25”) in either soft pastel or graphite pencil. But whatever medium I am working in, I always start with the eyes. I almost always draw the subject directly looking at the viewer because I want the art to directly engage the viewer. As consequence, I feel directly engaged with whomever I am drawing. (I have also learned to work from left to right, because as a right-handed person, I notice I would often end up unintentionally erasing my work and having to redo it!)
I mostly use soft pastels. I have no formula or set way of working. I choose the colors based on light and shadow and feeling. For my portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I knew I wanted to use blues for her eyes and I chose to use purples for the rest of the portrait because purple is associated with law. I used 4 purple color groups along with olive green color group as a foundation, but supplemented with many other colors. My work is a trial-and-error process of finding the right color to go where and I end up sometimes erasing my work many times before I find the color I feel “fits”.
I am most proud of my portrait of RBG because I think it catches her spirit and I find it uplifting every time I look at it, and also my portrait of Elijah McClain because of the way I captured the light source and combination of colors I used. For my pencil portraits, I really like the way I captured the light in my portrait of Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda in Wakanda Forever. Also, my portrait of Rihanna was a particularly difficult angle to draw, but I feel it captured her spirit best.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think taking risks is essential as an artist, no matter field of art. Great art is made when one is fearless. As an actor, I believe it is imperative to fully commit to whatever choices one makes. No matter whatever choices we make in our “real” life, on stage, one has to be fully committed to one’s choices or it will come off as disingenuous. It is always exciting to watch an actor who is fearless on stage. I have embodied this to a greater or lesser degree, but it is always what I strive for.
I think all the different shifts I have made in my career focus have been risks. It was a risk to restart my life as a rabbinical student and risk to let that go and go back to acting.
Risk carries into my art. I take risks with color and choice of subject. I realize that my work is not for everyone, but it is most true for me, and no work exists that is for everyone. Every artist must do what is truest for themselves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.HelenLesnick.com
- Instagram: @helenlesnickartist
- Other: TikTok @helenlesnickart
