Painting the Desert of Helper

For landscape painters far and wide, summertime can only mean one thing: enjoying the thrill of painting en plein air (in the open air). Utah’s tradition of plein air painting is older than the state itself, and that tradition has firmly found new purpose in the cozy town of Helper. From August 20 through 23, the town was home to the Helper Arts Festival and the Helper En Plein Aire painting competition. The weekend of the festival is considered by locals to be the busiest time of the year for the whole town and features a gallery stroll, booths of hand-made goods, food trucks, live music and a car show of antique cars. 

The town of Helper gets its name from the extra train engine that helps pull the coal trains up the canyon toward Salt Lake City. Helper sure lived up to its name as the community elevated the arts to new heights. From the perspective of painters like myself, the heavy lifters were the dynamic duo of Marilou Kundmueller and Ryan Pollick. Kundmueller and Pollick organized the plein air event out of the Helper Art Workshops building and gallery space, through which the duo worked their magic. Their ability to build and support a community is unmatched. Every artist could feel the camaraderie and generosity behind the event. Pollick exudes passion for the art community, and Kundmueller matches his intensity with a sharp wit and playful warmth.  

My first sign that Helper En Plein Aire was different from other painting events was the artist and community dinner, which was held in the alley next to the gallery space. The local art community and patrons provided a potluck dinner that consisted of a smorgasbord of homemade dishes, free-flowing wine and local brews. Topped with twinkly lights, the dinner set the tone of the weekend, rooted in the joy of shared community.

The plein air competition launched with two and a half days of painting time. On Friday, artists had to select only three paintings from the week to be hung and judged that evening. The weather could not have been better for painters. The cloud-filled skies kept the temperature down while maximizing dramatic landscape compositions with dappled sunlight. 

The show was judged by a titan of the landscape painting industry, Kimball Geisler. Best in Show went to Charles Stuart Callis for his piece, “Zephyr,” with Anne Kaferle taking the third-place spot. Steven Lee Adams walked away with two distinct honors: Second Place and the Helper Beer Label Award. The owner of Helper Beer, Jaron Anderson, said that Adams’ painting immediately caught his attention as he entered the room. Helper Beer is reaching legendary status in their own right, dominating the Mountain Brewer’s Beer Fest last year with four medals including three First Place honors. The Beer Label Award is quickly becoming a highly coveted honor among artists. The Audience Choice was awarded to Aaron Cordell Johnson for his large, breathtaking gouache paintings of vast desert skies. Bill Peterson received the Mayor’s Choice award with a heartfelt plea for the value of community. 

The winning pieces all shared a strong mix of realism and abstraction, showcasing maturity and restraint. Restraint was key for these winners. Plein air painting can typically involve a flurry of brushy paint to loosely capture a subject quickly, but these winners stood out with a slower quality of attention that elevated their work beyond a plein air paint-sketch. The three winning paintings were auctioned off in a thrilling bidding war that gave peak energy to the evening and more than doubled the labeled prices. 

The plein air event ended with a bang Saturday morning by taking the show outside to the festival at large with a “quick draw” and silent auction on the street at the center of town. With what seemed like a gallery filled with red stickers at the end of the weekend, it was clear the Helper art community really showed up to support. The Helper Arts Festival weekend extravaganza had it all. The town is small but never felt too small. It is small enough to maintain depth of community while being large enough to create sustainability and breadth of talent.

See other articles featuring Dallin’s work below:

Bluff: The Edge of Yesterday and Tomorrow
Monument Valley: Based on a True Story

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