Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is remembered as an American artist who moved Abstract Expressionism toward the Color Field style. Movement is an apt term for her great accomplishments over six decades with pieces displayed and her name resonant around the world. Helen Frankenthaler took the dripping and throwing movements of Jackson Pollock and invented a soak-stain technique. She poured paint diluted by solvents onto unprimed, massive canvases creating pools that moved and merged. She literally stood on these canvases and in her creative process as she moved us all to a new practice of beauty and possibility.

Mountains and Sea was an early and pivotal piece. It is nearly 8 feet tall and 10 feet in length. Her color choices are rich and profound even as diluted and mixed by their purposeful liquidity. The faint charcoal lines serve as question marks for our engagement with this composition and its title.

We thank this remarkable woman who took the lead with imagination and moved the art of America. She might also move each of us to a place deep within where art and spirit pool and merge. May we follow her toward our own new, beautiful and “wild” ideas knowing full well that God is our destination.

In gratitude,

Sandy Prouty
Minister of Children and Families
Montview Church