Finding Your Artist Voice

1/11/2026

My artist mission statement is:

“I make art that matters to me and the world, and I help others do the same,
because the world is not better if we do not make our art.”

My path to having a career in the arts was not easy nor well defined, but I am persistent and stubbornly committed to making a life as an artist. That is why I have made a practice to try to pass on what I have learned along the way to make it a little easier for people earlier in their careers than it was for me. (I have added more about my personal story below).

With this purpose in mind, I am delighted to invite creatives who would like support as they envision their path as an
artist to participate is a year-long group opportunity to deepen you creative practice, explore personal meaning in you work, and develop the confidence to speak through your art as you envision a career path that fits your personal
vision for yourself as an artist.

Finding Your Artist Voice in ~
A Year-Long Creative Journey
with Helen Klebesadel at Adamah Art Studio
in 2026-2027

I am looking forward to bringing together a group of artists at all stages in their development who are ready to grow, experiment, and connect within a supportive studio community. (Some scholarships are available through Adamah Art Studio. Scroll down for that information). No more than 15 artists will participate. (My workshop will accompany a workshop of 3d artists working with ceramicist Steven Hill on the same schedule at Adamah).

There will be a total three week-long group gatherings at Adamah Art Studio over the course of the year (see dates below). Each of the three in-person workshops during your year-long experience are designed to move you further along on your creative journey toward better developing an artist voice that is uniquely yours.

This creative journey begins with 6 days exploring your current relationship with your art at Adamah Art Studio. Through a combination of individual critique, group discussion and art-based creative exercises, your search for personal expression will be expanded and more clearly defined. You will leave the Voice workshop with a plan for the upcoming year and return to your studio with focus, renewed motivation, a peer group, and a mentor to help keep you on track.

You do not need to know how to draw to use this process.
You do not need to already be comfortable calling yourself an artist
This is not a watercolor workshop. Any media is welcome.

In addition to individual and group critique/discussions we will be exploring creative art-based exercises designed to free up your thinking about your creative process, and to use your own life as a source that can be the bases of future explorations in art.

I am best known as a painter who specializes in watercolor. However, I also taught most 2D media on the University level for many years. Using your preferred art media, or what I have on hand, you will explore greatest vision for your art and yourself as an artist. You are the curriculum. I find I can think about life’s big questions best through my art processes, especially if I have questions that require deeper reflection. I will share this process.

When you participate in these workshops, the further you can put any traditional artistic concerns from you the better. This is also a chance to expand your approach and explore new media. You can draw, collage, sew, bead, glue, smear, wrap, sew, bind, or anything else that seems right for you to get the image you want. (Oftentimes you may find yourself creating symbols for things that only you can really ‘read’).

Workshop Schedule:

Session 1: June 7–12, 2026 (begins the morning of June 7 and ends at noon on June 12)
June – October 2026 – Studio art exploration and preparation for mid-year critique and gathering.
Session 2: November 5–8, 2026 – Mid-year gathering and supportive critique at Adamah Art Studios.
November 2026 – May 2027 – Studio work and preparation for the Adamah exhibition and group feedback.
Session 3: May 6–9, 2027 (final show and celebration on May 8, workshop wraps up after brunch on May 9)

Join us for a year-long creative journey in which you will expand your artist’s voice, define your goals, and create a plan of action for the future that is based in how you define success.

Adamah Scholarship Application

Adamah Vista, watercolor, 9x9

Adamah Art Studios is proud to offer two full-tuition scholarships for the transformational workshop Finding Your Artist Voice with Helen Klebesadel. These scholarships reflect our commitment to making high-quality arts education accessible to emerging and established artists alike.
Each scholarship covers 100% of the workshop tuition. Recipients are responsible only for room and board costs, should they choose to stay on-site.

This year-long experience with renowned artist and educator Helen Klebesadel
invites participants to deepen their creative practice, explore personal meaning
in their work, and develop the confidence to speak through their art.

It’s an inspiring opportunity for creators who are ready to grow, experiment, and connect within a supportive studio community.

Session 1: June 7–12, 2026 (begins the morning of June 7 and ends at noon on June 12)
Session 2: November 5–8, 2026 – Mid-year critique at Adamah Art Studios.
Session 3: May 6–9, 2027 (final show on May 8, workshop wraps up after brunch on May 9)

Applications are open to all artists, regardless of background or experience level. We encourage applicants who are passionate about their creative development and who may benefit from financial support to make this workshop possible. Apply now! Link in bio. https://www.adamahartstudio.org/scholarships/— in Dodgeville.

My Artist Journey

August Clouds, watercolor on paper, 8x10

Medusa Faced, watercolor on paper, 48x45

I am honored to have held positions at the University level as professor of studio art and an arts educator/administrator from 1989 to 2018. Since I retired from my day job in 2018 I have been delighted to focus primarily on creating my own artwork. I have also maintained a second path since leaving higher education, teaching shorter workshops focused on watercolor painting, as well as creative approaches to art-making, career development, and authentic creative voice.
One of the experiences I missed the most after I left my university art teaching position was observing and supporting the development of individuals as the developed their identity as artists.

I love getting behind artists and encouraging them to move further and faster in the directions they have identified for themselves as creatives. It wonderful to be near by as they reach their goals and create the bodies of work and art careers they have envisioned for themselves. That is why when Adamah Art Studios offered me the chance to offer a unique, artist development opportunity for creative individuals who would like to go on a year-long creative journey, I said yes.

My story: In addition to being a visual artist and educator, I have training as a creativity coach. I tend to go deeply into researching and learning about things I am curious about. My first art research, beyond learning to draw and paint, was to try to figure out the path to becoming an artist. I came from rural Wisconsin and despite the support of my rural farm family, I really had no idea what the path to being a full-time artist looked like. Anyone who has sought a career as a visual artist has probably had similar questions.

Artmaking has been the core of my creative and critical thinking process for 40+ years. Using myself as a test case to understand whom, what, why, and how value, form and how our individual experiences are determined by larger social, political, and cultural patterns. Watercolor on paper, board, and canvas has been my medium of choice. I push traditional boundaries of the medium in scale, content, and technique. My visual concerns run the gamut from careful study to poetic, symbolic and sometimes political representations of nature and human nature, especially in relations to contemporary environmental concerns.

My first year of art college in 1971 included no references to women artists or artists of color in the curriculum or on the faculty. While I had wonderful professors, they inadvertently taught me women could not be professional artists or I would have been taught by nor about them.

I would dropped out to spend a decade seeking my path as an independent artist in rural Wisconsin before being awarded a two-year federal CEDA Grant, through the Wisconsin Arts Board. The employment grant supported full-time work for visual artists. Through the program I was hired by the Department of Health and Huan Services to paint a dozen murals for Central Wisconsin Center in Madison. Inspired by supporting myself via y creative work, I returned to university in 1981 as a 28-year-old freshman. I would earn a BA in Art, a Certificate in Women’s Studies and a MFA in Fine Art before going on to work in higher education at Beloit College, Lawrence University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

My earliest professional works were surrealist revisions, in which I imagined a creative reality for myself as a strong, working-class, rural-rooted woman artist, in opposition to what I had been taught to expect for myself by the larger culture. These large-scale watercolors included mythic self-portraits as Medusa and Arachne, revisioning some of the larger cultural social narratives that were part of my socialization. These works drew parallels between those things that had been needlessly polarized into negatives and positives, much as feminine/masculine or nature/culture were set in opposition to each other instead of being viewed as equally valued parts of a healthy whole.

The subject of my paintings evolved to reconsider who we are taught could be artists, and what could be art; focused on the creative work of the women who had raised me. They were not considered ‘artists’ because their mediums were cloth and thread used to make quilts and lace for everyday use.

Next, I focused on objects as metaphors for human values. In these works, the natural world often intrudes into human dominated spaces. An even deeper thematic consideration of nature emerged next, exploring humans as a part of nature, with a particular focus on understanding how what we do to the earth we do to ourselves and vice versa. My path to authentic creative voice was not linear, occurring in cycles, spirals, branching, and meandering. Ultimately, I focus on our elemental humanity in relations to the patterns and cycles in nature, with the goal of articulating how better to care for ourselves, each other, and the natural world.

My current work revolves around the concept of the ‘butterfly effect’, and small actions with large consequences, manifesting in my ‘Pollinator Effect’ series. I have a parallel series of small watercolors and ink drawings, ‘Drawing for Good,’ that explore creative process and fundraising for good causes of my choosing.

Now at the beginning of my 8th decade, I am working on the creation and exhibition my next body of work, drawing on signature ideas from my career. In the past my teaching and mentoring have made e a better artist. This upcoming workshop is a part of my journey too. Lets explore together.

Spring Ephemera: Dutchman's Breeches, watercolor on canvas, 20x28,

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