If you ever wonder where artists get their inspiration, a good place to start looking is the music they enjoy and the places they’ve been.  For La Plata artist Helen Thomas a large part of her inspiration comes from her trips to the Mediterranean, as well as the jazz, delta blues and Louisiana Cajun music she loves to have playing while she practices a bit of creative canvas magic. 

Top: Ground Zero inspired by actor
Morgan Freeman’s blues club.  Above: Freeman
with Helen Thomas.  Below:  Thomas’ cover art for
the Homemade Jamz Blues Band.  Bottom: 
painting by Helen Thomas.
 

This week Helen packs up for her yearly trip to the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale Mississippi to immerse herself in jazz music and culture.  While she’s away, her art remains with us on exhibit at the Charles County Commissioners Gallery in La Plata.

Clarksdale, Mississippi is home of Madidi, a restaurant owned by businessman Bill Luckett and Academy Award-Winning actor Morgan Freeman.  Mr. Freeman made Madidi the home of one of Helen’s paintings entitled Ground Zero, which was both named for and inspired by Mr. Freeman’s Blues Club of the same name.

Helen Thomas is a Missouri native, born in Poplar Bluff in 1939.  She lived in Arizona for seventeen years after her husband retired from the Navy.  The couple moved to Maryland after their grown children settled in the Washington D.C. area.

Helen is a self-taught artist who’s had no formal training.  She told The Bay Net that her art came more as a calling. “What got me started painting was that I always had a burning desire to have a pencil or paintbrush in my hand.”

When asked what artists influenced her she said that the first person who always comes to mind is Carlos Hadaway, an artist she became familiar with while living in Arizona.  The Mediterranean influence on her art came about when her husband was on active duty.  When she visited him at various ports during his tours of duty, she was exposed to architecture and landscapes that clung to her imagination.

Ms Thomas’ favorite medium is oil and her favorite subject is the human face.  She occasionally teaches locally and accepts commissions.  She recently completed a work that will be the cover art for a CD by Homemade Jamz Blues Band from Tupelo, MS. 

Her work is on exhibit in the County Commissioners Gallery at commissioners’ office in the Charles County Government Building in La Plata through