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Helen Bolster Warren

Date of Death: April 14, 2025

Date of Birth: February 29, 1940

Biography:

Helen Bolster Warren Obituary April 2025

Helen Bolster Warren passed away on April 14, 2025 in Brunswick, Maine with her husband David by her side. She was a prolific artist and lover of trees, ocean, flowers, birds and animals. She spent much of her life studying the human creative process, learning from other artists, and teaching her own students in an encouraging, generous, and open-minded way. She was also a mother who was deeply dedicated to the well-being of her two children.

 Helen was born in Winchester, Massachusetts on February 29, 1940 to Richard Daniel Bolster and Elizabeth Warren Bolster (Dick and Betty). She spent many summers at Camp Wohelo on Sebago Lake with her two sisters, Bettsy and Barbara, where she was an avid sailor. She also enjoyed summers in East Boothbay with her Bolster grandparents. Helen graduated from Winchester High School and earned a BA in Art History from Smith College, a MEd in Art Education from Alfred University and a MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Penn State University. Helen taught art in schools in Burlington, VT, Rochester, Hinsdale, Olean, NY and at St. Bonaventure University, and Maine College of Art. She started a Campfire Girls chapter with other mothers in Hinsdale. She and her friend Judy Wesley taught after-school art lessons in Olean for many years, and–beginning in the mid-70s–Helen taught painting and print-making workshops for adults which she would do until her retirement in 2013.
 

Helen was an accomplished artist working in large-scale oil paintings, fine etchings and an intuitive process called Touch Drawing. Whatever modality, medium, or style Helen was working in was incorporated into her teaching and shared passionately with her students; her own work evolved significantly over the course of her long career. She loved watching children play and found inspiration and delight in their art-making, unspoiled by convention. She was driven to generate the best piece she could as an artist and, in her later work, began bringing in spiritual visions and images that came to her through Touch Drawing, meditation, and time spent in nature. Anyone who ever shared a conversation, made art, or went to an art museum with her was treated to an unassuming but incredibly deep formal knowledge, natural joy, and unique insight simultaneously. As a means of encouragement for her students she would often say, “Drawing a straight line has nothing to do with art,” and “It’s about the process, not the product.”
 

Helen lived in Western New York state for many years where she raised a family, taught school, maintained an art studio, skied, and sailed on the Great Lakes. She became a member of the Seneca Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge and studied with Twyla Nitsch, a Seneca wisdom teacher. This experience was reflected in her deep appreciation of nature and the spirit world and their expression in her artwork. She moved to Maine in 1996 where she taught art lessons in Freeport and Yarmouth. In 2009, she married David Blocher and moved to their farm on Oak Hill in Litchfield where she continued to paint and enter many pieces in local art shows. Helen and David moved to Brunswick in 2020 where they enjoyed the companionship of their neighbors in Birch Meadow and traveling around the US, Egypt, Mexico and Europe.

A seven-minute video showing Helen describing some of her artwork at gallery talk in 2018 in Lewiston, Maine can be viewed here. https://vimeo.com/220241800 

Helen is survived by her husband David Blocher, twin sister Bettsy (Bolster) and brother-in-law Dick Brown in Cleveland, OH; children Margaret Martin in Lewiston, ME and David Martin and grandchildren Max, Sam, and Lily Martin in Flowery Branch, GA; niece Christie Manning in Cleveland, OH; nephews Eric Brown in Columbia, SC and Ted Simkins in Fryeburg, ME; stepdaughter Margaret Blocher in Newport News, VA; and stepson Bill Blocher in Templeton, MA.

A Celebration of Life service will take place at the First Parish UCC Church in Brunswick, Maine at 10:00 am on Saturday, June 7, 2025. Interment of Helen’s remains will take place at a family ceremony in the Mitchell Cemetery on Oak Hill in Litchfield, Maine.