As staff, faculty and students begin returning to the campus of Johnson State College, a rare opportunity awaits them at the school’s Julian Scott Memorial Gallery. An exhibit now on display features the paintings of Peter Heller and sculptures by Alexandra Heller. The husband and wife taught together in the college’s art department nearly 50 years ago.
Two lifetimes of work are represented in that space: oil paintings by Peter Heller, who died a dozen years ago, and the metal sculptures of his surviving wife, Alexandra Heller. At age 81, Alexandra is still manipulating steel into nature-inspired forms.
"I work, always, with forms of nature rather than human beings," Alexandra Heller said of her sculptures. "But little bits of humans get into them sometimes."
Alexandra’s inspiration for her welded steel sculptures comes from the physical world around her, as well as images she’s found on the printed page. As the owner of the Brick House Book Shop, in Morristown Corners, she has rooms of books in which to find her subjects – which range from insects to elephants.
Alexandra’s work sits upon pedestals, hangs from the ceiling, and occasionally dots the gallery walls between her husband’s abstract paintings.
She describes one mask-like piece saying, "This one here on the wall is a mysterious piece because I started it out as an insect head, kind of like a praying mantis head, and then it took off. It has two glass eyes ... dark blue and light blue. And the face became kind of like the face of a mandrill, that has these decorations on its face. And so, it’s a mixed bag and it spiraled up, as my pieces sometimes do. It just took off on the top of it. So it’s a little bit of everything."
Some similar shapes and forms can be perceived in both the paintings and the sculptures in the exhibit. But Alexandra says ultimately her inspiration comes from the world around her, while Peter painted what she called his “inner landscape.”
"They’re the sort of paintings that have to be understood individually by whoever is looking at them," she says. "They’re internal, in a sense. Each person sees an entirely different thing, or has different emotions ... Peter never explained his, and he never titled them so, people are free to make what they can of them."
The last show of Alexandra’s work was decades ago, in this same gallery. Since then, she’s raised two children, started and runs her own business, and has created innumerable sculptures. With this show, she’s re-introducing her art to the world, so it won’t be left for her children to sort through after she’s gone.
"I have to get them out there," she says. "I mean, I don’t want to leave my children with too much to handle."
That sentiment comes from personal experience. When Peter died, he left behind around 130 paintings for Alexandra to sort out. And although his death was sudden and unexpected, she says he completed his life’s work.
"His last two paintings, particularly his last one, were like farewells," she says. "It’s as if his body knew that he didn’t have long. He finished the painting, that was the last thing he did. And that night he went to bed and had his aneurysm ... So he really did his body of work and it’s magnificent. I think the last paintings are the best, and that’s the way it should be."
When she thinks of Peter’s work, Alexandra recalls a Chinese proverb she learned in the fifth grade, "We were told that the Chinese believed that ... a person reached the mountaintop in old age. And that’s been my goal all my life. I’ve never forgot that story, or that view of life. You spend your life climbing it. And if you’re lucky, you do reach the top. I think Peter reached it."
Just a small sample of Peter’s and Alexandra’s art is on exhibit at Johnson State College. The rest can be found on display throughout the Brick House Book Shop, which Alexandra now has open “by appointment or by chance.” That schedule allows her to spend more of her time in the studio, finishing her own body of work.
