Oral History Interview, Helen Klebesadel (1487)

Abstract

Helen Klebesadel grew up on a dairy farm in southwestern Wisconsin in the township of Wyoming Valley in a middle class family. Helen performed many farm chores, where she learned much about gender roles. She grew up and considered herself a “tomboy.” At the age of 12, she moved to Spring Green, Wisconsin where her father started a cabinet-making business. At the age of 14, her parents divorced and she continued to live with her mother, who now worked outside the home. She grew up conservative, but around age 14 she began questioning the conservative backgrounds and values. Her father taught her to paint at a younger age, and he wanted Helen to become a commercial artist with the thought that it was an up-grade from farming. She now uses her water painting skills to design a series of paintings, from exquisite quilts to paintings that question gender roles. For example, she may paint something that one is taught in society to be evil, as something beautiful. She also views art as a way to have complex conversations that are normally discouraged publicly. Today, Helen serves as the director of the University of Wisconsin Systems Women’s Studies Consortium, where she holds annual conferences with the 14 UW schools to boost women’s studies programs in the state. Despite her thorough involvement in the UW-Madison women’s studies program, she also began the Exquisite Uterus Art of Resistance Project with a fellow colleague. This project brings attention to issues of reproductive rights today.