Helmut Becker

Sending deep condolences to family, friends and students of Helmut. I was greatly inspired by the experience I had as his student at Western University and later as mentor and friend. He was a wonderful person, kind, creative and intelligent. A generous soul who loved life and lived it well. I will miss him.

I met Helmut when we were both involved in a flax project. He was an inspiration and a mentor to me. I have great admiration and respect for him. We remained in touch after the project ended.
I am deeply saddened by his passing. He holds a special place in my heart.

I cannot recall how Helmut and I met but it must have been many decades ago. I was aware he was involved in many aspects of the hand papermaking field including; teaching, making sculpture, flax research, performance art which included recordings, printmaking, and designing and making some Hollander beaters that were ideal for working with long fibers.
I organized and taught with Helmut in two flax festivals, one in Chicago and one in Marthas Vineyard and all instructors loved turning on students to the wonders of flax. Helmut and I both have/had a lifelong love and lifelong practice of making art and sheets of paper from flax fiber. He taught me how to process the plant into handmade paper and I even grew a small field one year. I absorbed his methods and shared it with my students; using a flax break, scutching flax, combing it, cutting it, feeding it into the beater. By growing and processing his own flax he taught many of us about the work of our ancestors and to appreciate that we could buy flax. Perhaps the first compelling conversation we had was when Michael Durgin and I interviewed him in August 1989 for Hand Papermaking magazine.
In that interview Helmut said he thought if he came back into this world he might come back as a flax plant. He said “The more I work with the fiber flax plant the more it is alive—like other things like earth, water, and sun.” Later in the interview; “You begin to realize, maybe there is a very thin line that separates the animate from the inanimate. Maybe it’s nothing—maybe there isn’t a line.”
Of course, who knows about Helmut’s transition but how wise and extraordinary he was in this life. I was aware he was involved in many things: making sculpture, performance art which included sound recordings, printmaking, designing and making Hollander beaters that were ideal for working with long fibers.
For several weeks we both worked on our own sculptures adjacent to one another at the Chen Chuan Paper Factory in Taiwan. His final piece was several large paper disks hanging from the rafters, representing the convergence of Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn. He made a wonderful installation but more importantly he became the hero for reframing what was originally seen as a disaster into a gift. After a typhoon swept through and “changed” everyone’s work the organizers set up a microphone and bused us back to the site. They were apologizing, some crying. Helmut confidently took the microphone and convinced all that something great had happened. He cited the international exchanges between people, the process of making work together, and he even welcomed the typhoon’s participation. So much so that an entire chapter in the catalogue was devoted to the typhoon.
Condolences to the ones he left behind. Helmut will be missed by many but his wisdom and his work lives on.

Lieber Helmut
du hast Spuren hinterlassen und nicht nur Staub.
Danke dafür.