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A watercolor painting of a quilt using the Jacob's Ladder pattern, This quilt pattern was used to represent safe houses on the Underground Railroad. It has many names, including: Jacob's Ladder. Underground Railroad, Road to California, Off to San Francisco, Gone to Chicago, Stepping Stones and Trail of the Covered Wagon. I call it Freedom Quilt.

"My visual concerns run the gamut from careful study to poetic, symbolic and sometimes political representations of nature and human nature." Helen Klebesadel is an artist, an educator, and an activist. Born and raised in rural Wisconsin, Klebesadel is best known for her environmental and women centered watercolors. Helen's watercolors push the traditional boundaries of the medium in scale, content, and technique. Her paintings range in size from the intimate to the monumental. She creates paintings that are transparent watercolors on paper, starting with detailed drawings and developing the images with layer upon layer of color washes and dry brush technique mixed with occasional areas of wet-into-wet spontaneity. She paints until...