Helen Gotlib is a printmaker, and her work title “August Sun” earned her the Best of Show award in the 2025 Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, held March 1 and 2 in Tampa, Fla. The top award provided her with $15,000.
It’s a good feeling to win the top award at a major art festival. For Gotlib, it’s a really good feeling.
“I was completely surprised,” she said. “The Gasparilla Festival of the Arts is a pinnacle of shows. The overall quality of the artists is incredible. I had a great time at this year’s festival. I had some really good conversations, and they’re still going strong via email.”
Gotlib has won awards at other festivals, including the top Best of Show prizes at the Sun Valley Arts & Crafts Festival, the Old Town Art Fair, and the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival.
Now the GFA top award is at the top of her list.
“I love the Gasparilla show,” she said. “This show acknowledges that we artists are actually doing our art for a living, and that makes a big difference in attracting incredible artists to participate.”
She credits the success of the Festival to its volunteers.
“They put so much time and effort into this show, including the fundraising for the awards,” she said. “That’s a lot of what draws so many talented artists to this show – they keep the awards strong. I hope the volunteers know they are appreciated.”
The Festival includes $92,000 in winners’ funds across several dozen awards, including several named for GFA donors.
She and her husband live in Michigan when they’re not traveling to art festivals throughout the United States. She spends the bulk of Fall and Winter in her studio in Michigan as “uninterrupted studio time” to produce each piece. This dedicated time allows her to push the medium of printmaking.
“The more studio time I have, the more I can experiment with new ideas and textures and get more interesting results,” she said.
She and her husband live in Michigan when they’re not traveling to art festivals throughout the United States. She spends the bulk of Fall and Winter in her studio in Michigan as “uninterrupted studio time” to produce each piece. This dedicated time allows her to push the medium of printmaking.
“The more studio time I have, the more I can experiment with new ideas and textures and get more interesting results,” she said.
Her work is inspired by the natural world around her, in Michigan, as well as in the many beautiful places she sees as she crosses the country. To clarify, here is an excerpt from her bio: “Mystified by the gradual changes in terrain and flora that occur across seasons and agricultural zones, she is inspired by interactions with nature that occur during her frequent travels and daily adventures in the Michigan woods.”
In addition to landscapes, Gotlib also produces panels with aquatic and botanical images.
Gotlib adds to the typical printmaking medium with scale and complexity. She creates depth, for example, through layering – first the plate that she covers with vinyl spackle within which she etches images, two layering up and carving techniques that create texture. A final gilding enriches and illuminates the image – all providing a sense of three dimensions for each one-of-a-kind plate used to make individual panels of finished pieces.
To describe printmaking, Gotlib jokes that she can go into great detail when people ask about it but she knows it’s more information than they probably want to hear. Many times, to help explain the medium overall and her work specifically, as well as her processes for creating it, she directs the curious to a series of videos produced to help keep conversations in the art community going during the COVID pandemic: here’s her section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CM-W4bMZHA
Gotlib was also highlighted in the feature film “The Life We Make,” a documentary that illustrates the life of artists who spend much of each year traveling to festivals. Find out more here: https://www.lifewemakedoc.com/
Gotlib earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan, with concentrations in printmaking and scientific illustration. She also studied printmaking in Japan at the Kyoto Seika University and conducted an artisan residency for printmaking at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA. Her work is on display in public and gallery spaces across the country, including Utah, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio.
For more about Gotlib and her artistry, please visit: https://www.helengotlib.com/
Story by Sarah Worth. Photos by Will Staples.
