Helen Johnson Hornberger is a gifted artist who works with
metal. Her specialty is realistic metal flowers. Helen began experimenting with
flower making with tin cans
in the 1950s. She even asked her folks to save the cans that their frozen
grapefruit juice came in, as the material was soft enough to easily shape. Later, Helen began to use sheets of thin copper for
her creations. She enlisted her husband, Dwight, in bending heavy copper wire
for stems as she directed him in getting the shape she needed.
In her words,
“I found myself fully challenged by this new form of craftsmanship and the
impossible goal of trying to duplicate the intricate beauty of living flowers.
By trial and error, I devised designs that could simulate flower parts and
structures in the lightweight metals. I experimented with types of paint, with
light and color, to decorate the metal.”
As she perfected her craft, she received many requests and
commissions for specific flowers and arrangements. She taught classes in tole
flower making and, in 1972, published a book titled, The Art of
Making Tole Flowers and Ornaments. Although it’s now out of print, you
can find a copy at the Wichita Public Library.
Eventually, she had the opportunity to create a Fifty State
Flowers arrangement for the Smithsonian Institution. Over the years, she
made five more sets of the fifty state flowers, some as commissions and others
for family members. The Sedgwick County Historical Museum recently
acquired the set she kept for herself. That arrangement is awaiting a permanent
spot in one of their displays.
Most of her
friends and family cherish a piece or two of her art, given to them as a
holiday or wedding gift. In recent years, she has continued to create metal
flowers and has taught Shari, Brad, Dee, and Emily the basics of her craft. Helen has lost count of how many flowers she’s created,
in almost seventy years of work, but it’s nearing a thousand!
Helen resides in an assisted living facility in Wichita and at 97 years of age, she is still constructing flowers.
