Helen Hill was an artist, an activist, and a respected member of the New Orleans community.

Even after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, she returned to the city and was eager to rebuild.

That was, until she had an encounter with a monster.

Music Helen Hill was born on May 9th, 1970 in Columbia, South Carolina.

At a young age, she started creating short animated films.

When she was in the fifth grade, Stan Woodward, a documentary filmmaker who focused on telling stories of the South, visited Helen's class.

It was that visit that inspired her to start making her own work at just 11 years old.

That same year, Helen created a stop-motion picture which she named the House of Sweet Magic.

The short film featured a plastic dinosaur attacking a gingerbread house. She went on to make another stop-motion film on Super 8

with some classmates as part of a statewide filmmaking in the classroom initiative.

After graduating from high school, she attended Harvard, where she majored in English and minored

in visual and environmental studies. She received a bachelor's degree in 1992 and then moved

with a close friend named Paul Gail Eunice to New Orleans. She and Paul eventually started dating

and married in 1994. She then continued her education at the

California Institute of Arts and received a master's of fine art in 1995. Then she moved to Halifax, Nova

Scotia, where Paul was attending medical school. Since he was a native Canadian, Helen was able to get

dual U.S. Canadian citizenship.

While in Halifax, she taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

When Paul graduated from medical school, the couple returned to New Orleans, and in 2004,

Helen gave birth to their son, Frances.

In New Orleans, Paul was running the little Doctor's Neighborhood Clinic in Tramay, serving

anyone who walked through the doors.

...