Helen Anikst was born in Moscow in 1946. At the age of nine, while living in Peking, where her parents were on assignment as hydrageologists. Anikst was immersed in the influence that Chinese art and philosophy had on her expanding aesthetic vision created, out of sand, an image of Buddha that her Chinese Peers honored as being worthy of the ancient masters. In the tiny remote village in the Ural Mountains, to which her family returned, a summer study in botanical drawing produced a portfolio of sketches that eventually served as her passport into the art school at the prestigious Surikov Institute. By 1964, after studying every aspect of and fine arts, Helen found that her artistic focus had broadened. Awed by the beautiful sights, sounds, words, and movements which whirled around her, she felt a need to control and reproduce every aspect of this beauty.