Sunday, 4 October 2026
Excerpt from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal,
Thursday, 24 October 2024
Personal context:
Several hours have passed since our MA in Fine Art early morning group introduction. I thought I would settle by now and that my bullet train thoughts would slow to a human saunter. Alas, this has not yet occurred. Instead, I have pulled reference books from shelves and stack them on the table in the great room for companionship and comfort.
These rather tattered and marked up books, along with a few newer friends, cannot stay here as this is shared space. But for now, it will be fine. I have the top of a sideboard in my loft office to bring them to for ongoing easy access. Now to briefly explore the questions of my ideas, plans and practice.
I have touched on these questions in my first post on October 10, 2024 before beginning. This morning’s introduction breaks open further possibilities around what to consider in my practice. What influences my practice? Has it changed over the years? If so, in what ways? How has and does this shape my ideas for what it is I want to explore now? How are my plans influenced and formed by my current practice? Let’s start here.
Integrating living within my art practice:
Separation between my act of living and my art practice are fleeting and microscopic at best. Sitting and walking in nature are accomplished within a flow of activities such as getting groceries, picking up the mail, car picnics, daily walks and providing primary care for my husband who had a severe stroke fifteen years ago. As his cognitive abilities become more compromised, he can no longer stay on his own overnight and is finding it difficult to travel away from the island. My art practice exists within this tension of daily living and responsibilities. My studio is within our living space and painting breaks are used for putting such things as the laundry in the dryer and getting potatoes into the oven to bake. The business side of my art practice is its own creature with a gallery space at our front gate that is open daily for walk-in self-browsing supported by an online gallery, social media posts and a monthly newsletter to art collectors and serious fans. Then there are the galleries and venues that represent my work that require less of my time but not none. Which reminds me the island fall studio tour is two weeks away! And I need to order my husband’s new prescription! Where was I? Yes, I integrate living within my well honed art practice.
I find moments to slip deeply into the place of waiting to be invited by nature to receive her gifts. I never seem to tire of this Mayne Island small bay.
Reef Bay is its colonial name given for the sandstone reefs angling out into the Salish Sea along the Strait of Georgia on our small island, accessed by ferry, private boat or float plane with a full-time population of about 1,200 people, located between the mainland of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The view is to the southeast and, on a good day, Mount Baker in Washington State of the United States of America is visible. Standing here purposely breathing, I recognize and acknowledge that I am on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish People. Stolen lands. An issue that I likely will need to uncomfortably endure for my lifetime.
My husband is comfortably waiting in the car. He will watch my progress along the shore with a patience I cannot match. I pause and scrunch down close to the water just looking and half listening to the seagulls and the soft rolling waves farther out towards the strait. I am not looking for anything in particular in the soup of life at the tide’s edge. I first grasp overall shapes and colours. Then shadows and forms begin to gain meaning as I recall and name my observations. Shells. Clamshells. Mussel shells. Snail shells. Broken shells. Bits of barnacles. And do you see the wee crab at the top middle?
I wander a bit further but on this day, not out of sight of the car where my husband is waiting. Yes, my art practice has changed in how I gather reference and sink into and meander through the landscape. Since 2020, I have less ability to spend whole days traversing the shores and seaside trails. I have extremely limited ability to explore shores and trails off of our island. It is simply a fact. The constraint has meant taking my practice deeper into this specific place. I call it thriving in place and I completed a year of artwork in 2022 – 2023 with this intention. In fact, these constraints are what led me to examining and considering the seafloor as a subject of study. My plans are influenced and formed by what is available to me. I choose to take the paths that are open to me without complaint or regret. I recognize this time as precious and accept it with sacred grace, a gift.
Now, I had better move those reference books up to the loft. But before I do, a few lines from ‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver on page 110 of New and Selected Poems, Volume One to take with us into the day…
…Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Before I begin a summary of notes for my latest painting sketch, let’s get these notes from my research on another artist’s specific body of work, Mark Rothko’s Chapel, that may be of interest in painting an intension to enhance our sense of inner peace.
Pockets of Silence and Mark Rothko Chapel
“Many who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where they can root and grow.”
“The struggle is beyond painting, not with painting.”
“There is more power in telling little than telling all. Silence is so accurate.”
Marc Rothko, The Silence of Mark Rothko, YouTube Movies & TV, released 2016. Documentary narrated by his son.
Within silence is a contemplation propelling bold action.
How the Rothko Chapel Creates Spiritual Space by Allison Meier, March 2, 2020 JSTOR
https://daily.jstor.org/how-the-rothko-chapel-creates-spiritual-space/
“In the stillness of the Rothko Chapel, all are invited to have peace or silence, with the paintings providing an enigmatic portal to contemplation.”
About the Rothko Chapel https://rothkochapel.org/learn/about/
Saturday morning, October 26, 2024 at 9:40 am, finds me again on the beach at Reef Bay. The storm from the night before mostly missed us but not the Salish Sea which has tossed up large bull kelp seaweed along the shore.
In my reference gathering of photographic sketches, I often take a child’s view and get low to the earth’s surface. I have found this releases a kind of inner curiosity and strengthens my ability to observe without having to know what I am observing. It is a way of framing by shape and texture in those moments before my brain begins the naming of things. This allows me a more fuller multiple sensory experience and memory.
The day has intermittent sun through hazy mist and the overall light feels a little flat. Knowing that what I seek will still be intriguing, I slowly walk along the bottom of the reef.
I wasn’t disappointed. In this tile of image are a few of my photographic reference sketches that have been added to my album of materials for later use in the studio.
Though I have a large DSL camera, I primarily collect my photographic sketches with my 11 plus pro iPhone. I find the immediacy of this tool most relevant for my needs.
On Sunday morning, I pull an 11 x14 inch gessobord with a yellow acrylic ground from the studio shelf and I set up my small easel. As my 66 year old hips demand, I lay the anti-fatigue mat down onto the hot water-heated floor that is warm under my bare feet.
I squeeze out the various M.Graham walnut oil based pigments in my tailor-made, left-handed, muscle memory order, onto disposable palette paper and then quickly mix a few starting colours while knowing that as I work, more and more of my paint will be mixed and adjusted right in the painting surface.
I have chosen two images to turn and collage together for this painting sketch and study. I use my Apple Pencil to guide my eye in the second image rather than physical or digitally merging the photographs into one composition. I trust my intuitive ability to later scale and adjust the composition as necessary onto the painting surface.
I save the two primary images so I can easily move between them on my iPad, similarly to how they are shown above.
I go to where my brushes rest next to south window overlooking the valley.
I pick out two angle quarter inch brushes and two small rounds. One each for painting light and dark. It is a small surface and I want the ability to add lines to my usual wet-into-wet painting process. I will save the large brushes for larger surfaces later on.
I have few consistent approaches to painting a painting. The grounds or underpaintings are often in complementary colours to the over paintings. The surfaces range from canvas, linen on wood, wood and gessobord. I sometimes start by roughing in with paint or, like in this painting, a few minimal pencil lines to guide my process.
I tend to work my surfaces in a wholistic way building up passages in overall layers. In this case I started from the outside-in with my darkest colours.
From there, I continued to develop the painting by working with my dark and light areas in rhythmic motion while reminding myself that my intention for this work is inner peace. Even on this small surface, I stand to paint and settle deeply into the core of my body rather than painting from my wrist or arm. I move back and forth about six feet from the surface at regular intervals. There is no music playing. I prefer to work in silence with only the natural sounds in the room surrounding me. In this case, the rain on our tin roof is most prominent. Light breaks and recedes behind the rolling clouds in my less-than-ideal south exposure studio. However, it is what I have and I make it work. Thankfully the southwest coast of Canada is part of a northern rainforest and we have many overcast days, particularly in the winter.
Eventually, the surface is covered and the painting is what I refer to as blocked in. At this point, my reference material is of little value and I set it aside. The painting must now stand on its own through to completion. I breathe into my memory. I am deeply embedded in the painting process somewhere between what I have witnessed and fragments of information from other experiences. I am drifting between the tides and flouncing over and between the stones and seaweed. My brush-to-canvas requires no thought as sensations and intuition guide my mark making. After a while, I step back and pause.
I am having trouble seeing where I need to go next or even if I need to go anywhere. I have been painting for a little over two hours. It is almost 1:00 pm. I take a break and we go out for a late lunch. I take photograph of the painting sketch before leaving so I can glance at it if I choose. I am not completely disengaged from my creative process and will come back to in my mind’s eye frequently and occasionally check my phone image to see what is currently on the painting surface. This process is familiar to David and he reads his book while we wait for our lunch to be served and is quietly indulgent.
When we return home, it is getting close to 4:00 pm. The light is heavy as more rain threatens. I go straight to the studio and begin painting again. Within an hour, the painting sketch is complete and resting. The light is now terrible for taking a photograph but I do it anyway.
This way, during the evening while we watch a show, I can look at it, if I wish – and I almost always wish, without physically getting up and going to the studio.
In the morning, I get up and study the painting sketch. I pull open the palette box just in case.
I can find no way in. There is no brush mark insisting to be made. The small study is complete. There is nothing more I can say for now. Though it is still too shiny and wet for a decent photograph, for better or worse, it is finished.
I will not likely always journal my painting process in such detail unless there is something specific I have done differently that I want to remember. My guess is that I will likely have at least twenty of these small painting sketches for my project over the next two years and I hope to have about twelve larger paintings tentatively in the size of 48 x 40 inches completed in oil on canvas. But we shall see. For now, I have started.
