garden

dahlias from a friend

/ Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

Grown in her garden, these dahlias were picked and packed and brought by ferry to my art opening. I love how you can only see one face of a dahlia at a time. They seem to turn just slightly to give each large bloom a chance to shine. When I look at this image I remember how my friend came with her sleeping bag and a tent to stay in the camp ground because it was the only accommodation where she could stay for just one night and bring her beautiful big dogs. I remember how she sometimes says that “getting old is not for wimps” and that the wind came up that evening along active pass. She said she wouldn’t have missed my party for anything. I believe her.

Today is the ninth anniversary of the day David and I met. We are fortunate in our love, our family, and our friendships. I re-gift these dahlias from our friend, now as a photograph rendered in oils, to David. Happy anniversary my love.

Sprout Question: How can the many blossoms of your creativity come together in one bouquet?

© 2010 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Related Articles

The Sustaining Rosehip

/ Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

The last few posts here on Creative Potager have been about the end of life – a necessary reflection in our creative and life journey, but not a place to dwell.

Today I want to shift us towards sustaining. What sustains us until the time of renewal? In the seasons the time of renewal is spring. The rosehip has always been a sustaining symbol and resource for me through fall and winter. When I was young, we were told we could eat rosehips if we got lost in the woods. My mother made apple-rosehip butter for a special treat on our hot porridge or toast. While playing outside, we would peel the rosehip skin off and nibble it sometimes pretending we were eating a piece of the sun, leaving the pithy insides for the mice and birds.

The nutritional and health attributes of rosehips are well known. They are used to make teas for the immune system and oils for the skin – just to name a few ways it is employed. So, when I see rosehips, I am filled with a “we can do it” attitude. I almost always smile and I sometimes laugh aloud when I see them. I feel hopeful. I feel able to reach into my stored reserves and snatch a piece of possibility right off one of those thorny branches.

Sprout Question: What sustains your creativity until a time of renewal?

© 2010 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Buddha in the Bushes

/ Terrill Welch / 11 Comments

Under our trees there sits a statue of a Buddha in meditation. I visit often – sometimes with my feet and sometimes in my mind.

I won’t die.

I’m not going anywhere

I’ll be here.

But don’t ask me anything.

I won’t answer.

Death poem by Zen master Ikkyu who lived from 1394 to 1481.

As we have seen in the comments to the previous post “Beauty in Death” there is a cycle to everything. We are falling away from summer towards the resting of winter that will nurture the sprouts of spring, bringing them to the full blossom of summer again. We know this. We know this like our breath. No thought is required. Yet, like our breath it sometimes helps to focus on it just for a moment or two. Focus on the fullness of the cycle and then pause on death – as it is a necessary part of living.

You may wonder what this has to do with creativity. I propose that when we are inspired by the fullness of our living, and of our dying, our creative work benefits. There need not be a god or goddess or Buddha in the bushes of our creative work. We only need to pause. It is in the pause at the top of our breath where we pick the moment to press the shutter button; our hand knows to release the brush stroke; our keyboard finds the phrase; or our voice hits a note. These need not be perfect. It is through their ordinariness that our creativity goes beyond perfection and holiness.   Somehow we know during this pause that there will come a day when we shall release that breath and it shall be our last. From this same place I believe the brilliance of our creativity is released.

With this in mind, I ask us to pause as if it were our last breath.

Sprout Question: What might your death poem be?

© 2010 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Falling Sun

/ Terrill Welch / 16 Comments


As the tiredness of the end of summer swings into the soft cloud-covered dawn, I notice a sunflower on the deck and think of a falling sun. Labour Day weekend is approaching. The days are shorter and the nights cooler. On the island, the tension between those who will stay for the winter and those that are seasonal or tourist is palatable. Smiles are slightly tight around the edges of lips between those longing for solitude and those wishing they could stay.

But these tight lipped words are seldom spoken with the tension that rests on the morning dew. If said at all, they are said in jest. Next year will bring another fresh sparkling sun-kissed summer, another brilliant sunflower.

Sprout Question: Is there a shift in your creativity come fall?

Note: Creative Potager has a new page Artist Biography and a post announcing my solo exhibition “SEA, LAND AND TIME.” Please share both as appropriate.

© 2010 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Big Fat Red Champion

/ Terrill Welch / 16 Comments

I have been painting but that is not what I want to show you this morning. Remember back in April when I showed you the new garden bed I was digging? There is a big fat red champion in that garden I would like you to meet.


We already ate his bigger cousin sliced thick with fresh basil, sea salt and hand ground black pepper on homemade oat and honey bread. Soooo good! But this fellow is a good size as well. Let’s get a bit of a closer look.

Yep looks and feels delicious.

Our recent warm spell has started these tomatoes ripening on the vine. They are only two weeks behind those grown in local organic greenhouses. We have those huge fir trees all around us and this is the most sun I could find in the yard within the deer fence. So I decided to give it a try. I’m impressed because the sun doesn’t reach the plot until 10:00 am and it is in the shade again by 4:00 pm.

Look at that – a full 3.5 inches across. The small tag in the ground tells me these are Champion Tomatoes. I have four kinds of tomatoes growing. There are these big guys, a patio tomato and two kinds of tomatoes that volunteered from the compost I put down.

We are also eating baby carrots and green beans. The lettuce greens and peas are about finished and I have lots to dill for salads. However, it is these large plump tomatoes that really make me smile. This fall I will double the size of this garden bed for next year.

Delightful and supportive Leah Piken Kolidas is hosting the theme of FIRE for the month of August at Creative Everyday. I think these large plump red tomatoes qualify.

History tip: Did you know that in the early 1930s Japanese farmers of Active Pass Growers Association had eight acres of tomatoes under glass and produced 50 tons of tomatoes a year for the city of Vancouver B.C.? Source – Mayne Island & The Outer Gulf Islands A History by Marie Elliott.

Sprout Question: What creative gifts has the heat of summer warmed for you?

Note: Creative Potager has a new page Artist Biography and a post announcing my solo exhibition “SEA, LAND AND TIME.” Please share both as appropriate.

© 2010 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada