Mayne Island Summer Group Show part 1

June 27, 2010July 3, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 17 Comments

A bright corner of Mayne Island is going to get even brighter on July 9, 2010 to September 1, 2010 with the opening of the Mayne Island Summer Group Show with work from about a dozen participants. Do you want to come? Yes I know, for some of you it is too far away. But for others it may be down the road or just a ferry ride for a weekend get away.

Most of you know, I live on the wee Mayne Island with about a 1,000 people year round and maybe 3,000 hanging around during the summer. These 23 square kilometers in the Southern Gulf Islands off the west coast of Canada are home to a thriving art, artisan and writing community with its own arts council. The Mayne Island Trincomali Community Arts Council hosts a series of art exhibits at the Mayne Island Reading Room or “the library” throughout the year.

Whether you will be sipping wine and nibbling treats at the opening with us, between 7:00 and 9:00 pm in the heart of Miner’s Bay, on the evening of July 9^th or you must suffice with my blog review, I hope you enjoy the offerings.

Here is a sneak preview…

Author and artisan Leanne Dyck has submitted a natural fiber art hand knit purse appropriately named “Summer Daze” that is begging to be slung over a shoulder and taken to a summer picnic. I laid it gently on this fir bow to photography. It appears to be right at home.

Quasimodo Pottery creates unique, extremely high quality craftsmanship and functional art in its pottery pieces. Here is a group image of pottery from their website.

The Quasimodo casserole dish was featured recently Creative Potager in the post “Quiet Grace.”

Artist and message therapist Shakeira Wynde’s vibrant abstract acrylic painting will fill the exhibit all by itself with its brilliant colours. She graciously allowed me to slip by her home and take this photo for our early viewing.

My oil painting “East Point Cliff” asked me to put her forward for her debut in the Mayne Island Summer Group Show as well.

As you can see, there is a diverse collection of work in the show. We will be back to take another glance behind the Mayne Island Summer Group show curtain next Saturday before the opening the following week.

And here it is, next week already. Please come on over to Mayne Island Summer Group Show part 2

If you are thinking of coming, the Mayne Island B.C. website (which also has a link to the Mayne Island Chamber of Commerce ) can help you with your planning.

Sprout Question: Where are you showing your creative pieces work this summer?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Orange day

June 24, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 29 Comments

The garden is watered. David is making breakfast consisting of plain organic yogurt, local strawberries, blue berries and some lovely grapes and banana. I will add 3 tsp. of hemp seeds to mine. He will add a bit of organic blue agave to his. I expect that my writing will be interrupted to partake in his efforts. But until then, let me tell you about today and how it has become an orange day. You see on Tuesday our friend Laurie received some bad news. She didn’t tell us what it was but she reassured us that no one was hurt. Today she has written a blog post “Ice Water in my Veins” about her situation. After sending along sending calming and resilient energy, I went about my day. What showed up was orange. Not just any orange but a particular orange.

Oh! My breakfast is ready. I shall be back. There! I had a few delicious bites and now I will continue and finish the rest once I get this post up.

First, there were the two underpaintings I did in the afternoon. Here is an example of one.

There is a shadow on this 18X24 inch canvas but I chose to keep and use the photo anyway and I think you will see why shortly.

Then there was a particular calendula in the garden that seemed to be begging and pleading with me to take its photo. We were coming back from a walk at the beach where I found nothing that was particularly inspiring. As we closed the gate, there was the calendula… saying “I’m here! Take a photo of me!” So I did.

By the time I was done processing and editing the images into what was most pleasing to me, I realize it had been an orange day… a particular colour of orange kind of day.

As you can see, the shadows on the underpainting are creating the same gradient in colour as the shadows in the flower. I can tell you that thought of Laurie and “her news” off and on all day. Each time I would focus calming resilient energy her way. We did not speak to each other or exchange emails. There didn’t seem to be a need. She slipped back in yesterday to the “Sitting” post and said she was feeling much better and would post more on her blog today. So whether the orange is related to my focused intention or not I really have no idea… but I am suspicious that it might.

Laurie knows about the properties or meanings associated with colours so she may drop by and tell us what might be associated with this particular orange. We shall just need to wait and see.

Sprout Question: What colour or texture is pulling on your creative strings today?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Squishy hug of thanks WORDPRESS

June 18, 2010June 18, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 21 Comments

Thank you WORDPRESS for your user-friendly interchange and freely hosting blogs that can become small virtual communities such as Creative Potager has become. A big squishy, passionate hug is coming your way through cyberspace!

As of this hour today the wordpress Creative Potager blog has met a new milestone. Since its first post, on Dec 27 2009, the Creative Potager blog has published 102 posts and 1,605 comments AND (drum roll please) has had over 12,000 views. I am doing the happy dance (ta, ta, ta) all around the social networks with friends, casual acquaintances and passionate lurkers who are Creative Potager regulars.

Thank you especially to those who regularly respond to the Sprout Question that accompanies each post. Thank you to all of you who comment above and beyond the Sprout Question. Thank you to all readers who lurk in the shadows. Your views are counted. You are part of the Creative Potager community.

My life and creativity is richer because of each and every one of you. Thank you, thank you thank you.

May the sun continue to rise, in all its glory, over our creative inspiration.

I decided we need a little visual toe-tapping to help us celebrate offered up by Andy the Daft Hermit from the Black Bus in the Highlands of Scotland. The music starts about 30 seconds in so wait for it and enjoy Andy’s photography video…

With much humble appreciation.

Terrill:)

Sprout Question: If WORDPRESS is the host and Creative Potager the post, who are you?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

New Paint Box

June 15, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 27 Comments

View and purchase full resolution image here.

Do you know that excited tingle you get with a new writing pen or journal or new lens for your camera or a new box of paints? Well, I found such newness where it had been all along – in my Paintnet.com program. I did the unthinkable and digitally painted on one of my photographs. Ahhhuhhhh! Yes, I can hear your gasp but it was so much fun… kind of like writing on the dining room wall with coloured felt pens (and much easier to clean up).

I was inspired by the work of Martha Marshall who creates digital art and collage as well as abstract paintings and regular collage… sometimes even using composted papers. Martha is a prolific artist with an outstanding blog “An Artist’s Journal” that captures the essence and strength of her keen eye for design, texture, patterns and composition. I encourage you to drop by for a browse and read.

Sprout Question: What is the latest new tool or technique you have used and who inspired you?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Winter Sun Oil Painting

May 11, 2010August 21, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

There is something about the late dawn of winter sun, a bruised heaviness that seeps across the sky. I started this painting thinking it might be abstract and lighter, maybe even cheerful, but my subconscious seems to know where to take the brush. Though the quick marks of paint give impressions rather than detail… it is clearly not an abstract painting. And though colourful, I am not sure it is cheerful. In fact, I’m sure this painting is deeply melancholy with bittersweet recognition that the sun is rising… lifting, lifting, lifting us into another, and possibly, better day.

I started by brushing water (it would have been spirits but I’m using water miscible oils) and linseed oil onto the canvas. Then I began adding colour, an underpainting of sorts…

I never let it completely dry but kept working the paint into the canvas as I added more colour.

Using a good sized brush (10) I swished the sky and clouds on and softened them with a cloth and feathery brush. Then I flipped the rocks and sea loosely into place and left them like that.

I came back yesterday and tidied up a bit … as I listened to kd lang’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame induction of Leonard Cohen in 2006.

You might want to do that too as you take in “Winter Sun”

18X24″ by 1 3/4″ water miscible oil painting on 100% natural cotton canvas

There are a few more small edits which I will make and then replace this last image, but it is close enough to complete to share with you.

Sprout Question: What has been your latest personal discovery through your creativity?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Far Shore oil painting

May 6, 2010December 5, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 24 Comments

18X24″ by 1 3/4″ water miscible oil painting on 100% natural cotton canvas

I worked on this west coast painting much of yesterday afternoon and into the early evening. At one point I move out onto the covered deck because the natural light had faded in my loft studio. I believe it is to the “tweaking” stage or almost or maybe even completely finished. It is resting now and I will begin another while it lingers in the great room as the day’s light passes overhead. I will peer at it every now and then with a critical eye. At a later point I will take another photo for my redbubble account.

As I was working I mused on a couple of ideas. The first is something my son said when we were talking about song writing. He commented on how sometimes it is best to leave a song and start a new one that will be better rather than try to fix one that is not working. I think this is true for most creative work. Our learning is cumulative. With a certain amount of detachment, we take the work as far as we can, then release it and start again. Drawings in sand, ice sculptures and cake decorating come to mind as ways we can make marks and practice creative detachment.

Speaking of making marks, this is something humans have been doing for a long time. These markings are telling not only of our present but of our past and our imagined future. There is a collective bandwidth of creativity with most creative work gathered around the centre and much less work being created along the margins or fringes. The great work of the fringes will sometimes move to the centre of the bandwidth and new work will develop along the margins. William Blake , Claude Monet, Walt Whitman come to mind as well-known artist who worked in the margins of their time and yet held our attention until their work became accepted and even revered, at which point their creative views and style moved into the centre of the creative bandwidth. This process of margin to centre has always fascinated me because some work just falls off the margins and disappears while other creative work is shuffled into the centre. Most of us work comfortably in the full rich stream of the centre. Only some of us are compelled to work in the margins. Work in the margins is often recognizable by the name calling – bad art, lacking technique, improper, breaking the rules and shocking.

Sprout Question: Where would you place your work on the current bandwidth of creativity?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Slice of Sun

April 30, 2010April 30, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

View and purchase full resolution image here.

Today being Friday, it is a good day to play with techniques and have a little fun. I am practicing the art of painting without a brush by using photo editing tools to paint for me. I have been doing this for awhile but it is starting to get easier to stretch into the resonance of what I am seeking.

View and purchase full resolution image here.

Please note that starting next week my posts will be Tuesdays and Thursdays until the beginning of September. But please come by for tea and a browse anytime.

The best of the weekend to you all.

Sprout Question: Where are the growing edges of your creativity?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Whole Body Creativity

April 27, 2010April 27, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 11 Comments

“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot in the sun.”

– Pablo Picasso

What does it mean to use your whole body in your creativity? The answer is likely related to your awareness and ability to converge all the information from your five senses. For example in the image above, I wanted you to hear the waves. I hope just for a moment you can smell the sea and feel the sand under your feet with a soft breeze on your cheek. I want you to experience a moment of play and confidence through the Canada goose strutting in the waves.

What you don’t know is that this goose just chased a sea otter back into the sea. I am not sure what the scrap was about but it was fascinating hear and to watch.

However my photos are poor. I was too far away and I couldn’t get close enough fast enough. Yet, I somehow wanted to catch that excitement and triumph with the goose, and the waves and the sunlight. The goose in the shallow waves is my attempt to turn a yellow spot into the sun.

Sprout Question: Tell me about a yellow spot you have turned into the sun?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Sacred Breath of Editing

April 26, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

motor block reclaimed by sea

I question the concept of relying on divine intervention to complete a finished work. I have heard many times from writers, painters, photographers, musicians and gardeners that their creative muse works through them and it is not them creating. It is the divine, the muse, their sacred self. However, I believe it is a mistake for us to stop there. Allow me to explain beginning with this quote:

“When you breathe in, breathe in the whole universe. When you breathe out, breathe out the whole universe.” – Koryu Osaka

I admit to slicing through ego thinking and allowing intuition, my muse, the divine to “have its way” with the page, the brush, the lens of my work. It is this first blush of inspiration, of whole body mind and seeing that comes from a still point where we connect with all that is… seeing, hearing and being as if for the first time. However, that is not the end point. As John Daido Loori, author of The Zen of Creativity, confides, we must continue our journey straight ahead from the mystical peak “down the other side of the mountain, back into the world. It is in the ordinariness of our lives that this intimate experience of the self merging with the absolute can begin to express itself.”

view from the top

This is why we need to learn the sacred breath of editing. Creative work is rarely ever completed in a single session or in the first instance it comes to us or is given to us. We receive or are inspired by the essence of what must be expressed. Now we must also complete the work. We must edit, taking away the extra, closing in on the core essence of what we intend to convey. The sacred breath of editing is the breath that allows us to reconnect with the resonance present when we first created the work. Then we remove what is not absolutely necessary. If we lose the resonance we know we have gone too far.

all that is - reclaimed

So just as your muse, the divine, your sacred self has a role to play in your creativity so does your critical mind applied to the sacred breath of editing. To bring your gift of creativity into its fullness requires a critical viewing, a reviewing and shaping. We must bring our whole self to our work. Trust your critical mind and strengthen its ability just as you have learned to listen to your muse. Yet remember not to invite your critical mind too soon. Savour and complete that first blush of creativity without review, editing or engaging in critical thinking. Allow the work to rest then breathe it in again and begin editing. Ruthlessly edit – with purpose, care, passion and regard for the essence which inspired you in that first instance.

Sprout Question: What might your sacred breath of editing sound like?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Summer is coming

April 23, 2010April 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

Creative Potager’s summer blog schedule begins the first week of May

budding possibilities - wild rose

The first post for Creative Potager was December 27, 2009. I have been posting a blog Monday to Friday, except for power outages caused by windstorms battering our little island in the Pacific Northwest. Including today, there are 83 posts each with their own sprout question. There are 1,165 comments documenting our creative conversations and 8, 596 times you have come to visit. Creative Potager has become an enjoyable habit to wake up to during the week where I say to myself “what shall I post today?” However summer is coming. I yearn to be outside in the garden, tramping the trails and painting on site rather than inside snuggled up to my laptop. Like the summer wild flowers in this post, I bloom best in untamed places.

each day is precious - wild tiger lily

So after giving it some serious thought, I am changing my posting schedule to twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from the beginning of May until the beginning of September. I may on occasion post an additional submission. But these will be bonus or value-added posts rather than an expectation.

petite lady slipper

I am hoping you can live with this change and that we both will benefit from my scrambling around in the valleys and on the hills and down the beaches of Mayne Island and afar. I am hoping that we can still have rich and engaging conversations between posts even during the long days of summer. I am hoping that the sprout questions will be juicy enough to keep us inspired for the in-between times. I am hoping that you will trust that winter will come with its short days and unpredictable weather and we shall again be glad for our Monday to Friday sprout conversations fueled by the fruits of summer experiences.