Salish Sea 3 original oil painting by Terrill Welch

March 11, 2011March 11, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

From start to finish a painting often has many pauses. Salish Sea 3 is a prime example as this small 8 X 10 inch seascape oil painting took two weeks from start to finish – mostly “resting.”

I begin as usual by working the underpainting.

In this series of paintings I have been inspired to paint the sky first and work into the picture from this vantage point. This isn’t a usual approach from me but it is what has been happening for the past two paintings. So we will go with it.

Next I start building up the blues.

As I continue to work a context is created for the painting to begin to breathe on its own.

Sorry about the bad photograph. I was having trouble with some glare from the light coming through the window of the studio. Note to self: holding a painting and photographing it is not a useful strategy to resolve glare.

I begin to find my way into the painting – it is like running your hands over your bedding in the half-light of early dawn. You know where you are but there isn’t enough light to see beyond a few vague familiar shadows.

This is most often the place I pause. There is an excitement that rises from my bones and spreads up to the hairs on top of my head. I watch and wait sometimes only for a moment, sometimes stopping for tea and sometimes stopping until the paint dries. Today it was only long enough for tea. I wanted to work in the waves wet on wet.

Now it is time for a rest. It is a rest that last for nine days. I puzzle and muse. I move the painting around to different locations. I sleep on it. I glower at it. The painting is “okay… I guess” but it doesn’t have the SNAP I would like it to have. Finally, I decide what it is and what I need to do. A couple of small changes really. I will leave you to discover them if you choose. Or you can simply enjoy the finished work.

Salish Sea 3, 8 X 10 inch cotton canvas original oil painting by Terrill Welch.

This painting will be shown as part of solo summer exhibition opening at the end of June. If you are interested in purchasing in advance of the show please contact me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca . The price of this work is $280 Canadian unframed.

As for my other intentions, I started another underpainting but the taxes and tune up for Miss Prissy had to be rescheduled for next week. As my father would say “it’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.”

But this is far too light-hearted as I pause for a moment send light to Japan and all areas experiencing the impact of the 8.9 quake and tsunami. This post was written before I heard the news last night on twitter about an hour after the earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan.

Sprout question: Where might your creativity need a pause?

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

Happy 100th International Women’s Day

March 8, 2011March 9, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

Today is the 100^th celebration of International Women’s Day. Why, you might ask, is this important to recognize? Most of you know me as an artist, photographer and writer. A few of you know that of the last 100 years I have spent more than 30 of those years actively and purposefully working towards women’s equality. I cut my feminist teeth on Dorothy Smith’s The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology in university in the late 1980’s while raising two young children as a single parent. International Women’s Day is one of my most important holidays of the year. It is a time to recognize, reflect, rejoice and recommit to making the world a better place for women and children.

One hundred years ago today women in Canada did not have the right to vote. It would be another seven years before most women over the age of 21 get the right to vote in federal elections. It wasn’t until 1960 that First Nations people received the right to vote in federal elections. Even noting these complexities, it is true, we have made gains. Yet, our fight for equality is not over and in some areas it is backsliding:

At the end of 2010, full-time working women earned only 71.3 per cent of men’s average full-time income. In the late 1980s, women earned 77 cents for every $1 a man earned.

More shocking,[ Queen’s University professor Kathleen Lahey] says, are Statistics Canada data from December 2010 show that women with university degrees now only earn 68.4 per cent of men’s average university-degree incomes, as compared with 86.8 per cent in the late 1980s.

Read more: Why Feminism Still Matters by Daphne Bramham (Vancouver Sun)

As a 52 year old feminist, activist and woman, how has the last half of the last 100 years influenced my life? Steeped in women and gender studies, waged in income for women’s equality such as women’s shelters, women centres, women’s counselling programs and women’s leadership, the answers should come easily. You might even expect that they would flow out in graceful paragraphs – eloquent after years of study and practical experience. They do not.

The blog post article I published in May 2009 “Untapped ROI – Increase Women in Leadership 13 Myths and Facts plus A-G strategies” is still as relevant in March 2011. Change is a slow process. But it is more than that. The clarity and contradictions about women’s equality are worn in layers of personal scars and successes only to then unravel again in my today – as an artist, as a feminist, as a wife, and as a woman who, for the first time five years ago, understands that sometimes financial independence is a barrier to love and mutual quality of life. I now experience the equality of a great love that, for the most part, renders gender differences invisible as two people equally work in harmony for what is best for each other and for self. Outside gender imbalances are successfully rebalanced in our day-to-day living. I have experienced nothing as powerful or leveling as deeply held human regard for another.

Today as I write this, my sweetheart is calling me to come eat the breakfast he has loving prepared. Today as I write this, I smile to myself at the involvement of my son and son-in-law with the daily tasks of parenting their children. At the same time, I remember a blog diary written last week by a woman volunteering in a health clinic where a young woman giving childbirth died on her clinic floor. She needed a cesarean delivery. The child was being born feet first. There were no such medical services available. Human life is not equally valued the world over. There is still much to do.

Today as I write this, I revisit my own struggles resulting from a history of childhood trust broken with inappropriate touching of my innocent child’s body and violence handed out by men who should have been the ones I could count to stand beside me. The details are not important. Many of us – many women and a few men – have our own experiences of being treated with less than regard and loving respect by those closest to us. We can instantly provide our own details, often with undesired vivid clarity.

Yet, as my being, my body and my spirit remind me of these passages in living, I wish better for others. I have worked tirelessly for more than 30 years to create the change I want to see in the world. Now I paint. Now I slip down by the sea and I photograph. I seek healing serenity in the bodily memories of these contradictions that we live as we celebrate the 100^th International Women’s Day. My eye finds a particularly powerful reminder that we are one.

My brush strokes link us to our human vulnerability.

My work towards women’s equality is not done – it has only changed. For now.

My sister, may you have the opportunity today to give yourself a hug for being the incredible woman you are. My bother, may you know that you are an equally part of what will make a difference in the lives of the women you love.

Happy 100th International Women’s Day!

Sprout question: What woman has been your greatest creative influence?

To learn more about my work towards women’s equality visit Terrill Welch – A Woman Behind Women.

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

slow start but rolling

March 7, 2011March 7, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

Ah, to sleep in on a Monday morning after a full weekend.

Oh my gosh.

Does it ever get any better than this?

We even caught some sun on a 5 km stroll along the sea.

Life is good.

Now it is time to get back to work.

This week I must get my books and paper work to the accountant so the taxes can be done. While I am in town, Miss Prissy (my 1991 Ford F150 4X4 pick up) will be scheduled for a check up.

There are also some unrelated-to-art projects in a crucial stage that require my full attention.

So with this in mind, my intention for the week is to finish one small painting I started last week, do the underpaintings for a couple of tiny canvases and pick up some large canvases when I am in town. We shall see. Friday will tell the story.

Sprout question: What are you glad you set aside this week so you could play at life?

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

ONE original oil painting by Terrill Welch

March 4, 2011November 6, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

In a studying the shades of blue this painting of ONE has been the most demanding so far. It required the ability to work with four different blues to create the rich depth and reflections. I have little to say other than I am pleased with the results.

Palette for ONE

Beginning to work the underpainting

Working it a bit more.

Starting to get a feel for it.

Many hours later.

Making some minor corrections and time for a rest.

I came back to the painting the first thing the next day and finished it…. ta da!

ONE 24 X 36 inch cotton canvas original oil painting by Terrill Welch

UPDATE: Painting is now available in the ART OF DAY online gallery HERE.

Sprout question: What creative work is currently pushing you to the edges of your abilities?

NOTE: Last evening my original oil painting WHISPER sold to a couple in celebration of their wedding anniversary. I’m happy see it going to a most loving home.

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

STORM COMING oil painting in progress

March 2, 2011March 2, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

We have been issued a wind warning by Environment Canada this evening: Sustained southerly winds of 70 to 100 km/h with peak gusts from 100 to 140 km/h will develop Wednesday morning. So if you don’t hear from me for a bit… it is only because the electricity is out.

I was going to post this painting on Friday along with another I painted this week. But the title of this painting is “Storm Coming.” I decided it would just have to be a Wednesday painting post. Seemed like a perfect day to share its progress.

Starting with the most yellow orange underpainting

I carefully selected a few colours. I’ve decided to capture my palettes for each painting and thought you might like to see.

Everyone has their own methods of organization.

I am not big on organizing my paints in a certain way. I think about what I am going to need and organize them in a manner I will use them.

For example, I am left handed and often work counter clockwise on my palette. Generally I work the whole canvas at once but this painting developed a little differently.

I chose my main brushes and palette knifes often having two brushes and a palette knife in my hands all at the same time.

STORM COMING 8 X 10 inch cotton canvas original oil painting is resting. It may be ready by Friday but maybe not.

Sprout question: What creative storm might be coming your way?

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

New original oil painting THE VIEW (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Trees Mist Sun (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
New Oil Painting Orange Sea (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
A Week Painting (creativepotager.wordpress.com)

Say SPRING

February 28, 2011February 28, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 27 Comments

Seeing that it is the last day of February and it has been unusually cold with snow and wind and rain here on the southwest coast of Canada, maybe if we say “SPRING” all at the same time it will come true. What do you think? Shall we give it a try? Here is a photograph of a couple of tulips to help get us into the mood.

(image may be purchased here.)

Ready? SPRING!…. Hum, let’s try again SPRING!!!! There! That should do it!

This week is a painting week. It is the first painting week in about a month. I have these two 8 X 10 inch canvas underpaintings ready to start working.

And this 24 X 36 inch canvas underpainting ready as well. I am about to begin what may possibly be a series of paintings in a study of blue using seascapes as my contextual reference.

You might ask why I am doing my underpaintings in lemon cadmium yellow and it is a fair question. First I am not fond of a white canvas. Second, I like to create layers of depth through hints of underpainting colours coming through. However, to work for blues, the underpainting must be well set. Otherwise it just becomes a muddy mess. It does seem take longer to complete a painting using underpaintings but I like the end results.

Note: I am likely going to work on these three paintings and begin at least two more this week. I do NOT anticipate having much for process images but we shall see. I provide this warning in advance so that you are not too disappointed on Friday.

Sprout question: Can you tell us about a creative series you want to do in the future?

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

Baby Faces

February 25, 2011February 25, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

It is easy to catch a relaxed smile when your subjects are looking at a baby – particularly their own baby.

Baby faces are inspiring, delightful, engaging and irresistible. They have been known to turn the hardest exterior to mush in seconds.

For your enjoyment, here are a few baby faces, from my three-day introduction to our newest member of the family…

Can someone please share their blanket with me?

Hey good looking…

Not fair!

ahhhh…

Sleeping now.

Don’t worry. I had this thumb before I was born. It came with me.

They dress me in the darndest things.

I hope you are smiling and maybe even giggled now.

Sprout question: What one of your creative expressions do you find as pleasing as baby faces?

Have a great weekend! My plan is to be back on a normal schedule next week and get some paintings in the works. Canvases are set aside. That is a start. I will share more about my intentions on Monday.

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

Baby O has arrived

February 20, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 33 Comments

When you have a grandma with a blog, you get your pictures posted rather than put in a wallet. I received a phone call from baby o’s dad at 3 am Saturday morning. Catching the first ferry at 7:05 am I arrived at the Duncan hospital just in time to smile upon Coen Young O. (7 LB 1 OZ) as he was bundle into blankets and passed back to his mom.

Coen is definitely a cuddle bug.

And here is another photo taken a few hours later.

And this is my favourite photo of dad and baby.

Baby O is doing great and so are mom and dad.

If by chance I don’t get my post up tomorrow, I hope you understand. My normal blogging schedule shall resume soon.

Sprout Question: What is your first memory?

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

Enchanted Bouldering Forest

February 18, 2011February 19, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 22 Comments

I should have known when I saw the two shamans in full ceremonial garb, who turned away from me as I passed, that something special was going to happen soon. But nothing could have prepared me for the enchanted bouldering forest.

It was the second day of my visit with my daughter Josie, who is due to have her baby at the beginning of March. We had been for a short hour-long hike the day before. This was after we went to her ultrasound appointment and I got to see baby O through the wonders of technology. We didn’t have anything planned for this second day. It was like drawing a free card. We could choose anything we wanted.

After a bit of thought Josie ventured “well, we could go to an enchanted forest where there is a tunnel, and large boulders? I found them once and have been wanting to go back when I had more time.”

How could I resist? She packed up some snacks, grabbed the full first aid kit and water bottles. I stuffed my pockets with some tissues, tied up my hiking boots and picked up my camera. We were off.

Finding the trail head was easy enough and the trail looked well used near the beginning.

Josie tells me that it took her a year-and-a-half and more than three trips using hand-drawn maps acquired from word of mouth to find this bouldering spot. So the specific location of our adventure shall remain classified for the protection of mystery and wonder.

It is not long before we come to what looks suspiciously like a mountain bike jump.

Then the first moss-covered boulders seem to rise up as if they fell from the sky. Which they probably did.

The rains have been heavy over the winter. Water runs down through the moss and off the bottom of the rocks.

I look back after we have passed. In awe, I pause.

Josie smiles and says “what is next gives me shivers even though it is amazing.”

This is when the strangest thing happened. I took a few photographs and could see orbs in my photographs. The tunnel walls were dripping on the outside. So I thought it might be that. I took a couple more photographs. Still there were these strange glowing blurs in my photographs. Then I looked at my feet. There were clamshells layered in the dirt. I looked in the tunnel. There were old clamshells washed clean by rain dripping through the cracks between the large stones onto the floor of the tunnel. I thought for a moment. We were a good 30 minute hike into the woods from the ocean. Then I said “no wonder you get the shivers, there are spirits here. See these shells. This is an old midden.”

If you look over to the bottom right you will see a faded area. I am pretty certain that a spirit being was sitting there watching our passage as we went further into the forest.

I look back again. It is a habit from years of walking in the woods. If you look back you know what the return trail looks like. It gives a person a chance to create mental markers so you can find your way.

Steps away from the tunnel and it is hidden from view and the curious eye. We walk along for awhile through the trees. Coming to a power line we start to climb in altitude. There are trails leading off in all directions. Josie recounts her directions. The second outcrop or rock bluff we must turn off. Going deep into the woods we climb in and out of a creek bed. The ground is saturated and we must be careful to find firm footing. We keep walking through small openings of gary oaks and back into the big firs and cedars. We are still climbing and going deeper into the forest. We muse about whether the bears are out of their dens yet and could there be a cougar in the area. Coming onto a ridge there is a recent deer carcass almost picked clean. But no sign of anything else.

Finally, we find the first pink ribbons. It is the beginning of the loop trail to the boulders. We keep left. We keep climbing. Slowly. We are both getting tired but we know we are almost there. Then through the trees we spot something. Could it be?

Our first bouldering boulders are in view.

There are more.

And more.

I am not going to show you them all because some of the mystery must be left for each person who comes into an enchanted forest.

We take a break and have a snack while we look around.

I see Josie thinking “I could climb that one.”

I am thinking “Yes, but maybe not today.”

Bouldering is done without ropes and these sandstone rocks must be swept free of moss before climbing.

Safety mats are stuffed away in the rocks along with cleaning brooms.

We do not linger long. It has been two hours and we still need to hike out. We estimate it should take us about an hour.

The trail has had little traffic at this end. At first we can’t find the next pink ribbon to give us direction. We wander back and forth having lost the trail. Neither of us want to back track so we keep looking. Ah, there it is. Though the trail is well ribboned, the deer trails are more prominent. We pay close attention. Finding one ribbon after another we complete the loop. From there the way back is familiar and easier going.

Three hours later in total we are back at the car, a little tired but invigorated by our enchanted bouldering forest adventure.

For a week of doing nothing, I must say, I really did find more time to do what counts.

Sprout question: What did you do that mattered the most this week?

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

A Close Read and Doing Nothing

February 14, 2011February 13, 2011 / Terrill Welch / 25 Comments

On this Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2011 I could have posted something red. Instead, I am going to write about something read. We have an old joke in our house about doing nothing. It is not ours but one we heard it someplace and it has been adopted by us. The joke goes something like this…

I ask “David what are you doing?”

David replies “Nothing.”

I say “But you did that yesterday.”

David confirms “Yes, but I’m not finished yet.”

The art of doing nothing is a highly underrated creative skill. To do it well, a person may need to revise their world view. One aspect of doing nothing I like to indulge is taking the time for a close read. You see, I don’t skim very often when I read. I burrow in and engage in conversation with the authors or with the characters in the story. I write in the margins. I dog-ear pages. I leave stickies for markers and notes. I muse and mutter. I laugh and cry. I devour the content as I read. This is what I call “a close read.”

You might ask “where do you find the time?”

Well, it comes back to developing the art of doing nothing which brings me to the circular place of my latest close read.

Waking at just before 4:00 am on Sunday, and it being so close to Valentine’s Day, I wanted to let my sweetie sleep peacefully for another few hours. Actually, even if it wasn’t close to Valentine’s Day I would do this out of respect and love. In la casa de inspiracion, with its open floor plan, this means doing nothing. Yes, I made some toast, smeared it with nut butter, and brewed a small pot of coffee but I didn’t start the laundry or turn on some music, or do yoga in the great room or phone a friend out east. Instead I grabbed my book and slipped up to the loft with my toast and coffee.

Can you guess what I am reading? It is WHERE THE HEART RESIDES: Timeless Wisdom of the American Prairie (1999) by Daisy Ann Hickman. Yes, that is right, the very same Daisy who comments on Creative Potager and who asked me to be a guest blogger on the Sunny Room Studio blog in January. We exchanged books a few weeks back. In the mail from Brookings, South Dakota, arrived this beautiful hardcover gem. I know there is a place for e-books but there is still something blessedly tactile about running my hand over a hardcover book and slipping its jacket off to see what it looks like underneath before beginning to turn its paper pages one by one.

So early on Sunday morning, curled up under a down quilt in the quiet darkness set slightly aside by a small reading light, I began to read. What follows, more or less in order, are a few dog-eared, sticky and pencil-marked quotes about doing nothing that can be found within the later part of the first 30 pages of Daisy’s remarkable book about her beloved prairie…

“From a great crop to a new baby or a bountiful garden, life itself seemed to be enough, and being without a new car, a new anything, was not automatic cause for alarm or dismay.”

“Especially useful in today’s society, with its plenitude of distractions, multitude of ways to avoid and hide from reality, legion of false definitions of success built into a fast-paced society to the point where values and priorities have been distorted, twisted and abolished, where many have simply given up, and where many are looking for an easy way out, a shortcut through life offering nothing but bliss and good times, I cherish the lessons of land, sky and wide-open space. Because oddly enough, with all we have created as a society, genuine happiness seems more elusive than ever: just when we believe we have found it, we being to complain as our discovery begins to feel strange, empty, or curiously nondescript.”

“So now, as we consider a perspective that results in doing more of what counts, less of what causes you to lose your way, you will be ever closer to envisioning a road map to the heart.”

“The prairie offers an enlightened alternative, one that teaches something powerful and true: Doing less paves the way for doing more.”

“Because, curiously enough, time to do less often results in something more: time to recharge and regroup; time to stay in touch with feelings, values, beliefs, and of course, people; time to let events unfold naturally, at their own unique pace; time to do things that support your dreams so you may grow old gracefully, knowing few stones were left unturned.”

“Hectic schedules, a hurry-up, do-it-now mentality, cannot compare or compete with the persistent beauty and quiet strength of the prairie. As we scramble about each day, dashing here, dashing there, the land does the opposite, and without a word speaks to our souls, touches our hearts, and reaches out, like a laser, to connect with our finer, more discriminating sides.”

“When your day is jammed full of must-do, can’t-wait items, there isn’t time for casual exchanges; there is little opportunity for the unexpected, unplanned, spur-of-the-moment cup of coffee with an old friend, the walk to the park with your son or daughter or spouse. Still, these are activities that contribute to a way of life that promotes the importance, the fundamental value, of the human connection: without fail, without exception, without excuse.”

“For encouragement, remind yourself that the less you do, the more you will do: of what counts; of what makes you feel alive and growing; of what helps you become a fully realized human being.”