Island Gals

Today is twice around the calendar year for Creative Potager. As part of my seasonal rest period, I have not posted for 25 days. It has been almost a month since I entertained a sprout question or gathered together my thoughts for a submission to all you wonderful creative beings. Yet, I have been thinking about Creative Potager – about its purpose and how it provides a sustaining sense of direction and community for me and maybe even for you.

The year of 2011 has seen many paintings completed and photographs captured. There have been interviews and guest post on other blogs. We have entertained special Salish Sea Saving days, home studio tours and seen publications of work in brochures, newspapers and on the glossy front page of a regional magazine Island Gals.

There has been the release of my new book Precious Seconds – Mayne Island in painting and photographs which many of you now have in your possession.

There has been the successful STUDY OF BLUE solo exhibition with more than half of my original oil paintings sold and finding their way to new homes.

I have received recognition for my photography and won several website features. Paintings, books and photography and painting prints, calendars and cards have been sold to buyers around the world. The introduction of Google Plus has offered a whole new community of more than 10,000 artists, photographers and art lovers have “circled” my profile.

I have been invited by a new online Gallery ArtsyHome to show my paintings and my latest original paintings are now easily available for purchase by international buyers.

On all fronts, it has been a creatively successful fine art year for me, one where Creative Potager has been a central connection for sharing my adventures.

However, a question seems to be presenting itself without a satisfying or conclusive answer:

What is next for Creative Potager?

My Google plus has scooped up much of my Twitter community and its micro blogging with gorgeous image capacity makes separate blog posting less of a necessity and in many ways less of a hub for connecting with my much larger Google Plus community. My Facebook has always been about family and closer friends for but it is not really a place of deeper contemplation and creative connection. I link these readers to Creative Potager for this even if they reply on Facebook. Some of you are part of all of my various social platforms. Others connect only here on Creative Potager or in only one or two other networks. So there is always the risk of repeating posts for some of you and of missing out on opportunities for others. Each platform comes with its own time commitment which is starting to take away from, rather than enhance, my actual creative process. I know I must shift and change something.

What should I do?

Some ideas are taking root but nothing has grown large enough to be a distinguishable pattern of lines and shapes. So, though it is the second anniversary of our creative connection here in the blogosphere, we must be patient until such time as the flip-flopping musings inside my head settle into a discernible direction. In the meantime, I shall post more frequently in a micro blogging fashion that is dispersed across my various social networking platforms. As my readers, you can choose your favourite means of connection to engage in our conversations. It matters not really though I do like to see the comments directly on the blog post because they are more lasting here and it is easier to skip through to your own posts.

The “sprout question” will become more sparsely presented as simply “Sprout.”

I shall also add a “Seed” which is a seed for creativity, learning and discover. It is a study element that I am introducing into my upcoming year. I thought you might like to be privy to this “seed planting” as well. “Seeds” shall generally have links and will only share a snippet to entice further exploration.

Possibly, not all posts will have a “seed” or “sprout.” Some may only have a photograph, a paragraph or painting. We shall just have to wait and see. Posts will have no prescribed time of day or days of the week. By now I trust that I shall post regularly. I desire maximum flexibility to create and to connect with a spontaneity that keeps both fresh and engaging and exciting. This is built on my belief and trust that both shall happen without prescription because they do.

Intention: For me, according to the answer to my I Ching question, this is anticipated to be a year of modesty and moderation. It appears to be a time of balancing extremes and harmonizing interests and requires a modest and sincere attitude and the limiting of obvious excesses while exposing myself to new areas of experience. This is also a time of conflict, external or internal, and one of spiritual maturing. It may lead to reconsidering my original premise. My intention is to be open, curious and unattached to what I know to be true so I can explore and honour what is yet unknown to me. Oh where might this take us? It promises to be a grand adventure.

As the sun comes close to setting on 2011, thank you so much for being and continuing to be part of my creative journey.

(image may be purchased HERE)

As we shoot for the moon…

(image may be purchased HERE)

with our arms full of flowers…

(image may be purchased HERE)

Sprout: What is currently soft and undefined in your creativity?

Seed: What new might we learn about composition? Has it changed through time? Are their histories of creativity that have handled composition with different views? These are the questions I am musing about as I begin my next painting. Let’s start with a good grounding in the basics of composition that are available on wikipedia.

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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

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Life and the Bounty Hunter (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Studio Tour Tomorrow (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Third Thursday Teaser (creativepotager.wordpress.com)

I made the cover! It isn’t the cover of the Rolling Stones but it is a glossy cover of a new regional magazine called ISLAND GALS reaching Vancouver Island and the smaller Gulf Islands. This includes British Columbia’s capital city of Victoria. Actually, my oil painting HENDERSON HILL made the cover and I made honourable mention in the top left hand corner. But it does make this artist’s heart beat like a ruffled grouse on a log to have her painting chosen as the magazine cover and to be featured under the title “create.”

Isn’t this exciting?

One of my goals for 2011 and 2012 is to expand my exposure beyond my immediate long-standing network. This is a necessary step for a successful art career. It is one of the reasons that artists have benefited from exposure through traditional galleries. But things are changing quickly between the buyer and artist relationship. Buyers seeking original art work have a keen desire to know and interact with the artist whose work they are collecting. They are and want to be part of the story about the work that is on their walls. It could be a place they visited. It could be one of the paintings they watched being developed. It could be that the painting reminds them of something that is significant in their experiences. Or it could be all of the above. The bottom line is collectors want direct contact with the artist. For artists this means moving beyond the traditional buyer to gallery to artist circuit.

I know I don’t need to convince you dear readers as you know this already. But from the business side of being an artist I must be clear with myself. I must purposefully take steps to ensure there is an expanding opportunity for my work to be seen and for buyers to connect directly with me. Creative Potager and other social networking platforms provide these opportunities on a global scale. However, being featured on the glossy cover of a magazine is just plain old-fashion, satisfying goodness.

NOTE: The 20 X 16 inch original oil painting of HENDERSON HILL is still available for $900.00 and can be purchased by contacting me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca and I have a copy of the magazine to go with it 🙂

Best of the weekend to you and watch out for monsters and low flying witches but be sure to get out and kick some leaves!