A Brush with Life - Issue #128 Be Just a Little Vulgar Darling
I have always made it a practice to count and celebrate successes. The possibly crass pleasure for an artist of boldly adding “SOLD! 🔴” across an image of an individual painting or slamming it down with enthusiasm in a digital room view with a grouping of other sold paintings can not be underestimated. It just plain feels great! Especially if there has been a slow stretch for sales, like I had at the beginning of this year. In fact, I find it also feels great when other artists or galleries do the same when artwork sells. These playful actions are like a belly laugh of delight going through my art community of artists, galleries and art collectors. Now ask me if my milestone birthday special was a successful event. I dare you! Yeeehaaaa! Yaaaahoooo! Yes! What a wonderful way to start my semi-retirement! Congratulations to my art collectors and to me! I know…… don’t be so vulgar darling! 😉
You are just going to have to get use to it because I will always jump up and down with glee when something goes well. I need no encouragement to focus on things that fail miserably. This, unfortunately, takes care of itself. Contrary to my Canadian social ethics, which generally finds this kind of behaviour rather rude and displaying far too much self importance, our spirits thrive on every small win we can drag to the forefront in the face of missteps, failures and uncertainty that are laced with high doses of self doubt. Celebrating a win is not a laps in humble modesty but rather a temporary release from the perseverance that is required to succeed. It is truly better than okay to shout it, post it and fully take in those brief moments of pleasure before settling down to our next challenge. If someone insinuates that we should get over ourselves, we have it within our capacity to grin that certain way that requires no words to convey that they can take their attitude to a place where the sun doesn’t shine. Truly! Life is generally hard enough without pulling the stuffing out of our wins just because we acknowledge and celebrate them publicly.
So tell me, what are you celebrating? Come on! Toot your own horn! Step up on that stage and take a deep bow after pumping your fist in the air with a hearty - “YES!” Be just a little vulgar darling!
WHAT HAS SOLD
Since the last time I wrote in June, many more paintings have found homes. The best and easiest way to share this is to show you a year-to-date digital room view collage of the 20 paintings that have sold since the beginning of 2023.
I have now completed and released 23 new paintings this year. Just for the fun of it, I have a self imposed race to see if I can find homes for more paintings in my inventory than I have painted in 2023. I am not not likely to succeed because I expect to paint about another 12 paintings during the next 12 weeks. But we shall see. After all, I am only playing against myself. These 12 or so new works will first be released to “Terrill Welch by Herself” paid subscribers and then they will become publicly available like the ones below.
RECENT RELEASES
There will continue to be ongoing new releases over the next weeks and months until I write again. As mentioned, if you want to keep up, either get a paid subscription to “Terrill Welch by herself” where work will be shared first or check in every week or two in my online gallery. However, here are a few new releases that are still available since I last wrote at the beginning of July.
Just recently released we have…
Along with four other paintings from a little earlier…
There is one other painting that was completed during this three month period as well. But it is included in the collection of images about what has already sold.
NOVEMBER MADE ON MAYNE STUDIO TOUR
Our Mayne Island fall tour is again happening this year. It is a weather-dependent event for day visitors from Vancouver Island and Vancouver but still a great day of island meandering if you are game for an adventure. The Agriculture Hall and our Community Centre both will be bursting with artist and makers as well as many open studios and small galleries to browse. I will have the gallery pod open an extra hour early for the studio tour days starting 10-4 on Friday November 10th and finishing Sunday November 12th. I will have a few studio tour maps available and my regular studio signs will be up so you can find your way. Also, the paintings in the gallery pod will be available for viewing online as usual. Come on by and say “hello” and, with a bit of luck, on the Saturday and Sunday I will also be able to invite you into the house to see the studio area and additional work on show in our home.
SHOWING IN THE TERRILL WELCH GALLERY POD
We are having somewhat of a delay in opening this new show due to the installation of our new septic system. But hopefully very soon! Maybe even tomorrow. Please check our Google map or Facebook update before coming. If you are on island and our signs are out then we are for sure open.
Our next Terrill Welch Gallery Pod “West Coast Sea Blues” show opening has been slightly delayed and is now hopefully opening October 7, 2023 and will close October 30, 2023. We hope you enjoy our deep dive into the various blues of west coast sea. Then a new collection of Terrill Welch paintings will be featured. We are OPEN DAILY 11-4 for walk in self-browsing at 428 Luff Rd, Mayne Island BC, Canada. You may request to purchase directly from this private viewing room from online or while visiting the gallery pod in person. There is a QR code posted beside the door in the gallery pod that brings you to this same private viewing room.
Here is the online private viewing room to look more closely at each painting:
UNTIL NEXT TIME
My deep pleasure in acknowledging challenges and then solving those challenges, followed by counting the successes, likely comes from my first serious job where I piled lumber on the green chain, including railroad ties that were heavier than I was at the time. I didn’t get paid by the hour but by the board foot. There was a different rate depending on the skill level of the position in the small mill but everyone was paid the same way… and we counted all day how many board feet we had manage to mill. There is definitely no better work model to develop both team work and a strong work ethic. I was only fourteen years old when I started working in the mill and I worked a four hour shift while my younger brother, who was twelve, worked the other four hours. We were paid the same rate as the men but were too young to manage to keep up for eight hours a shift. So we divided the shift between us. By the time I left home at seventeen, I had worked every summer and every school break in the mill for three years. Suffice it to say, this work model was well established by then because it had really begun when I was very small. This team work model was how we worked as a family on the farm. In fact, it is the model I used when raising my own children as a single parent. We worked and played hard together as a family. Everyone was always doing whatever they could to help out. Regardless of age or size, there was always something a person could do or do together to help out. Our biggest reward or reinforcement was not the money for those board feet. What filled our bucket was the big grins on our faces as we hooped and hollered when we broke our personal or team best or made something out of what could have been a bad day, or a terrible week, or a horrible year… and we knew and understood what we had contributed to that success individually and what we had done because of the decisions we made together. With this in mind, I want to soundly and profusely thank all of my art collectors who have taken more of my paintings into their stewardship and all of my serious fans who continue to share, comment and encourage my work. Your purchases and sharing efforts have put a huge grin on my face that is soul deep. Thank you!
Until next time, which will be the 1st Friday in January unless you have a paid subscription to “Terrill Welch by herself”. If you do, then I shall be in touch October 20th with a new story from my childhood about hunting season and with quite a few more new paintings to share.
Terrill 👩🎨🎨❤️
P.s. Because it has been a reasonably good year, I have a special 40% Thriving Offer savings for the first year of a paid “Terrill Welch by herself” subscription until midnight November 30, 2023. Just click on the link below and follow the prompts…
This offer can be shared and it is publicly available. This paid subscription could also be a nice gift for a family member or friend or just for yourself even. Something to think about and I will leave it with you.
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