Terrill Welch by herself - issue #13 Heavy Rains, Candles, Lamps and Paintings
Our west coast winter rains are flaunting atmospheric river designations that lead to gushing streams and overflowing seasonal creeks pushing their way towards a sea of king tides along eroding shores. We need rain. No one who has been here the past few summer droughts with the island water table dropping would argue this! What we need though is a slow steady drizzle for six to eight weeks straight. This way the land soaks up more and sends it deep underground for safekeeping. This is my seasonal holiday wish as I light a candle and turn on the lamps early during some of the longest nights of our year. Let the mist roll through the valley and the occasional break of sun sparkle on the heavy droplets clinging to the needles of sagging branches on the tall firs! But please, let it rain.
In the meantime, I have a new larger summer painting for us. I have been working on a rare and unusual painting for me - figures integrated into the landscape. It is an exercise that allowed me to tackle a moment that I have been wanting to paint for about three years. Though there is only a fleeting likeness, these two grandsons were great models for my purposes and the project fits nicely into my next painting series which is “seeking peace through nature.” I have this notion that, if humanity is to save itself, it will be through a deeper connection to nature, for our whole lives, on a daily basis. This is where we can best learn about harmony, caring, connection, passage of time and loss. In nature, we implicitly experience a world that is bigger than ourselves yet still understanding that we are part of and have a responsibility to meaningfully participate. I want to find ways on my canvases to gently (or maybe even not so gently) bring us to this place of both reflection and action on a journey towards peace. I was watching a show about the history of art in Japan and learned that Buddhism developed during a time of wars in Japan as a way of searching for peace. My painting practice and next focus feel like they have good company.
Anyway, this is the newest larger, loose painting that is still sits shiny and wet on my easel.
Here is the painting by itself a couple of days later and a little less shiny...
I wanted to keep it more sketch like and brief impressions with lots of light and movement that is most evident in the leaves maybe.
The intertwined legs and feet were the most fun to paint though!
Artist notes: It is warm during the midday in the July 2020 sun. This is the first year of the Covid pandemic and we are spending time together in the park outside. After a picnic lunch we go for a walk and the boys found an arbutus tree to climb. They are older now but memories are sometimes worth putting on a canvas.
I am not sure my initial thoughts about a more muted colour palette will end up being relevant in this new series of work. Maybe, it is just too early to tell. Just so you know, this painting is going to remain in the family and likely will not come to market for a very long time, if ever.
WHAT I HAVE BEEN DISCOVERING
The painting of the boys climbing in the arbutus tree came about as part of my Canadian Landscape painting class with fellow artist and teacher with both the University of Victoria and the Vancouver Island School of Art, Neil McClelland. We were tasked with painting the figure integrated into the landscape.
I researched Helen Galloway McNicoll. She was born in Toronto to a wealthy family in 1870 and who died in England in 1915 at the age of 35 years old. Her story is fascinating and worth researching. When she was young her family moved to Montreal and this was where she did her first art training before going to the Slade School of Fine Art at the University College of London in England. This was partly because it was easier in England for women to receive equal quality art training to their male counterparts than in France. From then on McNicoll trained and worked as an artist in both England and France and shipped her paintings back and forth to be shown in Canada. McNicoll had become profoundly deaf from Scarlet Fever when she was young and benefited from traveling and painting with her life partner and fellow painter Dorothea Sharp. At the time, it wasn’t respectable for women from wealthy families to be out in public alone (I am not sure this ever stopped Emily Carr though who had also been in England taking art training four years earlier). This being the cultural expectation, the two women artists together had greater freedom of movement to work than they would have had alone. McNicoll was well known and respected during her career. Then her work seemed to fall out of view after her death and has only recently been profiled again. She is known as the painter of sunshine. Here are two of my favourites of her paintings though there are several others worth browsing as well.
This one is my very favourites…
And this one is a close 2nd…
McNicoll’s work was a perfect motivator to tackle the painting of the boys which I had wanted to do for so long and I chose a larger canvas so I could have more room to create the figures.
Here are a couple of articles about McNicoll that you may find interesting:
Helen McNicoll, Significant and Critical Issues: https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/helen-mcnicoll/significance-and-critical-issues/
Helen McNicoll: In Search of Light https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/helen-mcnicoll-in-search-of-light
And a short YouTube video: What Makes Art Canadian? Samantha Burton on Helen McNicoll
Another artist I researched, unrelated to any formal studies. I found his work interesting and compelling. An Irish impressionist and post impressionist painter, Walter Fredrick Osborne was born in 1859 and died in the same home he was born in 1903 at the age of 43 from double pneumonia. He was never married and had no children. His first love was for landscape painting, often working plein air with figures featuring strongly in much of his work. He painted equally well in both oil and water colour.
His depiction of scenes were more of rural working class families, both in rural and cityscapes, than those Helen McNicoll.
However, he painted over 100 portraits of society figures in just a few years and he was so busy doing this that his landscape painting was given second shift in his art practice. Here is a short documentary video about his life and work, if you want to explore further.
Needless to say, both of these artists provided focus and inspiration for my latest painting of the “Boys Climbing in the Arbutus Tree.” As I have mentioned before, as artists we are seldom without those that have gone before us. These connections build context, and strengthen a certain kind of freedom in my contemporary landscape painting practice.
MORE NEW PAINTINGS
I have two more new paintings this month besides the one above. These won’t be publicly released until January 2024 as I am at my personally imposed semi retirement quota of a maximum of 30 new paintings for 2023. However, you can still make a direct inquiry to purchase now if you wish by emailing tawelch@shaw.ca . I am going to show you these in a digital room view first and then follow up with more detailed information about each quick painting sketch.
This small painting sketch is a view of Active Pass.
Artist notes: Breaking clouds in January afternoon light push back against the hunched barn red cabin in Miners Bay. Details are few as my eye flutters back and forth across the view.
The second one is simply for the symbolic hope of sunrise and is still shiny and wet…
Artist notes: The light is just starting to hang itself on the tips of the tall fir branches outside our windows when I rise. I quickly grind the dark whole beans while the water is boiling and brew coffee to take with me to the beach at Reef Bay. Slipping unnoticed out the door, I am there by 5:30 am, perched and waiting to receive a renewable gift of resilience, hope and possibility in that spectacular phenomena, millions of years older than humanity - sunrise, mid May 2023.
And before you consider this a lighthearted naivety, this painting was inspired by a few lines from Mary Oliver’s Goldfinches in her poem “Invitation”…
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
Now, let’s move on to my Christmas story for this year which may seem sad at first. However, these experiences have been foundational in my character development and so I felt they were worth sharing.
A STORY - SMALL THINGS MATTER
Artist notes: The light is just starting to hang itself on the tips of the tall fir branches outside our windows when I rise. I quickly grind the dark whole beans while the water is boiling and brew coffee to take with me to the beach at Reef Bay. Slipping unnoticed out the door, I am there by 5:30 am, perched and waiting to receive a renewable gift of resilience, hope and possibility in that spectacular phenomena, millions of years older than humanity - sunrise, mid May 2023.
I have been thinking a lot about this holiday season. I am not a big fan of getting large presents for people. Mostly, I want to hang out and visit with family and friends, either online or if possible in person, and have extra special food for meals and snacks. I seem to manage to stuff a few $20 bills into envelopes for the grandchildren and then I am pretty much done with gifts of all sorts this year. In the past, I have sent out a few art calendars to family and friends and art collectors. However, this year I decided to even stop doing this because of the rising cost of paper and shipping. Instead, I will attempt to write short personal email notes of appreciation starting now and hopefully finishing before the end of the first or second week in January. We shall see! Don’t get me wrong, I have many gifts that I have both received and given that have been extremely meaningful exchanges. However, most of these have been outside of any obligatory occasion. They have been heart-to-heart exchanges and not always a “thing” even.
I have been musing about how my rather casual low-key approach to gift-giving has developed. To answer this question, I must take you to a long time ago, in a far away land, where the snow fell by the foot and sometimes temperatures dropped so low outside that it left frost on my eyelashes. Winter during this time was no joke. In our small two-room cabin there were no internal doors to keep the heat from the woodstove circulating. There was often a skim of ice in the mornings on top of the water bucket sitting on the counter. Frost and ice frequently covered most of the inside of the high, single pane window above the kitchen table. Generally, mom tried to keep us up off the bare scrubbed plywood floor where winds tumbled powdery snow over a rolled up old coat laying lifeless along the length of the bottom of the door. The snow insistently gathers on the floor until it melts into a puddle next to our muted brown folding couch that served as an extra bed should a guest need to stay over in this already cramped space.
It is the winter I am seven years old, the oldest of three children, and being home school in between bouts of tonsillitis that were so bad that my mom or both parents were sometimes forced to pack us all into the old car in the middle of the night and take me to the emergency room of the hospital in the nearest town, about 80 miles of precariously plowed gravel roads away. It is the winter that dad shot a rutting buck deer that is so strong and tough that we would have fed it to the wolves if it wasn’t that it was the only meat we had. It is the winter we didn’t get new winter boots and our rubber boots with felt insoles are like blocks of wood in the frigid weather. It is so cold that mom finally put pairs of dad’s wool socks over our own wools socks and we go out to play for 15 or 20 minutes at a time in these because this creative solution was significantly warmer. It is also the last winter that we live in that tiny portable cabin on skids that had moved with our family from one logging camp to another and then finally to its resting place on the ranch. By spring, through no fault of their own except trust, mom and dad are broke. They lost everything. Our personal belongs are packed into the station wagon and we left that ranch, our cabin home and their naivety behind. It is this winter, and this holiday season, that forms the bases for my life time of knowing that small things matter and that everything else is just “nice to have but not necessary.”
It is this holiday season that we are each outfitted in new wool toques, mitts and socks made by my mother’s hands between splitting and stacking the firewood, feeding what chickens the mink hadn’t yet killed, making bread, packing many buckets of water up from the ice hole she has chopped in the lake and then back out of the house again after washing dishes, giving us bathes beside the stove, doing laundry and cleaning my baby brother’s cloth diapers. She knit between marinating those tough deer steaks that I cut into small pieces and topped with ample mashed potatoes that were creamed with powered milk and cheap margarine. I alternated the deer meat and potato bites with warmed french cut canned green beans or mixed vegetables. My tonsils are usually so sore and swollen that I would give up part way through the meal. I am just too tired to chew anymore on things that tasted pretty disgusting in the first place. On this day, Mom looked at me and fought tears that I didn’t have the will to hold back.
As if by way of explanation, I whispered “I want my dad.”
“He will be home in four more days” she replied in that even tone that could be mistaken for resignation rather than being comforting.
“Too long” I mumbled and stared at my plate.
Dad is away working in a logging camp somewhere too far to drive back and forth everyday. Therefore, we saw him about every 10 days and, if we were lucky, he was home for three days before leaving again.
Four days later we hear the ugly yellow international pick up rumble up as near as possible to the snowed in cabin. Mom starts putting on her coat and boots before he can get the heavy truck door slammed shut. Dad walks in with a lopsided grin, pulls off his hat and mom gives him a hug and kiss and walks out the door.
Dad looks at each of us, turns his head at a slightly jaunty angle, and says, in a way that doesn’t need an answer, - “well?”
We pile into him and he ruffles us around for a bit and then starts peeling potatoes for supper.
Mom returns just after dark with rosy cheeks and a small smile we haven’t seen for a long while.
The next day we go to town for our monthly grocery supplies. Dad had been given a turkey for Christmas from his boss. We had been stringing popcorn and making paper chains for the Christmas tree. There were a few carefully packed away glass balls to go on it as well. No lights though. The cabin didn’t have electricity… nor indoor plumbing for that matter. We did have a deep freeze which was stored at the neighbours place who ran a generator. I knew mom would buy real butter to make shortbread and there would be a box or two of mandarin oranges. Dad would pick out a mixed assortment of unshelled nuts and a jar of green olives stuffed with red pimento. Mom would slice slivers of both her dark and light Christmas cakes that had been curing for months. She had measured us up and sewn new flannel pyjamas for each of us on the old treadle sewing machine. There are several kinds homemade pickles and jams. There are small packages from our grandparents and one small gift each from mom and dad to go under the tree. The deer meat was thankfully finished and skillfully cut and wrapped packages of half a pork and a hindquarter of beef are organized in the freezer for the rest of the winter.
Most importantly, dad was home and teasing mom and then alternately teasing my two younger brothers and myself. The small cabin bubbled with laughter and good cheer. These small things mattered most when I was seven years old and these things matter most today at sixty-five years old.
So let’s light a candle, turn on the lamps early and count our blessings as we find and remember small things that matter to give to others during this holidays season.
Note: I felt that these paintings sketches by Walter Fredrick Osborne had just the right feel to accompany this story so I tucked them in even though they are from about 50 or so years earlier than the story and painted in rural Ireland instead of rural British Columbia, Canada.
ALL THE VERY BEST OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON
I hope you have enjoyed this latest issue and this past year of “Terrill Welch by herself.” Your subscription will be up for renewal in the New Year and I hope to be able to offer you another year of special and unique content in 2024. Welcome to new paid subscribers as well! May you all be inspired by these “behind the scene” glimpses into the everyday life and considerations of my art practice. Your support is always greatly appreciated!
Also, I hope you are enjoying the new Just Art Calendar. Do keep in mind that, with your paid subscription, you can request one high resolution image of a painting included in the 2024 Just Art Calendar to print at a your convenience through a print shop of your choosing using a limited license that will be provided at the time of your request. These can be requested at anytime during 2024. You welcome to wait until December 2024 to make your request once you have seen all of the images. Or alternatively, if you are sure a specific painting image is to your liking, you can make your request right away.
As usual, David and I have set aside a bit for donations to help those that are less fortunate during these difficult times. The sales of my paintings, paid subscriptions and purchases of prints and products during this past year definitely makes this easier to do. So thank you!
Even with significant global unrest, climate uncertainty and economic instability, the most important daily and weekly resilience practices for me remain long walks in the woods or down by the sea, painting and sharing in your company and those of my partner, family and friends. With this in mind, I wish you all the very best of the holidays and Happy New Year!
It is time to say goodbye for now. Thank you so much for all your comments, shares, encouragement and patronage in 2023. I look forward to connecting with you again in 2024!
Warm regards
Terrill 👩🎨🎨❤️
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