Terrill Welch by herself - issue #20 Long Days of Summer
Summer is pressing warm against us here on the Southern Gulf Islands. For the most part, the temperatures are still cool overnight which makes for wonderful dreams as the night air drifts up from valley through our large open windows. I have dug out my one pair of shorts and a sleeveless top for holiday daytime occasions. We have opted for an old fashion laying-low-at home summer vacation this year from July 12-26th. This means turning pages in thick books while curled up in a chair or sitting under the trees or lounging on a sandstone beach.
It means strolling along the hiking trails without gathering painting references or worrying about being there when the light will be at its best.
It means sitting longer than usual with the waves rolling in green from a summer algae bloom.
It means anticipating plump pea pods that are growing in our tall cedar planters.
It means checking three times a day to see if there are tomatoes ripe enough to pick for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
It means taking my time with the few work tasks I still must do, like writing this newsletter and sharing the Opulent Art Gallery international summer exhibition for Artsy artists that includes my “Late August Morning” abstract painting.
And, it also means getting my application in for consider to the MA Fine Art programme. Yes, I decided to go ahead with this after all. More about this in my story later in this issue.
Whatever I do during these fourteen days of vacation, I have promised myself that the activities will register high on my enjoyment scale. I have not been able to take any real summer time off work since before the spring of 2020. We had to get creative this year because David is not doing well with travelling. However, our home vacation seems like an excellent solution and maybe the most conducive to increasing resilience and revitalization. We shall give it our best effort at the very least!
So, where to begin in this issue? Let’s see if my random thoughts can organize themselves into something coherent...
WHAT HAS SOLD
This year is a little different that any previous years in the area of art sales. Usually, I find homes for many small paintings and maybe only a very few medium and large paintings. Not this year. Of the 12 paintings that have either sold or been commissioned the many more than usual are medium to large. This includes the five works sold as a result of the 20 day special offer as you can see in the image below.
The bottom line for revue seems to be about the same as in the past and is easily on track to be within the last seven year average. But it is not the same story when I look at the details. I don’t know what to make of it and have no idea whether it is a one off year or the start of a new trend. Either way, I am most grateful for the ongoing patronage and support.
WHAT IS NEW OFF OF MY EASEL
I have three new paintings ready for your consideration. One is a seascape of Oyster Bay highlighting reflections in the water…
Artist notes: I set up the easel just before eight in the morning. The tide was going out fast so there was no time to waste. An hour later, the painting was mostly there and I was cold from standing in the shade facing a soft northwest wind. I took the painting back to the studio and two days, still feeling like the tide was receding before I could finish, it is done.
The other two are part of the still life “Summer of Flower” series.
Artist notes: A compressed peony invites us in while feathery wisps of devil-in-the-bush flowers gather around weighted by a deep purple pincushion flower that is then harmonizes into a whole with vines of sweet peas. It is close to the final week of June and just past the longest day of the year. Ever so briefly we pause.
Artist notes: The oils were like warm butter even in the shade of the side deck where I painted with a soft breeze coming up from the valley below. I had decided on the turquoise from one of my seascapes for the background that would stabilize the bouquet while using a harmonious weighty fabric below. At some point my bunch of flowers left my peripheral view and only the painting remained. Brushstrokes were added and then taken away and then more were added until I lost the light to the point it wasn’t wise to keep going. In the morning a few additions were made and the ends of marks tucked in until there was nothing left to do except declare it done.
I love how these three new still life paintings look together…
The one at the bottom is off to art collectors for consideration. I will let you know how it makes out next issue.
WHAT I AM READING THIS SUMMER DURING MY VACATION
The first book I have mentioned before I think and I am reading it for the second time - Circling the Sun by Paula McLain, 2015 who is also author of The Paris Wife. Both are excellent reads!
Second, is The Art of the Common Place by Wendell Berry which is a collection of his Agrarian Essays published 2002.
Finally, I just received Etty - the letters and diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943 that wasn’t published in English until 2002. I found this book because of a quote I mentioned in the previous issue which is worth sharing again:
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.”
These three books are very different from each other and yet, they all have a depth of content and richness of character that I most crave in a good read. As you might guess, none are particularly “light” reading.
A STORY OF DISCOVERY - My Relationship with Education - it’s complicated!
Doubled over and extending my upper body into the cavernous space beyond what might be considered comfortable, I find the box of important documents! The box is in the loft under the eaves behind a collection of stored paintings. After the one hundredth time of changing my mind about whether or not to apply to the MA in Fine Art programme, I am forging ahead. Leafing through various divorces documents, old resumes and job applications I come to the envelope with my academic records.
The first one I pull out is a water-stained adult education certificate stating I attended a course in oil painting of twenty hours in the night school year of 1972 - 73. I would have been fourteen years old - some 52 years ago now. I remember taking the course (and several other adult oil painting classes before graduating high school). I didn’t remember that I had a certificate to prove it.
Next, I brushed quickly past a Certificate of Achievement stating I had successfully completed a course in High School Driver Education in 1975.
Following this, I find my “Dogwood” which in British Columbia means I completed my Secondary School Graduation Requirements in June of 1976.
I pause and for a long moment that last year of high school seems to rip the seal off of my tranquil day. I left the farm shortly after my 17th birthday and moved into town with friends while continuing to work part-time so I could pay rent and buy groceries during that final year of high school. I had already been working every summer and every holiday since the summer I turned twelve. So, at the time it seemed like a reasonable plan. I look at the grades on the statement and remember how I just barely made it over the line. If I had been required to make it all work for another three months past June things, would have imploded.
I made it with an “A” in art 11 and 12, a smattering of “B”, “C+”, “C” marks and two “P” for “pass” marks to round things out. One was in Chemistry 11. I remember the teacher calling me in and saying he would give me a “P” if I promised to never take another Chemistry class - ever! I have kept my promise. And, I graduated. I made it!
This was the beginning of an ongoing complicated relationship with education where there always seemed to be more on my plate than what might be considered reasonable as I stretched and continue to stretch to learn. As a result, I have come to understand that what seems reasonable and what is possible are not the same thing.
I find records of college courses in Early Childhood Education that I started as a single parent while pregnant with my son at 19 years old that continue at two other colleges and were completed while pregnant with my daughter before ending a marriage on grounds of physical and mental cruelty. There are certificates in Reality Therapy which was the foundation approach using in a parenting program I help design for families at high risk of their children being placed in foster care.
Finally, I find what I am looking for! My official transcript for my undergraduate degree that started at the New Caledonia College in Prince George during 1985 and finished in the summer of 1990 and 541.49 miles (871.45 km) away at the University of Victoria.
During the years of working in my undergraduate degree, I was divorced a second time and either worked full time and went to school half time or the reverse… with two young children in my sole care. I look at these two pages of the transcript document and there is mostly an overwhelming memory of exhaustion! In the final summer session, I completed a whole year’s worth of courses that came after a spring semester where my daughter broke her arm at school and my son survived a grim experience with a ruptured appendicitis. My parents had taken the children for me when they were finished their school year. At the end of summer and after completed my last exam for my degree, I drove up the province with a car I had recently purchased and a couple of friends driving a moving van loaded with all of my belongings. When I reached my parent’s farm, my mom had badly broke her ankle the week before requiring heroic efforts by my children to get her an ambulance after she had crawled from the field to the house and then they helped my sister with caring for my mom and the farm. My father was away at work. The children galloped to the car on their long pre-teen summer brown bare legs as I drove in. With big traumatized eyes they said they wanted to leave right away. I calmed them down and let them know it would be a few days before we could settle into our new place in Prince George and that we would have to stay and help their grandmother for a bit yet. My chest was tight. My voice was hoarse. This had nothing to do with finally making it back up the province or the family circumstances. It had been like that for over a week. After sleeping propped up on pillows for the night, my sister drove me the hour back to town the next day and I went to the doctor. I had pneumonia. But I did it! I had my undergraduate degree with a major in Sociology and a miner in Women’s Studies. Work for me and school for the children started the following week.
With a pang of regret, I slide past the next documents related to my “withdrawal in good standings” after almost completing a Graduate degree in Gender Studies. That was between 1997 - 99. A job transfer into management for the Provincial Government that took me back to Victoria disrupted my completion of this degree. The hours were long and the pressure high during those next few years in Victoria. I finally left my position as the provincial director for the Violence Against Women and Regional Programs Branch in the spring of 2001. My heart was worn thin from the recent end of an eight year relationship and years of working in the Social Justice field. I was going to change direction and that Master’s degree in Gender Studies was no longer desired or necessary.
My fingers keep turning up the tips of the papers in the envelope. Next, there is a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching in 2003.
Of all things! The first month of this program, I traveled with David in Peru and would do my school work in internet cafes! Still, every thing got done and I successfully completed the certificate. I then worked as a leadership coach specializing in women’s leadership until 2009 when David had his serious stroke and it was no longer possible. By 2010, I was working full time as an artist and landscape painter. And the rest most of you know because you have been part of this journey, including that during the past two years, I have audited “Contemporary Landscape Now”, “Paint Like an Artist” and “The Canadian Landscape” painting courses through the Vancouver Island School of Art.
Now, as of Monday, I have applied to the MA in Fine Art Programme with its online delivery and part time hours that will allow me to keep the business going and still take care of David and I. It should be possible, yes? Of course it is! There is a 2 month break between each of the three four month sections of the programme. This is what will make it work… in my semi-retirement. 😉
UNTIL NEXT TIME
There is something about just saying the words “I am on vacation” that make even the bits that still must be done feel extra pleasurable. We seriously considered renting some place on another island for a week and then quickly came to the conclusion that there is no place more enjoyable to be in the summer (or any other time of year for that matter) than our home. On the first morning of our old fashion home holiday, when David was still blinking awake and focused on managing to get sitting up in bed, I wished him a happy first day of vacation! His belly laugh and the total expression of delight on his face assured me that we had made the right decision. As you can see, from a previous image, I have my books all stacked on the great room table in easy reach. My brushes lay quiet in a clean studio and will be patient except for the next still life which won’t wait until the end of my holidays. I feel like a flower unfurling in the summer sun with a big stretch that requires nothing more than to just be. I wish for you to also have some of this kind of time over the summer. Whether it is a home vacation or a vacation home holiday, I can highly recommend slipping off line and into the gentle routine of long days of summer sunshine with the sea, the woods and your gardens.
All the best until we connect again in August!
Terrill 👩🏻🎨🎨❤️
P.s. If you would like to comment on this issue and share your own thoughts you are more than welcome. Also, feel free to email me directly at anytime and reach out to tawelch@shaw.ca as I am always pleased to hear from you.
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