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Terrill Welch by herself - issue #26 Sea Landscapes of the Small

Terrill Welch by herself - issue #26 Sea Landscapes of the Small

Where theory, research and practice meeting in overlapping entangled renderings on my canvases is the dominant theme of this past month. One larger canvas and a pair of small studies have been completed while I wrestle with where the theoretical philosophies of Plato and Dōgen meet and separate in my painting practice. I am working 5-6 hours a day five to seven days a week so will not attempt to bring you completely along with me but here are a few of the highlights from my art journal.

Note: Warning, this issue is over 6,000 words. If my studio practice, research and theory study is not of interest to you, skip on through to “WHAT HAS SOLD” and “NEW WORK COMPLETED” after that…

Tuesday, December 31, 2025

I have only a short while to visit Reef Bay. A friend is staying with my husband so I can get groceries and come to gather references. Noon is not my favourite time of day but for the winter months it will work fine. The light is low. The sea is rough and the shells are plenty at the water’s edge. I took a short video and then settled into observing and waiting for moments to present themselves and, as always, they did…

I have my large Canon EOS 70D camera with a Canon zoom lens 70-200mm 1:2.8 IS II USM which in future will be called ”the big camera with the big lens”. My phone camera is an iPhone 11plus pro and is the tool I use most often when gathering references. Both cameras have their strengths and limitations. However, I find them excellent memory aids and an expressive art form all on their own.

I take a few images with both cameras for locational context and briskly walk back to the car.

On the 15 minute, slow 50 km drive home along windy forest-edged rolling roads, I think about how I only consider the physical context of my work for this project as being what is at the seashore. I do not include the drive or having left our strawbale timber frame constructed home with its in floor hot water heat and environmental friendly construction and living. The milk paint on the walls and seven skylights with large windows in three directions creating a seamless connection to the forests and fields around us remain invisible to the history of my work with the exception of my art studio that takes up the sunken room below the open kitchen. I wonder if these aspects of my creative environment matter. I know they matter to our life overall but do they have an impact on how I approach and do my making process? I write this to make this additional physical context visible. 

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Usually on the first day of the year, go out to the edge of the sea on the east side of the island to watch the sunrise. This year it wasn’t possible so I went to Reef Bay later in the day. The cold air caught in the wind and sliced into my forehead and bare hands. I knew I wasn’t going to last long but it was great to be there. It is a little later in the afternoon. On this day my husband has managed his walker around the soft ground of the house and out to the car that is parked beside the gallery pod at the gate. We have come to the beach with a mocha for him and a peppermint tea for me and along with muffins from the bakery. We are pleased to be back doing some of our favourite things such as car picnics that allow him to sit and view the water and me as I walk along the shore gathering references. I am getting more time to focus on work as he heals from a fractured hip and regains his mental clarity to his previous level following the trauma of the break, surgery, opioids for pain and the confusion of the hospital. His brain injury from a previous large stroke left us unsure if he could regain his baseline. We are relieved that it has come to pass. I am still required to provide additional support and do extra work overall. But it is much better now than the first few weeks and my wellbeing has returned where I can think and hold new information unrelated to David’s health needs. I can feel a new normal settling back into my art practice and studies. 

I meander to the tidal edge and linger a little in the cold. It is good just to be alive and know that the people and places that I love are doing well. I settle low to the ground and gather just a few images with my phone. 

Friday, January 3, 2025

I have been reading and thinking and thinking and reading for the past few days. Some of that thinking is about the theories of Dōgen and Plato. I have gone from secondary sources to translations of primary texts in my literature review. 

I go for a long hike down the central trail of Edith Point, a public conservation point that has the sea on each side with glimpses only on the north of the Strait of Georgia until the trail reaches the actual point. This is familiar land and shoreline to me. 

I have been hiking the 4.5km return trails for just about 18 years.

Still, I pause to visit with special arbutus trees while mentally making inventories of previous paintings that have yet to include this beauty. 

As I walk, I ponder. There is too much material to integrate immediately into my art practice and cover in a 3,000 word contextual study. I will have to choose and summarize the most important aspects for this point on my journey. 

Saturday, January 4, 2025

In the morning I paint red acrylic grounds on seven small 12 x 10 inch canvases for painting sketches and one larger 20 x 24 inch canvas. I have the beginnings of an idea to paint the seven smaller canvases as a series where one is a progression from the other. I am not exactly sure how this will work yet but I want the canvases ready regardless. I have again chosen the red ground for how it will provide depth under the overpainting of blues, violets and whites.


In the afternoon, we again go out and take the recycling to the nonprofit processing centre for the island’s extensive recycling efforts. After this, it is to the bakery for car picnic supplies and then to Reef Bay. I again step to the land and sea edge and squat low to the ground with my phone camera. This time I am invited to notice individual shells scattered along the edge of the tide line. 

These references, gathered over these past few days, are what I call photographic sketches. They are collected as sensory and memory aids and for exploring possibilities as they present themselves in the immediate present. I have no illusions about their purity and acknowledge that they are deeply entangled within the limits of the devices and within my life experiences, context and past gatherings and my musings about what use they will be in the future. Still, I want to collect them and desire them for their own record keeping capacities. 

January 5, 2025

For the past week, I have been reading around my primary interest in my painting practice. In my painting practice, I am clear about how I apply the Zen theory of seeing with the whole body and mind and move through this awareness to be able to function in the ordinariness of our lives as discussed by John Daido Loori in The Zen of Creativity. (P. 67-81 Loori, 2007) However, in Plato’s theory of Forms or ideas, viewed as ultimate reality compared to everything we experience through our senses which is considered not true reality because it is flawed or an imitation of the ultimate abstract reality - we create, such as paintings, from our sensory information. For Plato this creation is further flawed as a copy or representation of a copy and therefore a poor imitation of reality and hence not particularly useful to furthering knowledge or understanding the truth. Using Plato’s theory of Forms, as it is discussed in Book 10 of the Republic, a painting doesn’t give us the thing itself but a poor copy from one perspective of a reflection or shadow of the thing itself. (Part 1,11 Rudd, 2022) Do these two theories have anything in common? Could one or both of these ways of thinking be useful in my painting practice where my intent is to paint the sea floor in such a manner that the paintings can instil inner peace, well-being and resilience? After all, these two philosophies come from different times and different cultural values and circumstances. However, both theories have long histories of influences on how humans engage in the act of living which includes the making of paintings. I am neither a master of Zen Buddhism nor a scholar of Plato. I am a humble painter of land and sea wishing to explore what is happening in my making practice. I seek to understand why I do what I do and determine if it is of value and important to pursue.

In identifying theory that currently applies to my practice, I started with the Zen theory of the whole mind and body and then moving through to ordinary life. In my art practice, I start with releasing my mind and body towards observation of my subject or the things I have selected to observe and/or that ask to be observed, in this case the sea floor at the point where the land and sea meet. In doing this, I have observed that I have a strong sense of inner peace as I get low to the ground and spend time with the shapes of seashells, bits of sticks, rocks and the water of the sea. This sensation is influenced not just by the shapes I see but also by the smells, sounds and textures or my whole full body and mind sensory experiences. Past experiences trickle into the present experience. I have an idea about what all days of the sea floor where I am looking have in common. Zen theory suggests that I resist these generalizations and seek to observe what is specific in this specific moment of time. To do this, I come back to my breath and I release all notions of what I think I know as possible. This is not a pure practice of perfection but rather a continuous practice of observation. After a time (usually 10 to 30 minutes), I include my camera and video recording practice into my observation practice. I then take my memory of these experiences and my reference information to my home studio. The exception to this is if I choose to stay and paint in the moment en plein air on location. In either situation the process of painting is similar, I consider my composition, the intention for my painting and then pull in my memory and references, be they photographic, video or still in front of me if I am painting on location. I set out my pigments in a muscle memory pattern in my palette. I take a long deep breath while standing at the easel and begin without thought or reason while holding the intention deep within the core of my being and releasing it to the universe in such a way that I paint with my whole body and mind through to my ordinary life of standing with a brush in hand, pigments on the palette and surface set up on easel. I have painted long enough that many of the critical decisions one must make do not require a conscious effort. It could possibly compare to how we drive as an experienced driver where we know our vehicle and can shift gears, stop and start and turn again and again until we get to our destination while placing our intention on inner peace, the beauty of the day and the traffic and what our friend is saying sitting in the passenger seat beside us. While doing this, we can come back to our breath again and again bringing our attention to the wholeness of all and moving through our awareness to the specific moment of driving. This is what painting is like for me. The paintings are therefore significant and important as a practice for living a better life and sharing that better life with others through both their process of making and in the painting that is left behind. Painting is a physical thing and also the act of painting, breath by breath, brushstroke by brushstroke in an attempt to get to the essence of the subject and the essence of myself which are the same and part of the whole of oneness. A key aspect to this thinking is imperfection because if I were able to do this practice perfectly, I would reach enlightenment and no longer have need of a physical body to live my ordinary life. Therefore, the importance of practice is both the beginning and the end. Practice is the result that is repeated until one can no longer practice… when the breath remains only an exhale. At present, this is my painting practice. 

What Plato offers in the theory of Forms in relation to painting comes from a different perspective and way of thinking than Zen theory of mind, body and seeking enlightenment. 

User, maker, imitator – three distinctions in art made by Socrates where the making of the art is completely independent of the excellence of the object or thing and its value to the user or the maker of that thing. So the problem for Plato with art is that it encourages us to focus on the representation of the thing rather than the thing itself and encourages desires and passions that let these rule over intellect and logic, resulting in art being dangerous to the state of the Republic because it is taking us further away from the true ultimate nature of the thing. 

In Plato’s theory, the physical realm is flawed and changing and so is that which we see and experience through our sensory systems. The spiritual realm is the constant and unchanging perfect Forms and ideas, and is that which we cannot see. (P. 131-137 Cornelius, 2022) In considering Plato’s theory in relation to my painting practice of the sea floor, Plato would view it an inferior copy in my physical realm that I wish to make a representation of or a copy of a copy to explore or instil inner peace, well-being and resilience through the practice of painting and viewing the resulting paintings. Inner peace, well-being and resilience cannot be seen and are abstract ideas and might possibly be considered Forms in the theory of Plato’s spiritual realm. From this theoretical position, Plato might say to me – painter, don’t let your passion and desire for painting this physical land and sea distract you from your rational wisdom in seeking inner peace, wellbeing and resilience directly. My most immediate answer to Plato would be that my heart always wins… and there goes the good of the Republic with every brushstroke. So why do it? The answer seems to be in the human innate desire to share. Rational thoughts about ideal Forms are difficult for me to share without the language of paint. My best learning in this human body is accomplished by doing and experiencing my physical realm and sharing it with others through my conversations with land and sea in the expressive language of paint. This is then where Dōgen Zenji (1200 – 1253)  and Zen Buddhism meet with Plato (424/423 – 348 BC) in my painting practice. Carol S. Gould explores the differences and similarities of these two philosophies:

For Dōgen, enlightenment requires meditation and attentive sensitivity to the details of daily life, whereas for Plato, enlightenment requires intellectual dialogue, contemplation of abstract concepts, and ignoring quotidian tasks and details. Both thinkers begin from the same point, namely, skepticism about the phenomenal world and the precision of natural language. (P. 170 Gould, 2009)

Both writers, however, use paradox in their work, and it is the confrontation with paradox that both poets find necessary for enlightenment. So, one must use poetry in order to abandon it. For both, then, the poet’s aesthetic ability is key to engaging the audience members and then to persuading them to reject the aesthetic in order to gain enlightenment. For Plato and Dōgen alike, the poet can guide the audience away from the aesthetic by using paradox. (P. 173 Gould, 2009)

Plato rhetorically leads us beyond the words and texts to increasingly abstract levels of understanding until we reach the limits of language, and, all being well, have a rationally intuitive grasp of the Forms. This is a theory of reality consisting of unchanging, eternal elements, each of which is self-sufficient. Plato takes it as axiomatic that the knowing self is distinct from what is known. Numerical plurality is therefore real for Plato. Dōgen rhetorically makes us look closely at the world of particularity so as to intuit the oneness and fluidity of reality and the illusion of the separateness of our egos. He therefore denies the duality between consciousness and the object. (P. 174 Gould, 2009)

Both Dōgen and Plato caution against perceptual error or that things may not be as they appear to be. However, in my painting practice, this doesn’t mean I shouldn’t study the phenomenal world. It only means I should do so knowing that I could be tricked or that my observations can contain observed falsehoods that must be exposed and examined. In this way, both approaches to knowledge and practices for living a life may offer insight into how I approach my painting practice. I am now off to paint before continuing to examine further the usefulness of these diverse theories to my practice. 

Reference List: 

Cornelius, A. (2022) ART AS IMITATION IN PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL APPRAISALResearchGate. unknown. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359258116_ART_AS_IMITATION_IN_PLATO (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

Eihei Dogen (2022) Dogen’s Shobogenzo Zuimonki. Simon and Schuster.

Gould, C. (2009) DŌGEN AND PLATO ON LITERATURE AND ENLIGHTENMENT 1Florida International University, Asian Studies, Japan Studies Review, Volume XIII, pp. 169–185. Available at: https://asian.fiu.edu/jsr/gould-dogen-and-plato-p169.pdf (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

Loori, John Daido (2007) The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. New York: Ballantine Books.

Plato and Jowett, B. (1994) The Republichttps://www.gutenberg.org/files/150/150.txt. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/150/pg150-images.html (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

Rudd, A. (2022) Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter, Oxford University Press eBooks. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192856289.001.0001.

Sunday, January 6, 2025

Today is a studio day. I decided to work flat on the table rather than the easel to do the painting sketches. This is an usual way for me to paint but it is also the most practical because these two surfaces are too small to easily secure side-by-side on my large easel and too large for my small easel. I move the easel around to the end of the table and paint in a direction in the studio I have never done before. It was perfect with the misty filtered light coming in the windows. 

I am still able to stand to paint and use my whole body in the painting process. Taking one of my images as a starting point I begin. 

While I am painting, I cannot help but think that Plato’s cautions about paintings being a copy of a copy that is further removed from his notion of ultimate reality by using my memory and photographic reference prompts. However, he would have the same criticism even if I was standing in front of my subject and painting. I keep thinking that his criticism about imitation and shadows of reality in relation to my inquiry into inner peace, wellbeing and resilience might have some merit. Still, I paint on while holding this intention. I curve the brush around the things we have named shells and feel the sea washing over them under my brush. I work the whole of both canvases.

Without conscious decision, I build up the paint and shapes on the left canvas.

Then I stopped. I have no reason for stopping. I just stopped. Something deep inside me has intervened. I walk away from the studio neither frustrated nor upset or even concerned. I wash my brushes, make a cup of peppermint tea and I start to ponder. What if I do not continue painting in the same manner? What if I try to expose the process of experiencing the sea floor from more than one perspective as if moving my eye and body alongside the rhythm of where the land and sea meet? What might this be like if I did this in a continuous manner with the seven small canvases? 

Monday, January 6, 2025

Could the world views of Dōgen and Plato meet together with the land and sea and my intention for inner peace, wellbeing and resilience somewhere in this making process? What might happen if I do this? Once I get this post up, I shall go back to the studio and see. 

Before I do this, I want to acknowledge to myself that I feel totally inadequate to the task at hand. I know little about philosophy and less about these two individuals and their work. I have only a sketchy understanding of both that has become coupled with a drive to bring what is ordinary in our natural environment to our collective consciousness as something of value to be cherished. Still, I will pick up my brushes and keep painting while I study and learn. I remind myself that new ideas and processes do not often come forth completely developed. They must brew in the rich soup of tidal half thoughts, partial ideas and incomplete processes. This is not only okay, it is necessary and the most useful way forward. 

Sunday, January 12, 2014

As new oil paintings rest on my easel, the passage of time and space between studio and sea seems to narrow with purpose. I have gathered some of this flow in my reference material and the resting point of the works in progress.

Earlier, I shared where I had stopped with this loosely diptych pair of studies…


The week has transitioned between reading about theories of objects and things, human perception, Plato’s constant abstract true reality and Dōgen’s continuous change in the particulars of ordinary life combined with my driving need for immersive time beside the sea and in the studio where I bring my conversations with the sea with me to share on the canvases. There is no doubt about our flawed and limited sensory information. I will expand on the science and specifics of this later on. However, this process of exposing, defining and creating meaning around these observation flaws beside the sea is a mystery that continues to sustain my art practice. It is within this process that I find inner peace, wellbeing and resilience. Still, that act of thinking about sensory experience does, as you will see, have an impact on what perspective I choose and how I curate my conversations with the sea on the shores of Reef Bay onto my canvases.

The following are snippets of observations between the full stop in the studio and the completion to resting of two small studies. In my painting practice “resting” is the place where I have completed all I can in that moment and I am waiting to see if the work demands anything more. I keep the work where I can look at it from time to time out of the corner of my eye. I wait. Then I make a final decision to either change something or call it done/completed/resolved. 

My next step after the full stop was to consider movement and the effects on what we observe and how my eyes try and catch glimpses of objects and shapes that can quickly be categorized and named… even if I get it wrong. My brain will make and hang onto a mistake until further information can refine my observations rather than leave a void. I develop the second canvas with this in mind.


I am disappointed. Now neither canvas works for me, either separate or together. What to do? I could still scrape them and start again. I decide against this and leave them to dry to the touch and return to the sea.

The sun softly lifted a heavy mist down at the bay. It had me thinking about how inner peace, wellbeing and resilience are something we put ourselves in a place to receive and then create from what is available. The three gifts from gratitude are always present and then form from our own making. This takes more effort if the materials are scarce but it is still possible and always necessary.

The midday winter tides are high and the long reef trenches of shells are outside of my reach.

A few days later, I go to sleep in evening thinking about big movements and large landscapes of the sea depicting small areas, something close and intimate and yet grand. I have an idea for my third study and a notion about changing the sea floor perspective from above to beside just as I would with a more expansive geography composition. First, I work on the pair of studies that I had started and continue to paint them together. Now I am more satisfied with the conversation being shared in these two.


I had found a way to attach the two canvases securely together to my small easel. I found I didn’t like working flat on the table at all. My trifocal lenses made it difficult to see properly and there is a glare on the surface that interferes with being able to read the values as I am working. Finally, my lower back complained about being held in the new position for several hours at a time.

I leave them and head for Reef Bay again in the hopes I might find something to practice my new perspective idea.


The tide is still higher than I would like but there are some interesting possibilities to explore.

At first I scan out from the shore.


A floating mussel shell catches my attention.


I drop the phone camera down as low as I can without getting it wet and wait as the sea wash moves back and forth.

Sometimes the seashell is completely covered providing more visual interaction between the sea and sky.

I move a little farther along to a collection of shells just close enough for me to reach. The seaweed flashes back forth with the movement of the tide.

I repeat the low angle perspective tilting the camera out towards an unseen horizon.

Hummm…. let’s go lower yet. There! Time and spacial relationships seem to entangle in the flawed camera rendering of a copy of the landscape depicting the small along the sea shore that is then further distorted in my own viewing as as my human eye and brain scramble to make meaning of what I observe.

This then, and a few more close up captured cousins, will become my muse for my next painting study.

In the meantime, these two studies are resting together and a part.

They do seem to speak well together about my experience and conversation with the sea. Yet, they may need a little more space from each other as if they are two separate paragraphs in the same story rather than one long run on sentence.

“Butter Clamshells Near Shore I Study” by Terrill Welch, 12 x 10 inch walnut oil on canvas. Artist notes: I stare into the winter sea tides and wonder at the rocking of the shells that shift with each incoming and outgoing wave.

“Butter Clamshells Near Shore II Study” by Terrill Welch, 12 x 10 inch walnut oil on canvas. Artist notes: I stare again into the winter sea tides and wonder at the rocking of the shells that shift with each incoming and outgoing wave.

I have no idea if this new line of inquire in perspective of the landscape of the small will be fruitful in my exploration of how nature can instil inner peace, wellbeing and resilience but it is exciting to consider and so I shall.


WHAT HAS SOLD

The past few months have been quieter on the sales front. However, this small commission was completed and sent off to the art collector.

SOLD. “Light on the Trees by Terrill Welch”, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on gessobord.

Artist notes: Inspired by an image taken by an art collector’s daughter on one of her winter runs in the afternoon at Alice Lake near Squamish B.C. and requested to be painted as a small commission for her. Though very seldom, in fact the third in a lifetime of painting, do I take my inspiration from images other than those I take myself. In this case I imagine what it must have been like to run on a trail alongside the lake and catch the a glimpse of the sun playing on the trees across the water. I think about how she came to a full stop and pulled out her phone to capture the moment and then later sent it to her dad who then asked if I would paint this moment for her. It is mysterious to imagine seeing and experiencing a moment through the eyes of another. But I like a good mystery and I am honoured to share my brushes as part of this conversation.

Light on the Trees by Terrill Welch”, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on gessobord.


NEW WORK COMPLETED

Besides the two new works presented in excerpts from my art journal, I finished the larger “A Long Land and Sea Story” 40 x 30 inch acrylic, walnut oil and bone china on wood painting just at the end of the w024. I have left it resting to ensure I am finished with it for now. I believe it is complete but as always reserve the right to go back to it at a later date. Its official finish date will be when I get the edges painted.

The title of this artwork changed along with the impact of its final rendering when the above ground became more figurative in approach while the below ground remained more abstract and flat. The more I worked on the painting, the more powerful the land and sea history became. My original working title “Bennett Bay Middens” somehow became meaningless in relation to the longer story being told. The change from the proposed abstract and figurative elements was more evolving and embedded in my making process. It is an untended surprise from engaging with materials, memory and imagination that feels and seems just right to convey a slice through time.

A Long Land and Sea Story” by Terrill Welch, 40 x 30 inch acrylic, walnut oil and bone china on wood.


Artist notes: Revealed is a vertical slice of earth exposed through erosion in such a way that the most of the surface of the painting has a narrow depth of field, holding space and time in the shapes of the shells and then releasing the viewer into an empty sky. For this work, flat colour is used for the aspects below ground combined that is broken by the symbolic red line and broken china with a more representational illusion of a three dimensional view above ground. The painting contains the notion of a slice of earth exposing the passage of time. I am using the red line to represent climate impacts. Broken china is used to symbolize colonialism. The final colour of sky to represent space and mood. I am asking myself – what does it mean for a white woman of European settler culture in 2024 to paint the eroding Indigenous middens from 4,000 or more years ago on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish People in Canada?


It seems fitting that this is the final painting I complete in 2024 and it will also be the first painting released in 2025. I need a long story such as this right now, one that can take me past the present short days of grey skies and cold damp west coast winter drizzle.


It is easier to comprehend the size of this work if I share it in a digital room view.


I haven’t released this painting yet but I will soon, once I get the edges painted. 😉

I feel the weight of these coming January and early February days. I shall walk the shore of Reef Bay, paint in the studio and read about material methods, research and thinking about things in the book by Sophie Woodward. It is just six short weeks until the days are much longer and the island’s early spring begins to creep to the surface. I have a lot I want and need to do during this time. The annual deep quiet of our island during these weeks and the isolation will assist me with these tasks.  


BEST 12 OF 37 PAINTINGS COMPLETED AND RELEASED IN 2024

As usual on my social media platforms and then in full on the Terrill Welch Artist website I have posted my personal choices of the best twelve paintings of the year. You can explore these and additional end of year highlights at:

Best 12 of 37 Terrill Welch Paintings in 2024
The 2024 painting year has seen Terrill Welch develop two new series with fewer than usual landscape paintings completed in her more familiar compositions. The “Summer of Flowers” series is vibrant…

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

Overall, I can report that David is healing well and getting much more independent with moving around with his walker and doing his daily life tasks. He is even back drying the dishes with me each night! He has checked in with his surgeon and he has started more exercises provided from a video conference with his physiotherapist. We have been out for several car picnics and we are both delighted to be able to get back to doing some of our favourite things together.

As you will surmise from the contents of this post, my school work is taking up most of my brain power and physical creative space. I do love it and enjoy the rigger of it all! I hope you are also finding it interesting to tag along with me. Basically, there is no separation between my regular painting practice and my studies so this is what I have to offer us - be it good, bad or indifferent. I am hoping you find it to be mostly good. Do let me know either way.

The gallery pod has been relatively quiet since we returned home when David was released from the hospital. Still, a few people come by and it is always good to connect. There is an exhibition worthy of a browse if you do wish to come by. There is also a new large painting up on the wall in our local bakery. This seascape painting is an older work from 2013 but it is still a pleasure to see it holding Mayne Island space for viewers.

In addition, the International Opulent Art Gallery that shows my work in partnership with ARTSY has three new paintings to share of my new Sea Floor and Seashell series. This gallery has been extremely proactive in its social media posts of my work and I would really like to support their efforts. One of the things you could do, if you haven’t already, that will make a differences is to create an ARTSY account and then follow my work at:

Terrill Welch - Biography, Shows, Articles & More | Artsy
Explore Terrill Welch’s biography, achievements, artworks, auction results, and shows on Artsy.

In addition, if you share my ARTSY profile with others that you think might be interested so that they can also follow this will help to raise the profile of my work on this international profile. Just a thought. No obligation. I believe in doing what comes easy for us in following and sharing work. Do what works for you. I am only sharing these so you know options and how it will help.

I saw recently that our Japanese Memorial Garden posted that the first snowdrops are blooming. We are already noticing that the days are starting to quickly lengthen. I am so ready for this early shift to more daylight. We have had a lot of rain, mist and mild damp days with brief periods of sunshine mixed with clouds. It is typical winter weather for us and most welcomed.

I wish for you to find at least a few moments each day for gratitude and inner peace in a time of increasing global chaos and hardship. We each need to do our part and this is what I have to offer us for now.

Thank you as always for your ongoing interest, your support in so many different ways and your patronage, none of which do I take for granted. Thank you for everything!

All the best as always and warm regards,

Terrill 👩‍🎨❤️🎨

P.s. all back issues of “Terrill Welch by herself” are now publicly available. This means that when there is a list at the bottom of each publication about other issues that you might like to read, everyone should be able to now access all of these.

And, as always, you can view all of my available work at:

Art Collection from Terrill Welch
View the full collection of artwork from Terrill Welch