Terrill Welch by herself issue #7 Learn to Lose Well
We could give up. We could walk away in defeat. In fact, in the face of grinding adversity, we could never even try to live a meaningful life. Most often though, we don’t give up, do we? In his recent documentary, Still, Michael J. Fox concludes that “the future is the first and the last thing you run out of.” How absurdly obvious I thought. Yet it stuck with me. Fox is exemplary at showing us how to lose well. Fox does this not just by getting out of bed with great difficulty and going to work everyday but also through reciprocity as it is defined by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass.
We practice reciprocity “through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art and in everyday acts of practical reverence.”
If we watch this documentary and connect to Fox’s story about his life and acting career with Parkinson and his way of telling about it, we find acts of reciprocity are like shining diamonds on a freshly washed beach. Fox’s grit, drive and humbleness are strung together in every stumbling step that propels him forward until he crashes and must gather himself up again, often with the help and support of others. Yet, he continues.
Fox doesn’t do this living thing alone even if he is unequivocally the only one that can do his living.
Recently, a friend lost her son, another her brother and our small 1,300 strong community lost two men who made a bad choice. All of these men were somewhere between the ages of 45 and 60 years old. Then we lost another community member suddenly this past week. I am not sure of his age or the reason. Simply put, they all ran out of future. Each of these deaths touched my life in different ways and were all during this past month. “Too soon” I mumble. It was too soon for them and too soon for their families and their friends. Yet, here we are.
In Francis Weller’s book The Wild Edge of Sorrow he introduces what he calls the five gates of grief. The first of Weller’s grief gates I was introduced to by Peter Fenwick in the The Art of Dying. It goes something like this - Everything you love, you will lose. You get to hold onto nothing, not even what your consider yourself. Everything goes. Conceptually, this is much easier to appreciate than to actually understand, until we must, either for ourselves or through the loss of another. Weller looks at grief this way - “the work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and be stretched large by them.” This past month, I can feel this stretch.
As usual, I turn to nature like that which is captured in the images I have dispersed throughout this musing. Then I reach for my paint brushes which I will get to shortly. Finally, I read poetry out loud. This I will share next. These are my tools for facing most of my challenging times. I purchase a book of poems The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón an award winning American poet after I heard Limón reading her poems while she was being interviewed on CBC radio by Eleanor Wachtel for the “Writers and Company” broadcast. Here is the link to the hour long interview just in case you want to listen for yourself:
CBC
Being in nature, standing at my easel painting and reading poetry are my most grounded practices for not being alone when faced with sorrow. These practices I know intuitively and are also fortified by seeking out opportunities for what Francis Weller calls “primary satisfactions.” Primary satisfactions are experiences we can easily recognize because they cost very little (if anything) other than our time - such as dinner with friends, sharing our dreams when we wake up in the morning, sitting with the setting sun and pillow talk while watching the stars.
A primary satisfaction might be recognizable in these few lines of a poem “A Good Story” by Ada Limón’s…
…. But right
now all I want
is a story about human kindness, the way once, when I
couldn’t stop
crying because I was fifteen and heartbroken, he came in
and made
me eat a small pizza he’d cut up into tiny bites until the
tears stopped.
Maybe I was just hungry, I said. And he nodded, holding out the last piece.
The truth is, my rural life gave me self-soothing practices for sorrow first and then introduced secondary human or animal comfort and sharing. However, I eventually find myself in a place where I can share with others, with you, both the sorrows and joys as I am stretched larger by the act of living while recognizing our dying… in others and within myself.
I have good insider information that many of you will be able to relate to my musings and I thank you for staying with and listening as I meander through various thoughts, perspectives and experiences. A painter needs this because the studio is often a silent partner.
Now, I am ready to move on to a quick sketch that is a little different…
NEW WORK
The process for each painting varies slightly depending on the subject and my intentions for the work.
The many shapes and changes in the scale for this work lent itself towards making a charcoal stencil to trace the biggest shapes onto the board before I started painting. This way I could focus on the colours and light in the studio in real time while still knowing where each bit was located in the painting.
Morning in the Studio by Terrill Welch, 12 x 16 inch acrylic on gessobord and in new releases below.
Artist notes: As a landscape painter, my studio is often the last place I want to be on a sunny summer day when I can actually be outside gathering references or plein air painting. This painting is derived from a collage of four of my images that I used as a reference. While standing in the actual studio I was painting, I continued to make further observations. There are elements of an inside view where my brain is gathering everything up that it is experiencing in this space and calling it “my studio” and then leaving me with a painting that only my heart can recognize.
I have a busy studio! There are 27 paintings just hanging about, if we include this new one. Plus there are another 10 or so blank surfaces yet to work on and a work table, four easels, a chair and a stool, various art supplies and many brushes. The floor space of the room is only about 10 x 10 feet. Thankfully the ceiling is around 25 feet high and there are windows on three sides and the forth is open to the kitchen or it would be unbearable! I love it this way though! I love the tension of working inside and wanting to be outside and holding both spaces at the same time while I work.
WORK IN PROGRESS
I am also working on a painting called “Paris in Morning” on a 24 x 20 inch canvas. It has been inspired by my time in Paris in June of 2014. The view is from the top of the Rue Drevet Stairs looking south.
If you go to google and search in “8 Rue Drevet, Paris, France” then go to street view, you will see a similar views to my reference which I link to in the blog post below:
Creative Potager
This is the fourth week in my six week painting course. I took my time with this painting that is partly influenced by my studies about collage but not directly. I am not much of a collage person so after a few attempts, I just picked up my brushes and thought about what it would be like to recreate this view as collage. Particularly as an artist, one must learn to lose well! In the end, I failed miserably at following the instructions but found my way into a process for this work that I have been wanting to paint for nine years. There was a path, just not a very direct one.
“Morning in Paris” by Terrill Welch
24 x 20 inch walnut oil on canvas
Artist notes: I have been up to The Basilica of Sacré Coeur for sunrise. It is mid June so sunrise is early. On my way back I stop just before I get to the top of Rue Drevet Stairs and crunch real low to get my reference image. As soon as I framed the view, I knew I was going to paint it. That was June 15, 2014. I have now painted it and it is June 14, 2023. Nine years later and I can still feel the pleasure of these champagne buildings catching the soft morning light.
The painting is still not dry as I just finished it late on Wednesday. But if you are interested let me know, otherwise I will go ahead and release it once I have the edges painted and a final photograph.
NEW RELEASES
There are a few new paintings ready to release for you. You have your usual exclusive week to consider these five works before they become publicly available. Here you go…
This first one is on hold by a paid subscriber like yourself. However, a final decision has not yet been made so it still might become available. If it is a painting you are interested in, check back in the next few days to see if it has sold.
Artwork Archive
This one is about to have its edges painted but it can still be purchased while we wait for it to dry.
Artwork Archive
And the next three are ready to go to a new home immediately!
Letting the sky fall into our home in the woods…
Artwork Archive
A rather abstract time at the Farmers Market…
Artwork Archive
And hanging out in the studio…
Artwork Archive
NEW SHOW in the Terrill Welch Gallery Pod
There is a new show that opened this week in the Terrill Welch Gallery Pod. Feel free to have a browse as you wish.
Our next Terrill Welch Gallery Pod “Summer” show is fluid and paintings will be added and removed every few days at the whim of the curator/artist. This fluid show is designed to invite you to come by and browse often. By the end of our designated show time, not one painting that was present at the beginning of the show on June 13, 2023 will be present at the end on August 29, 2023. Then a new collection of 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 now 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 private viewing room.
Artwork Archive
WHAT HAS SOLD
Two paintings sold recently. The first is a work by Jennifer Peers and was sold out of ISLAND TIME ART with the support of Vania Williams, the owner of Dragonfly.
The second work that sold was one of mine.
Artwork Archive
UNTIL NEXT TIME
I hope you have enjoyed this combination of writing and photography that introduces these new paintings. I find that I am just now catching up on my personal losses because of the pandemic. It is an odd time of taking stock of what is missing. I am frequently slow to do this kind of processing. So if it feels off beat and out of time, this is my nature. This is what “learn to lose well” is for me. I deal with the immediate demands and then step back and take stock. In this case, it is three years later and one global stress has led to another with climate change being a continuous backdrop to our daily living. Still, I get up, I paint, I study, I read, I watch the news and I visit with David, family and friends and I write this newsletter to you. There is never just one thing in one moment stretching out in a long single file line to be dealt with. We humans are required to hold multiple positions simultaneously… even when we focus on just the present moment and that one thing. Life events are like a cluster of children surrounding us as we wrap an arm around three so they know we are there while we hold eye contact with a fourth child who is crying and attempting to tell us what has happened. I could just stick to the bright bits and the good news. However, this would feel disingenuous because I know I am not alone. These are unsettling times to say the least. I share so that you too know you are in good company. I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments if you wish.
Warm regards and all the best as always,
Terrill 👩🎨🎨❤️
Artwork Archive
Member discussion