06/26/2020
She arrives at Morningstone at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday to catch the mists and morning light on Village Bay, Terrill Welch, she whom I first knew as book-club-friend and only later as artist. I had asked her to paint the view as a surprise for Greg.
Terrill knew that I love to gaze over the waters of the Bay, to the Point and the Pass, at the shifting light over Galiano and Prevost and Salt Spring. How I wonder: Before me, what have others seen through the centuries and millennia? What was their view?
Two of these were Portuguese John Silva and his Cowichan wife Louisa Haloowaat who were living on Village Bay in 1881 when their young children, William and Isabella, drowned after their canoe overturned at the mouth of Active Pass.
The Silva’s granddaughter’s granddaughter recently told me the Saanich (W̱SANEĆ) story of Orca (KELȽELOMEĆEN). We call them our brothers and sisters, she said, because they were once people like us. Another story: that when people are lost at sea, Orca finds them and safely carries them to her village home in the Deep. Where they, too, become whales. When Orca comes near, our lost loved ones are speaking.
At the mouth of the Pass, Terrill paints a family of Orca. And this morning, she brings over the finished work, “Morning Promise Village Bay.” Meaningful in all of its dimensions. We are so blessed to have Terrill (and her gallery!) right here on Mayne Island. Thank you, artist and friend.
