Jane Welsh is a professional artist whose paintings and sculptures are inspired by nature and the human form. Jane has also used painting to express her environmental and political concerns around climate change and the inaction of leaders.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jane Welsh through Flourish: The Art of Creative Living back when we launched the program in 2015. She took the time to answer my interview questions just before Christmas and I’m so thrilled she did. Getting an insight into her creative life is inspiring! I think you’re going to love it, too.

Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself, your creative story and how you found your way into being an artist.

In mid-high school, I got a new art teacher and I liked her and I think I wanted to impress her. She was very “back seat”, and I think it created a space for me to explore without being judged. I found myself devoting an hour to my drawing homework, instead of rushing through it, and I was impressed with what I could do if I put the time in. I guess I discovered some natural ability for drawing.

My art flourished at high school and it was the one area I loved in an otherwise challenging time. But I had heard fairly negative things about art college, and I guess I was encouraged to go after a more “sensible career”.

So I went after my second interest and got a Science Degree, Biochemistry major, and after a year of travel, I reluctantly returned to do a Post Grad Diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics… all the while I knew I was an artist inside and it would be a matter of time until I had the courage to claim that.

I only lasted full time as a Dietitian for a year and gradually pared back my hours to allow for more art on the side. In my early 30s, I heard that artists at the Eumundi Markets were doing well, so I decided to move from Brisbane to the Eumundi area, and got a stall at the markets with my eclectic mix of paintings and sculpture… I saw it as my artistic apprenticeship. I didn’t sell much, to begin with, until I found my niche.

Interestingly, it coincided with me finishing my last contract as a part-time nutritionist… it felt very much like “jump and the net will appear’’. The first weekend that I did not have a job to fall back on, I took orders for a few thousand dollars worth of paintings.

My niche became realistic portraits of kids playing candidly on a beach, what I called my “beach portraits”. I took the photos when requested by a family, and picked the best photo of each child to work from. These kept me busy and in demand for many years. As well as this work, I painted abstracts and nudes, that sold now and then but never enough to leave the portrait work behind as I had hoped.

Once I had kids I became the breadwinner and my partner was the home dad. For a few years, I just focused on the beach portraits as I knew there would be money at the end. Three years later, my creativity was struggling. I had lost my joy of creating for fun… the expectation of money coming with my art seemed to take over.

Perhaps I just needed a break but I pushed on and eventually, I realised I was blocked. It was like all the joy had gone, and I was filled with fears and doubts about creating. I felt blocked with painting for almost a decade. In that time I began teaching clay sculpture for beginners, and that has been a beautiful journey, supporting other people’s creativity, and witnessing that the doubt is part of the process for most people.

What do you love most about it?

I think my favourite part of being creative is the ability to create something from “nothing” or blobs of paint or lumps of clay. Sometimes it feels like being a magician, and that is just so exciting.

I also love that my work can move people, whether it is seeing an expression of love in faces, or joy in seeing the beautiful curves of a nude, or the sense of movement or stillness in an abstract, or my more confronting political satire work that asks people to question the status quo.

And what are some of the challenges?

Wow, I have had many challenges… and most of them have been in my head! I guess the 3 biggest ones I have had are doubt, dealing with ‘’rejection” (also known as not selling “enough”) and procrastination. I think every creative person knows the self-doubt one, and it often trips me up. Often I won’t start creating as I doubt if it is “the right” artwork to start.

Usually, in the middle of every painting, there is a murky point where I doubt I can “get it” this time… it has taken me many years, but I now know that this is completely normal and part of the creative process.

Disappointment in not selling is a hard one… basically it is facing rejection and that is not easy. For years I demanded my art to cover all my expenses, but after reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert I have come to appreciate the benefits of an alternative income and my part-time job now gives me a freedom that is greatly appreciated.

Though of course, it is a fine balance with having enough time to get creative.

In the last few years, I have deeply yearned for a boss or mentor… just someone who cares whether I get over my doubt and procrastination and start creating. Being self-motivated when no-one is expecting anything from you can be tough. I giggle too at the irony of how many people would love to ditch their boss and be free to create.

Your concern for the environment and political climate are very evident in your paintings. I’d love if you could please share about your motivations behind your recent series of works.

I have always loved nature, and I feel most happy in the countryside surrounded by trees and animals. Being a procrastinator, and getting stuck on facebook at times has meant that I became aware of so much destruction of our natural world. With my background in Science, I understood Climate Change and that we are all inter-dependent, and biochemically very similar… we can’t keep trashing our natural world with agricultural chemicals that kill, removing massive amounts of forests, and burning so much fossil fuels, to name a few.

The clincher for me was when I took my family overseas to rural Bali, and we snorkelled and saw bleached coral when swimming in an ocean that felt like a warm bath. There were so many beautiful fish, and other creatures and yet we could see their habitat dying. That night I woke with a heavy heart and this image of all these animals hovering around my head saying ‘’what about us, where will we live?”

In the following months, I continued to observe our governments pushing for massive new coal mines of low-grade coal, and the more I learnt, the angrier I became. Whilst the world is trying to de-carbonise, our country seemed hell-bent to keep growing our coal exports and add to Climate Change.

I have been a follower of, and a donor to, Treesisters for years, a charity set up about a decade ago with a mission to reforest the tropics and empower women. I was encouraged by them, to have a big emotional purge, to really feel all the grief and allow it fully. I did this one evening and at the same time had a huge urge to paint these fish and their SOS call. It happened to coincide with a time when I felt blocked and thought “I just need to paint for me, it does not matter what about, just paint”.

So I painted my first protest painting showing the reef creatures hovering around the heads of our current Prime Minister and the owner of the proposed new coal mine Mr Adani, whilst they hold gold bars and stand on bleached coral. It felt good to finally be doing something about this issue with my art and to share on social media and at events, along with information that raises awareness.

As they say, a picture can say a thousand words, and it can be a hook to read more words and learn something.

I have continued to do these political paintings, not to sell, but it is often when I feel utterly compelled. Having focused on love and beauty in my artwork for decades, working in the sphere of anger, angst, and even shaming these politicians can leave my feeling uneasy. I have learnt I need to balance this with positive and loving works that rejoice in the beauty of nature, this lead to my new series “Hinterlove” and “Gaia”.

Hinterlove captures trees and waterlilies from above and below water… so very beautiful they are. My Gaia series has just begun, my first 2 paintings show a woman (Mother Earth) with her hair made of landscape with animals inhabiting, and she is within our ocean habitat… I just had to get the ocean element in there somehow.

It is beautiful to be creating from a place of love and I know this is the healing from my creative block, instead of painting what I think will sell, I am learning to follow my heart, follow love or anger, and trust it.

How did you develop your skills?

I am a self-taught artist, I have always learnt how to create by just having a go. Of course, my high school art education was a good start, exposing me to acrylic painting, and working in clay, carving timber. Other mediums like oil paints and pastels, I just bought some and started playing.

When I felt really blocked with painting, around 2015, I decided to enrol in some online training and that year I signed up to Flourish. The course helped me get going, supported me emotionally to get over the humps, and I guess gave me permission to use up resources… as silly as that sounds. Gradually over the years, the block is thinning, the fears are still there, but I can get over them, and love painting so much, that I wonder how I was ever scared of it.

What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone wanting to deepen their relationship with their creativity?

I think the best advice for anyone wanting to create is just pick a medium and start playing. Just have a go, see it as an experiment, imagine yourself as a small child, let go of whether it turns out “good” or “bad”, and just see what happens when you move colours around or make all sorts of different lines.

Trust what happens, don’t judge, it’s ALL good… any creative flow is good, you are opening the channels. And do lots, buy cheap materials if you need to, and create lots, so you can be a bit detached with each one.

Eventually, something flows on its own and you may find the best stuff comes out when you are least trying. I also love how Nicola talks about the closed door, just creating for ourselves… that helps me to let go of the expectation that got in my way for so many years.

Where can we connect with you?

Website: http://www.janewelshart.com.au
Instagram: jane_welsh_art
Facebook page: jane.welsh.art

Thank you so much for sharing your creative life with us, Jane!

Flourish: The Art of Creative Living is open for registration now for the 2020 intake, for a short time. If you would like to make creativity a priority in your life this year, I would be honoured to paint with you and support you in making that intention come true. Please explore the program and details about this fun-filled, supportive, year-long creativity school, right here.

Jane Welsh - Inspiring Creative Stories