Meet Trish Harding | Fine Art Painter and Art Instructor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Trish Harding and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Trish, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
In the decade of the 60’s we were the feral teenagers of a San Juan Island known as Lummi, a 12 minute ferry crossing from Gooseberry Point which is 20 minutes west of Bellingham, Washington. I met Paddy one night when she came climbing through my bedroom window. She said she had run away from home because her dad was being impossible. “Oh, hi, nice to meet you.” That was the beginning of our friendship with a Lummi Island and Art connection.
Picture a little white cinder block beach cabin on an island at the tip of a spit of land with a bay on one side and Hale’s Pass, some of Puget Sound’s fastest waters rushing by on the other side. I grew up living there in that cabin where our yard was sand and rocks and waves and at high tide and super moon the water almost lapped inside the house.
Our years spent on Lummi Island were filled with angst, fishermen, boys, driving cars, rock & roll, and Joann’s home-made raspberry wine. Ours was a friendship that would last through college at Western Washington University, crazy days at The Academy of Art College in San Francisco, first loves, true loves, family, and careers.
My studio work begins with plein air sketches and thumbnails. Then a painting becomes a composite of images of being on the edge at sea level. A place that was wild, free, liquid and bohemian.
Lummi Island was separated from normal.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art is a response to the magnificent! Specifically the area around the Pacific Northwest, the edge of between Land & Sea. Places & Experiences that are greater than I am and make me feel small in the scheme of things. I also am really interested in politics & social justice work, which is also edgy in itself, such as climate change, Me Too & Black Lives Matter. I feel that I am obligated to use my work to draw attention to situations for a better society.
I have been working on my art journey and career since I was a child. It was easy in that it has been my passion and I had a very supportive father and public school teachers from grade school through high school and beyond.
It was difficult in that I have raised 5 children, am a wife, worked many day jobs & cottage industries. all the while never abandoning my art career.
I made a contract with myself and my mentor and art teacher, Joe Doyle from The Academy of Art in San Francisco to create art every day or else I did not have the right to call myself an artist. Art is who I am not what I do.
The lessons I have learned along the journey are Fundamentals Matter, One only Succeeds by “Doing the work”. Consistancy is More Important Than Quantity, Believe In Yourself, Work Toward Your Own Visual Language, Give Back To Community, Everyone Leaves a Transaction Happy & Celebrate Others” Successes.
I believe my brand and story is personal as well as universal and that it was accomplished because I had the support of so many people in my life and was never left all alone to achieve where I am.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would start with a 45 minute road trip north on I-5 to Vancouver, Canada where we would visit the downtown core, walk to Stanley Park, take a tiny bobbing passenger boat to Grandview Island to see art galleries and to stop for a seafood lunch right on the warf. Heading south again back through Bellingham for dinner at one of Bellingham’s Pepper Sisters southwest cusine Restaurant, Night life with live music, perhaps, my husband Tom, at one of many local Breweries, Boundary Bay has an outdoor music venue. We would drop in the Lightcatcher Art Museum in Bellingham to catch up on whatever they have on view. I am an avid bicycle rider so one day we might bike along the Interurban trail with stunning views of Chuckanut Drive all the way to Larrabee State Park and back to Fairhaven where we can pick up at the Taylor Street Dock which runs the length of the shore, through beautiful Boulevard Park and all the way to downtown much of which extrends over the water of Bellingham Bay. On a sunny day visiting Mt Baker, own very own sleeping volcano, a mere 60 minute drive from Bellingham is a must. Mt. Baker offers incredible vistas, breathtaking views of the dome from Artist Point which is another 10 minute winding drive higher than the ski area. I would take out my sketch book to react to the awe inspiring sights. One day we would have to travel farther south to Skagit County and if it is spring time we could visit Roozengard Tulip Farm during the most spectacular display of blooming tulip fields exploding with a sea of colors: scarlets, purples, magentas, yellows, & whites. On to LaConner, the little sea side art gallery & high quality shops lining the channel. LaConner is the home of the Museum of Northwest Art where I might have a piece showing for their annual auction. If we head south again we will arrive in the gorgeous world class city of Seattle, WA in about 90 minutes where we can vistit the Seattle Art Museum, The Olympic Sculpture Park, dine at the rotating resaurant, 603 feet high atop the Iconic Seattle Space Needle where we can view the city at 360degrees. We cannot miss a 15 minute drive west from Bellingham to catch the sweet little Whatcom Chief Ferry to Lummi Island, where I grew up. It is a 12 minute sailing from the mainland to the island. We are actually moving back so that I can immerse myself in the magnificence of the “place on the edge.”

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I shoutout, from the top of the mountain! I always tell my life-long friends that “You saved my life”. Literally! Judy Piovesan Harvey, Kay Flaherty Schulte, & Marie Sanders Hewittt and their families who I consider my second family.
School teachers who saw potential in me before I knew my head from a hole in the ground: Cliff McKee, Roy Bentley, Alan Odell.
Mentor and artist extraordinare, Joe Doyle instilled the importance of living as an artist.
My dad, Don Murray who was a brilliant seer and renaissance man who believed and told me daily that I was magic.
My daughter, Molly-Mae who was gifted to me so that I could turn grief into gratitude
My son Ryan Alan who taught me the importance of being a steward of Planet Earth and how to love to Pluto & Back which would be approximately 9,4 billion miles..
My husband, Tom Harding who has been my partner and cheerleader in all of my artistic endevors

Website: trish.c.harding@gmail.com

Instagram: trish.c.hardingartist

Linkedin: trish.c.harding@gmail.com

Twitter: trish.c.harding@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com.trish.harding.9

Yelp: trish.c.harding@gmail.com

Youtube: trish.c.harding@gmail.com Trish Harding-For the Seventh Generation

Image Credits
Ann Chaikin