Trish Harding, Artist fine art

•  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 the mainland which is 20 minutes west of Bellingham, WA My best friend, Paddy was the daughter of an Episcopalian priest and a stay-athome mom who was originally from Australia. They were stern, polite, and a little weird. I met Paddy one night when she came climbing through my second story bedroom window. She said she had run away from home because her dad was being impossible again. “Oh, hi, nice to meet you, I’m Patti too.” My dad was an Irish Catholic from Boston. He worked as an accountant. Annamae was my kooky mom who worked for many years at the little grocery store at Gooseberry Point in the heart of the Lummi Nation Reservation where everybody loved her. They were seldom home as their social life was very important to them and it kept them busy and gone most of the time. Paddy could always run away from home. I didn’t have to. We were free to do anything we wanted to do, go anywhere we wanted to go and get there any way we could get there. We were curious, risky, and wild. Our years spent on Lummi Island were filled with angst, reef net fishermen, boys, driving cars, rock & roll, and home-made raspberry wine to name a few. I can still touch that time that would shape our personalities, build our character, and solidify a friendship... a friendship that would last through college at Western, crazy days at The Academy of Art College in San Francisco, first loves, true loves, family, and careers. Normal did not live on Lummi Island. You had to go to town to find normal. The island was different. Everybody who lived there was unique, strange, or an outcast. Take your pick! Every day on Lummi Island I woke up feeling like a protagonist in a novel and wondering what will happen to my character today! 

I use many different mediums, such as clay, acrylics, and pastels and many different surfaces.  Experimenting with oil on metal such as the one depicted here, Gooseberry Driftwood on copper.  I believe that working in a single medium is restrictive to my artistic process. Each idea manifests in its own individual style.

Because of a magical childhood growing up on Lummi Island with one foot in the water and one foot on land I am continually inspired by "living on the edge."