Emily Carr
Emily Carr
Emily Carrwas a Canadian artist and writer heavily inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the first painters in Canada to adopt a Modernist and Post-Impressionist painting style, Carr did not receive widespread recognition for her work until late in her life. As she matured, the subject matter of her painting shifted from aboriginal themes to landscapes—forest scenes in particular. As a writer, Carr was one of the earliest chroniclers of life in British Columbia...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth13 December 1871
CityVictoria, Canada
CountryCanada
Last night I dreamed that I came face to face with a picture I had done and forgotten, a forest done in simple movement, just forms of trees moving in space. That is the third time I have seen pictures in my dreams, a glint of what I am striving to attain.
It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw.
I have been sent more ridiculous press notices. People are frequently comparing my work with Van Gogh... I do hope I do not get bloated and self-satisfied. When proud feelings come I step up over them to the realm of work, to the thing I want, the liveness of the thing itself.
What a splendid time Woo must have had.
Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing.
It's all the unwordable things one wants to write about, just as it's all the unformable things one wants to paint - essence.
Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.
Over and over one must ask oneself the queston, 'What do I want to express? What is the thought behind the saying? What is my ideal, what my objective? What? Why? Why? What?
The memory of Cumshewa is of a great lonesomeness smothered in a blur of rain.
Oh I do want that thing, that oneness of movement that will catch the thing up into one movement and sing - harmony of life.
Rentals sank, living rose. I could not afford help. I must be owner, agent, landlady and janitor. I loathed landladying... I tried in every way to augment my income. Small fruit, hens, rabbits, dogs - pottery... I never painted now - had neither time nor wanting. For about fifteen years I did not paint.
How badly I want that nameless thing! First there must be an idea, a feeling... Maybe it was an abstract idea that you've got to find a symbol for, or maybe it was a concrete form that you have to simplify or distort to meet your ends, but that starting point must pervade the whole.
Oh, Spring! I want to go out and feel you and get inspiration. My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching.
Got a new pup. He is half griffon. The other half is mistake.