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
Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.
Oh I do want that thing, that oneness of movement that will catch the thing up into one movement and sing - harmony of life.
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.
I wonder why we are always sort of ashamed of our best parts and try to hide them. We don't mind ridicule of our 'sillinesses' but of our 'sobers' ...
The foolish square calves pretend to be frightened of our train. Bluffers! Haven't they seen it every day since they were born? It's just an excuse to shake the joy out of their heels.
Twenty can't be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty's eternal love affairs.
I made myself into an envelope into which I could thrust my work deep, lick the flap, seal it from everybody.
I can rise above the humility of my failure with an intense desire to search deeper and a blind faith that some day my sight may pierce through the veils that hide. I know God's face is there if I keep my gaze steady enough.
Writing is a splendid sorter of... feelings, better even than paint.
The outstanding event was the doing which I am still at. Don't pickle me awayas done.
There is a side of friendship that develops better and stronger by correspondence than contact.... The absence of the flesh in writing perhaps brings souls nearer.
The liveness in me just loves to feel the liveness in growing things, in grass and rain and leaves and flowers and sun and feathers and furs and earth and sand and moss.