Colour Sense

I had advanced from the drawing of casts and was now painting “still life” under the ogling eye of the French Professor. I was afraid of him, not of his harsh criticisms but of his ogle-eyes, jet black pupils rolling in huge whites, like shoe buttons touring round soup-plates.

He said to me, “You have good colour-sense. Let me see your eyes, their colour.”

The way he ogled down into my eyes made me squirm; nor did it seem to me necessary that he should require to look so often into my “colour-sense”.

He was powerful and enormous, one dare not refuse. His criticism most often was, “scrape, re-paint”.

Three times that morning he had stood behind my easel and roared, “Scrape!” When he came the fourth time and said it again, my face went red.

“I have, and I have, and I have!” I shouted.

“Then scrape again!”

I dashed my palette knife down the canvas and wiped the grey ooze on my paint-rag.

In great gobbing paint splashes I hurled the study of tawny ragged chrysanthemums onto the canvas again. Why must he stand at my elbow watching—grinning?

The moment he was gone I slammed shut my paintbox, gathered up my dirty brushes, rushed from the room.

“Finished?” asked my neighbour.

“Finished with scraping for that old beast.” She saw my angry tears.

The Professor came back and found my place empty. “Where is the little Canadian?”

“Gone home mad!”

“Poor youngster, too bad, too bad! But look there!” He pointed to my study—“Capital! Spirit! Colour! It has to be tormented out of the girl, though. Make her mad, and she can paint.”

The hard-faced woman student, the one who ordered birds for her still-life studies to be smothered so that blood should not soil their plumage, the student we called “Wooden-heart”, spoke from her easel in the corner.

“Professor, you are very hard on that young Canadian girl!”

“Hard?” The professor shrugged, spread his palms. “Art—the girl has ‘makings’. It takes red-hot fury to dig ’em up. If I’m harsh it’s for her own good. More often than not worthwhile things hurt. Art’s worthwhile.”

Again he shrugged.

Klee Wyck

Emily Carr wrote these twenty-one sketches after visiting and living with Native people, painting their totem poles and villages, many of them in wild and remote areas. She tells her stories with beauty, pathos and a vivid awareness of the comedy of people and situations.

The Book of Small

Emily Carr wrote these thirty-six sketches that relate anecdotes about her life as a young girl in the frontier town of Victoria. She notes: “There were a great many things that I only half understood, such as saloons and the Royal Family and the Chain Gang.”

The House of All Sorts

Emilly Carr wrote these forty-one stories of those hard-working days as landlord and the parade of tenants — young couples, widows, sad bachelors and rent evaders. In an additional twenty-five stories, she describes the mutual bonds of affection between her and her dogs.

Growing Pains

Completed just before Emily Carr died in 1945, Growing Pains tells the story of her life, beginning with her girlhood in pioneer Victoria and going on to her training as an artist in San Francisco, England and France. She writes about the frustration she felt at the rejection of her art by Canadians, of the years of despair when she stopped painting and of the unexpected vindication and triumph she felt when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them.

Heart of a Peacock

A collection of 51 short stories by the legendary writer and painter Emily Carr, arranged in themes such as her experiences with Native people, her adventures with various beloved creatures and her love of nature. Together, they underline Carr’s place as a writer with the sharp yet tender eye of an artist, with a deep feeling for the tragedies of life and with a rich sense of the comic.

Pause

While studying art in London, Emily Carr seriously undermined her health and was sent to a sanatorium for a complete rest cure. Bridling at the hospital’s rules, which prohibited excitement of any kind, the always rebellious Carr proceeded to make friends, raise birds, and cause trouble. In words and enchanting sketches, in Pause: A Sketchbook, Carr presents a funny, poignant account of her 18-month convalescence,

Hundreds and Thousands

Hundreds and Thousands consists of her journals from 1927 to 1941. She began keeping a journal in 1927, when, after years of her work being derided and ignored, came unexpected vindication and triumph when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them and encouraged her to overcome the years of despair when she stopped painting.

Opposite Contraries

Collected from Emily Carr’s private and public writings and edited by Susan Crean, these previously unpublished pieces reveal the outspoken artist at her most forthright. Expurgated sections from Carr’s journals detail her anguished meditations on her spiritual mission, musings about Native culture and the white community’s reaction to it, and thoughts about her family. Her groundbreaking 1913 "Lecture on Totems”, her first recorded writing on Native art and people, is also included, as are some of her most fascinating letters to friends and colleagues.

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