Beany

Miss Beaner the little hunchback did not feel herself insignificant. She did not come up to any of our shoulders as she stood at her easel.

She always picked the biggest images to draw from, preferably Venus. There she stood, her square little chin thrust out, her large feet firmly planted, claw-fingers clutching her charcoal, long arms swinging, and such pitifully poor results! She stood so close under the great images she drew that they were violently foreshortened and became twice as difficult to draw. With her pathetic eyes rolled upwards devouringly and her misshapen body Beany looked foreshortened herself as if a heavy weight had crushed her head down into her hips forcing what was between into a cruel humped ridge.

Beany’s art efforts were entirely ineffectual. The drawing master obviously disliked going near the deformed creature. Noted always for his terse criticism, all Beany ever got from him was, “Turn over and begin again.” Beany turned and turned, her eyes filled with tears. She never got beyond beginnings.

As soon as the master left the room one or another student would go to Beany and say, “He gave everyone a rotten lesson today.” That made Beany feel better. Then the student would find something encouraging to say about the poor lines and smudges on her paper and Beany’s long spidery arms would flurry around the helper’s neck, her head burrow into their waist-line. Beany hugged with a horrible tightness when grateful.

Coming from school one day I found a kitten trapped behind the heavy street door at the foot of the outer stair. It was ravenous for food and for petting. It begged so hard to be hugged that I thought of Beany. Maybe the kitten would satisfy her hug-longing. I took it home that night and offered it to Beany next day. She was delighted. As it was a half holiday, I said I would take it to her house that afternoon.

Beany lived in one of the older and shabbier parts of San Francisco. The front door of the house opened right into the parlour, a drab room full of vases filled with artificial flowers. There was, too, a stuffed canary under glass and some sea shells. The room was a sepulchre. The mantelpiece was draped with the stars and stripes. On the stone hearth (fireless because it was summer) sat a plate of fish cleaned and ready to cook. The kitten made a dart towards the fish.

Beany raised them to the mantelpiece, remarking as she fanned her hot face with a small brass fire shovel, “Our parlour hearth is the coolest place in the house.” She was delighted with her kitten and hugged and hugged, first the kitten, then me. Poor Beany, she had so little and could have done with so much. I felt furious all over again with the drawing master’s cruel “crits”, his not bothering to hide how he loathed her person and despised her work.

The Frenchman who taught us painting was different from the drawing master. His “crits” were severe, but his heart was soft—too soft almost. He championed any poor, weak thing. One day he found the little halfwit Jew-boy with his head down on a table of still-life stuff crying into the heap of carrots, onions and beets.

“What is it, Benny?” The master’s hand on the boy’s head covered it like a hat.

Benny lifted a wet, swollen cheek.

“Dis’ mornin’ I woked an’ de’ look-glass tell, ‘You got de’ toot’-ache, Benny.’ Boys dey say, ‘Why you so fat one side, Benny?’ I say, ‘De look-glass say I got toot’-ache.’ Boys make tease of me!”

A group of grinning students were peeping from behind the screen.

“Make off there! None of that!” roared the professor.

After that he always kept an eye on Benny. That was the spirit of the old Art School. It seemed that here there was always a champion for the Beanys and the Bennys.

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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