Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

When Emily Carr met the young artist Edythe Hembroff in 1930, Carr was nearing the end of her painting years. Her health was fragile and money scarce, yet her artistic vision remained fierce and some of her best artwork was yet to come. In Edythe, she found a kindred spirit: intelligent, observant, and deeply sympathetic to her struggles. Their friendship, part mentorship and part creative partnership, became one of the most meaningful of Emily’s…

The bronze Emily Carr sculpture created by Edmonton sculptor Barbara Patterson installed outside the Empress Hotel in Victoria in 2010 is not the first statue created in her honour. That distinction belongs to Joe Fafard—a celebrated Saskatchewan artist and longtime admirer of Carr’s work. By then, he had created two different versions of Emily Carr sculptures, one of Emily on her horse in 2003 and another in 2005 with her off her horse with…

In the summer of 1898, a young Emily Carr boarded the steamship Willapa to return to Victoria with a portfolio of drawings and watercolours of the Indigenous communities of Ucluelet. She was just 27 and already deeply committed to becoming a serious artist, even though that path for women was anything but straightforward. The steamship Willipa was a slow-moving vessel, typically transporting and dropping off mixed cargo, livestock, and passengers along the coast. A…