Emily Carr Tour Stories

This selection of short stories by Emily Carr highlight important aspects of the personal development: her parents, her sisters, her religion, her art, her friends, her monkey Woo, and many of the locations we visit on the Emily Carr Chronicles Tours. I hope you have the chance to read them before the event for which you registered. With the exception of the “Fresh Seeing Lecture,” they are short, sweet and sometimes bittersweet. Enjoy! ~ Marilyn Emily Carr Chronicler and your tour guide

“Mother”

To show Mother I must picture Father, because Mother was Father’s reflection—smooth, liquid reflecting of definite, steel-cold reality. Our childhood was ruled by Father’s unbendable iron will, the obeying of which would have been intolerable but for Mother’s patient polishing of its dull metal so that it shone and reflected the beauty of orderliness…

“Father’s Store”

Victoria was like a lying-down cow, chewing. She had made one enormous effort of upheaval. She had hoisted herself from a Hudson’s Bay Fort into a little town and there she paused, chewing the cud of imported fodder, afraid to crop the pastures of the new world for fear she might lose the good flavour of the old to which she was so deeply loyal.

“The Praying Chair”

The wicker chair was new and had a crisp creak. At a quarter to eight every morning Father sat in it to read family prayers. The little book the prayers came out of was sewed into a black calico pinafore because its own cover was a vivid colour and Father did not think that was reverent.

Andrew Street | “Three Sisters”

Three women could not be more different in temperament, likes, choice of friends than were the three Carr sisters. Each had her own house, interests, friends. Lizzie was a masseuse, Alice had a school, I was an artist. When I acquired Woo, Lizzie protested, Alice shrugged, I gloated—Woo accepted both family and domesticity.

The House of All Sorts | “The House”

I owned a small apartment house, living myself in one of the suites. My suite had a large studio with a long stair down to my garden. The small garden in front was for tenants. The big garden behind was mine. Behind it again were yards and my kennel of griffon dogs. Being a landlady was never agreeable to me, but having a kennel of griffons was joy.

“Martyn”

Martyn came all the way from Canada to London just to see me and with him he lugged that great love he had offered to me out in Canada and which I could not return. He warned of his coming in a letter, carefully timed to be just too late for me to stop him even by wire. For I would have pleaded, “Dear Martyn, please don’t come.”

“Sophie”

Sophie knocked gently on my Vancouver studio door.“Baskets. I got baskets.” They were beautiful, made by her own people, West Coast Indian baskets. She had big ones in a cloth tied at the four corners and little ones in a flour-sack. She had a baby slung on her back in a shawl, a girl child clinging to her skirts, and a heavy-faced boy plodding behind her. “I have no money for baskets.”

“Lawren Harris”

My first impression of Lawren Harris, his work, his studio have never changed, never faltered. His work and example did more to influence my outlook upon Art than any school or any master. They had given me mechanical foundation. Lawren Harris looked higher, dug deeper. He did not seek to persuade others to climb his ladder. He steadied their own, while they got foothold.

316 Beckley Street | “Beckley Street”

The movers were finished and gone, the door of the dishevelled cottage was shut, the mess and uprooting of the move was all about me. For a month I had toiled without help, cleaning and sorting, picking over, selling, condemning as garbage. I sold my four suite apartment house. The buyer wanted possession immediately. I said, “I will put every effort into leaving my old place nice.” 

Helmcken House | “Doctor and Dentist”

When Victoria was young specialists had not been invented –the Family Doctor did you all over. You did not have a special doctor for each part. Dr. Helmcken attended to all our ailments–Father’s gout, our stomach-aches; he even told us what to do once when the cat had fits.

Bishop Edward & Mary Cridge | “New Neighbours”

As I first remember it, James’ Bay district had many fields and plenty of wooded land left, but houses began to creep nearer and nearer to ours and the fields were being cut up into town lots. I was very sorry when Bishop Cridge’s big, wild field opposite us was sold. The Bishop’s house sat back in the little bit of wood with an orchard and two fields.

Church of our Lord | “The Blessing”

Father’s religion was grim and stern, Mother’s gentle Father’s operated through the Presbyterian, Mother’s through the Anglican Church. Our religion was hybrid: on Sunday morning we were Presbyterian, Sunday evening we were Anglican.

Christ Church Cathedral | “Cathedral”

Christ Church cathedral sat on the top of Church Hill. The Hill sloped gently to the town on its north side and sharply down to James’ Bay on the south, with shelves and sheer drops where rock had been blasted out for road-making.

“Buying Woo”

The pet-shop owner thought the apex of her troubles was reached in the Customs; now that the shipment was cleared, the crates standing in the centre of the pet-shop floor, she realized that this was not so—there were the monkeys! From the pile of boxes and cages on the floor came mews, squawks, grunts—protests of creatures travel-worn and restless. If a crate was quite still, things were bad.

Crystal Gardens | “Canadian Club Lecture”

Outside, everything dripped; inside all gloomed. The monkey’s scarlet apron was the only gay spot this grey day. She sat warming spread toes in front of the Studio fire. Ginger was alert for play, but Woo was pensive. The telephone whizzed, “May I bring a stranger to your studio?”

Crystal Gardens | Fresh Seeing Lecture (1930)

I hate like poison to talk. Artists talk in paint—words do not come easily. But I have put my hate in my pocket because I know many of you cordially detest “Modern Art.” There are some kinds that need detesting, done for the sake of being bizarre, outrageous, shocking, and making ashamed. This kind we need not discuss but will busy ourselves with what is more correctly termed “Creative Art.” 

Ross Bay Cemetery | “Family Plot”

The Old Quadra Street Cemetery was a lovesome place, but now it was as full as the law would allow. So they put a change and a padlock round the pickets of the gate to keep the dead in and the living out, and dedicated a new portion of cleared raw land at Ross Bay for Victoria’s burying.