Ian Thom
Curator, Vancouver Art Gallery
August 1997
"My favourite painting by Emily Carr has always been Cedar, a 1942 canvas. Although the work is not a big or famous one, it seems to capture all of Carr's feelings about the coastal rainforest and her command of the range of green colours. The artist A.Y. Jackson once stated that green was the most difficult colour but for Carr it was a colour that she relished. By my count there are at least five different colours of green used in the foliage of the trees.
When one looks at the composition, one realizes that Carr has not included either earth or sky but concentrated only on the reality of the rich foliage. One of the wonderful things about this painting, and indeed about many artists' work, is that Carr has made something out of a small fragment of the natural world that most of us would quickly pass by. For her, the fact of these trees is the only excuse she needed to create a composition. They are what is important to her painting as a way to explain to others how important these trees are. Despite the fact that it is simply paint on a canvas we feel that we are really amongst the trees and there is almost a sense of the heavy wetness of a forest after a shower, the smell of the cedars themselves.
She uses a variety of means to lead us into the work but never allows the eye to escape to some easy resting place in the sky. The work has, therefore, an immediacy, an in-your-face quality which is not what you might expect but which, in the end, is compelling and beautiful.
Finally, there is a deeply spiritual quality in this work, a profound respect for nature and I share Carr's deep affection and respect for the natural world. So, for me, this is a great and highly satisfying painting."
Sincerely yours,
Ian Thom.
Doris Shadbolt
Author
September 1997
"Pretty well at the top of a list of my favourite paintings by Emily Carr is Above the Trees which I believe she painted when she was close to seventy years old, not many years before she died. In it we see just the green tops of a few trees and a lot of deep blue sky. It seems to me that she did something quite remarkable, even bold and daring, in this painting. Most of the paintings by other artists that she would have been looking at at that time respected the law of gravity, with solid objects like trees, logs, rocks and so on, settled on the ground, just as we do when we look at pictures that are at ground level, and probably there was a horizon in those other paintings separating all the heavy materials from the open space of sky. But here Emily has defied the pull of gravity and permitted herself and us to lift-off and soar upward dizzyingly into the spangled azure dome of sky. This painting is done on inexpensive paper using inexpensive paint which she mixed with gasoline to make it thin and easy to handle--a way of working she invented for herself because, since it was light and easy to carry and quick-drying, it enabled her to work more quickly and spontaneously than she could do in her studio where oil pigment takes a longer time to apply and to dry. It also allowed her to achieve an effect of glitter in the sky which makes it sparkle and dance with a sort of electric energy that goes well with the spinning energy of the whirling tree tops at the bottom of the painting. Because she was sure in her mind of the idea of upwardness she wanted to present she probably did the whole painting in just a couple of hours.
And so, in addition to the wonderful blue colour and the feeling of soaring upward, I like this painting because it is an example of the daring and courage she showed throughout her life--the courage to be different, to be herself even if that meant not being the way other people thought she should be, particularly to keep on being an artist all her life even though for a long time she didn't have much support or encouragement for her art."
Doris Shadbolt
Sept. 2, 1997
Myfanwy Pavelic
Artist
August 1997
"Before Emily Carr died in 1945 she spent much of her time in bed writing her books--and she asked me if I would come and help her sort out her paintings and arrange them in order--most of her paintings were on paper mounted on large boards. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to listen to her many stories about all the animals she had known.
After we had finished going through her works she said to me, 'I'd like to give you one of my paintings--so you choose the one you would like to have'. I knew exactly the one I wanted and pulled it out to show her my choice. She smiled and then asked me, 'why did you choose that one?' I said, 'Because it is such a happy painting--so many of yours are dark, but this one had dark green trees as a background for a beautiful little clearing with the sun shining like gold on the forest floor.'
Then Emily said 'Myfanwy--turn the painting around and look at the top left corner (on the back) and you will have to look carefully because the writing is very small.' I looked and there in pencil was one word--'Happiness'! She was so glad that I had chosen the painting for the reason she had painted it."
Jennifer Iredale
Curator, Emily Carr House
August 1997
"One of my favourite Emily Carr paintings is Seascape, an oil painting dated to 1935 and in the collectin of the National Gallery. The sky in this painting is so big, so full of movement, and so much a painting of an emotional response to the scene. I am drawn to this painting because it is of a place I know - the Dallas Road waterfront in Victoria, where I walk all the time. I look at the different skies that spread out each evening across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and I frequently think of Emily Carr doing the same - and painting that sky, over and over again, capturing different colours, light, movement, and emotions each time she painted it. All her Beacon Hill/Dallas Road sky paintings seem to be Emily trying to capture 'that nameless thing', the 'God expressing God made manifest'. I recognise her ardent wish to put it on paper and show the beauty and the way it makes her feel - to be part of God in nature by interacting and expressing the 'life sweeping through spaces'".
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