From: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org (trajectory-digest) To: trajectory-digest@smoe.org Subject: trajectory-digest V2 #121 Reply-To: trajectory@smoe.org Sender: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trajectory-digest Saturday, December 5 1998 Volume 02 : Number 121 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Emily Carr [R.Twine@mmu.ac.uk] Re: Emily Carr [Neile Graham ] Re: Emily Carr [Neile Graham ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 10:03:45 +0100 From: R.Twine@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Emily Carr Can someone provide a brief life story of Emily Carr to this list for those of us not from North America? I've got it in my head that she was an early pioneering feminist but I'd love to have some clarification..... ~Richard, sticking his head out for the ignorant :-/ http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/8385/welcome.html ecofeminism: http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/8385/ecofemlinks.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 08:31:02 -0800 From: Neile Graham Subject: Re: Emily Carr R.Twine@mmu.ac.uk wrote: >Can someone provide a brief life story of Emily Carr to this list for >those of us not from North America? I've got it in my head that she >was an early pioneering feminist but I'd love to have some >clarification..... This is pretty much off the top of my head, so... There's good short bio info at http://alvin.lbl.gov/bios/Carr.html and more info at Emily Carr house at http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/main.htm. I don't think Emily would have considered herself a feminist; she might even have disdain for them--not because she was conventional but simply because it was before her time, and she struggled more with her life as an artist. I could be wrong about this. She did struggle with the limitations of being female in her time and place, but I wouldn't say that in her writings or painting the focus was on being female. She was a painter and a writer. I would say her paintings make her kind of Canada's Van Gogh or Georgia O'Keeffe. She was certainly not recognized in her lifetime and has a huge celebrity (at least within Canada) after her death. Her writings did, though, have some popularity when they were published and toward the end of her life she did get some positive response to her painting, particularly from Canada's best-known artists, The Group of Seven. She was born in Victoria, B.C. when it was still very much a frontier town, not long past the days when it was Fort Victoria, and of course the general atmosphere of social life was Victorian and colonial. She traveled to places like the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) which even now are not easy to get to, in order to paint, and never married. The main power of her paintings is in their movement--that is another thing about her that reminds me of Van Gogh. Her main subject is the forest, and also the native culture within it. There's an online exhibition of her work at http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallmain.htm so you can see what I'm talking about. ((An aside: When you see mention of the Newcombe collection, he's the person my mother is dedicating her life to transcribing the journals of and trying to discover obscure biographical facts. He's the person who told Emily Carr who Dzoonqua, the wild woman of the woods who eats children was.)) One of the best contact sheets to browse is probably http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/varydcon.htm which has a general representation. The kind of work she is most known for are at http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/42330b.htm ("Above the Gravel Pit"), http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/42337b.htm ("A Skidegate Pole"), and one of my favourites http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/42315b.htm ("Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky"), http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/4235b.htm ("Forest Interior"), http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/42311b.htm ("Big Raven"), http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/4239b.htm ("Forest, British Columbia"), http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr/gallery/gallvag/547b.htm ("The Red Cedar"). Her writings are autobiographical, and easy and delightful reading. She writes about being young, _The Book of Small_,, her life as a landlord, _The House of All Sorts_, and has a fascinating journal about her life as a painter, _Hundreds and Thousands_. Her book _Klee Wyck_, about her travels painting, won the Governor General's award for literature (the highest literary award in Canada) when it was published in 1941. Anyway, hope this helps. If you can browse the sites about her, you'll find a lot about her and her work and life. Amazing how much is online now! - --Neile - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Neile Graham ..... http://www.sff.net/people/neile ..... neile@sff.net The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music .... http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 08:40:32 -0800 From: Neile Graham Subject: Re: Emily Carr Another good nutshell biography with a lovely painting too, at: http://www.mcmichael.com./carr.htm - --Neile - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Neile Graham ..... http://www.sff.net/people/neile ..... neile@sff.net The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music .... http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of trajectory-digest V2 #121 ********************************