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Happy Birthday Emily Carr!

12/13/2013

 
One of my favourite Canadian artists is Emily Carr, and today is her birthday. Several years ago Marianne and I made an art doll of Emily; Marianne sculpted her head, hands and feet, and I did the rest. I decided to take some photos to celebrate her birthday. Here she is on the beach, reworking one of her totem pole paintings, while two native girls keep her company.
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Emily Carr was born on this day in 1871, in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied art in San Francisco, London and France, and decided to make it a personal goal to paint and document as many of the native poles along the coast, as she could. She travelled up the coast by boat, to remote villages to paint on location. I love many of those earlier paintings.
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Emily's hope was that the government would buy the entire collection for the newly-built parliament buildings, but a critic declared her work as "too colourful". Emily was devastated. She totally gave up painting and turned to making a living by building a rooming house, and raising dogs. Fifteen years later, at age 50, she was invited to participate in a show about Native Art of BC at the National Gallery in Ottawa. There she met the Group of Seven, became good friends with Lauren Harris, and her joy of painting became rekindled. She reworked many of her older paintings and sketches in a completely new style. My favourite is her "Big Raven"....
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Violin Day

Since today is also "Violin Day", my girls decided to throw Emily Carr a birthday party 
in her studio, and serenade her with their violins as she works on her painting.
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 Emily was very eccentric. She had many pets, including a monkey she named Woo, who she dressed up and took for errands around town in a baby buggy. The little sock monkey is my nod to Woo. And those chairs - in case you are wondering - to make room in her studio, and keep the floor clear of clutter, Emily would hoist her chairs up by ropes and hang them at the ceiling.
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Jane
12/13/2013 02:03:24 am

Well thank you very much. I learned so much here about somebody I knew nothing about!
I particularly like the 'Big Raven' piece.

And there you do it again.....your girls are real and I swear they really are playing the violin!

And I was wondering about the chairs! LOL!
Thank you!

Martha
12/13/2013 02:26:50 am

I love Emily Carr's work, and credit her for my interest in Pacific Northwest Native Art, especially totem poles, but figured she would likely be unknown elsewhere, so went into more detail than usual.

One of my granddaughters thinks the doll is me, and she'll go to my doll case and point "Look. there's Grandma!". I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

Inma
12/14/2013 01:26:05 am

What a nice tribute to Emily Carr ! What a pity she had stopped painting because off a critic. I love the paintings of the totems and specially like the first photo with that beautiful background. Is it where you live ?

Martha
12/14/2013 01:57:09 am

Well, it wasn't just any critic. She had been working towards the goal of having the government buy the whole set, but when they were rejected, it was a gigantic blow. She had a show of her work, and everyone criticized her paintings, and she sold nothing. The sad thing is, today they are worth astronomical sums.

The bottom half of the first photo is along the lake where I live, but the background was just too dead-looking, so I replaced the upper part with part of a photo I took along the Pacific coast.


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    Author

    Martha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes.
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