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Emily Carr -- Canada's First Woman Artist

© J. M. Bridgeman

You could say that she created British Columbia, envisioned it, and captured its grandeur. Before she painted it, our beautiful supernatural province was invisible, put down by people from places far from here as the "wet coast," a monotony of grey and green. Emily Carr focused her attention on the land she loved, drawing it into existence, so to speak. She was adamant that what she saw in the land where she was born was just a relevant as the subjects, the visions, of any other artist from elsewhere.

Emily Carr was born in Victoria, Vancouver Island, on December 13, 1871, the year that the colony of British Columbia voted to join the Confederation of Canada. This fact of her birthdate was important to her. She and her brother were the only members of her family who had no identity other than Canadian. She had never lived elsewhere, in England, or in British Columbia when it was a colony. She was a Canadian both as an individual and as an artist. For Emily Carr, the personal was political. She made politics into art; then she transformed art into spirituality.

Emily was one of six children of a successful businessman who settled in Victoria after making good money during the California Gold Rush. Both her parents, Richard and Emily, were English. They attempted, as many emigrants do, to recreate their first home in their new land. Thus, as British Columbians, as Canadians, the elder Carrs represented the colonial mentality. Emily, as the youngest daughter, nicknamed "Small," resented the implied inferiority often foisted upon younger children and younger nations. Emily was a strong-willed independent girl, a contrary who rebelled against the impositions and restrictions that squeezed the life out of girls and women during Queen Victoria's long reign. Like later feminist heroines, she stood up for herself. She refused to obey the "lady-like" conventions in the same way that her mature work refused to "prettify" the power of the coastal landscapes.

Carr's talent as an artist was recognized at a young age and she accepted her calling. Early in her art career, she identified the two themes which would become her signature--First Nations cultures, and West Coast nature. Emily Carr insisted that what she saw was important, that what she chose to capture warranted attention. She insisted that the artist has an important contribution to make to her community. That art has more than a personal meaning. That there is purpose behind a painting, informing the work. By focusing intently upon carved totem poles, she learned from them how art helps us become more human, more aware of our spiritual and mythic identities, of our connections to the sacred through nature.

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