Opposite Contraries: The Unknown Journals of Emily Carr and Other Writings

by Emily Carr, Susan Crean (Editor)

Collected from Emily Carr’s private and public writings, these previously unpublished pieces reveal the outspoken artist at her most forthright. Expurgated sections from Carr’s journals detail her anguished meditations on her spiritual mission, musings about Native culture and the white community’s reaction to it, and thoughts about her family. Her groundbreaking 1913 “Lecture on Totems”, her first recorded writing on Native art and people, is also included, as are some of her most fascinating letters to friends and colleagues.

Genres: Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer heavily inspired by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the first painters in Canada to adopt a post-impressionist painting style, Carr did not receive widespread recognition for her work until later in her life. As she matured, the subject matter of her painting shifted from aboriginal themes to landscapes, and, in particular, forest scenes. As a writer, Carr was one of the earliest chroniclers of life in British Columbia. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes her as a "Canadian icon".

Reviews

[Nicola Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love this woman and this book of unpublished journals etc was a privilege to read. Emily Carr is, in my opinion, a supremely inspirational woman and artist in that she painted what she wanted to, fuelled solely by her own passion with a blatant disregard for what was fashionable and desirable. For most of her life she received no support or compliments about her paintings from family, neighbours or critics. This changes a little in her later years. I just love her fearlessness and sense of achievement that did not require another's blessings. Read about her various pets and her oftentimes strained relationship with her friends and family. I am not even sure that I like her art but I love her writing. (As I was reading this book, I was tangled up over a new book that had been rejected as an idea but I was trying to convince myself to write anyway. At one point, I thought I'd just give it up but I believe that reading EC helped me to persist until the sun came out and I saw the road ahead - albeit with cracks and bumps.)

[Nathan]

Emily Carr found in Native art's exaggerated supernaturalism a connection with Modern art's emphasis on digging beneath images to their emotional and spiritual meanings. She championed the aliveness and vitality of each tradition and encouraged putting more of one's personal self into both seeing and working at art, as the processes of distortion and abstraction involved allow a unique opportunity for the audience's and artist's own vulnerability to fill in those empty spaces.

The stories, letters, and journal entries in this collection include excerpts that were removed for various reasons from her posthumously published major works, providing an even deeper and more complex look at the social, personal, and spiritual conflicts that were transformed into Carr's famous paintings of Pacific Northwest landscapes, First Nations totems, etc.