It seemed fitting to end my journey to British Columbia visiting the house where Emily Carr grew up; to knock on the front door and be greeted by Jan Ross, curator of this National and Provincial Historic Site; to sit in the very parlor where Emily once sat; and learn more about this visionary whose art and life I so admired.
On the morning of our third full day in British Columbia, my husband Ralph and I departed for Victoria, the place of Emily Carr’s birth in 1871 and the city where she spent most of her life.
In the weeks before traveling to British Columbia to see two major exhibitions of paintings by Emily Carr—one of Canada’s most celebrated and fascinating artists—I read and researched everything I could about her.
It was June, 1974, and the lupines, I remember, were in bloom. Six months earlier, on the way home from a party near dawn, I’d totaled a white Volkswagen Beetle. Somersaulting through the convertible’s rag-top roof, twenty-three years of life flashed before my eyes; and I didn’t like what I saw. Too late, I thought.… Read More