Opposite Contraries

Unknown Journals of Emily Carr and Other Writings

by Emily Carr, edited by Susan Crean

tagged: artists, architects, photographers

Description

Collected here for the first time in book form are the expurgated sections of artist, writer, and rebel Emily Carr's unpublished journals, her important "Lecture on Totems" about Native art and people, and letters to and from several key figures in her life. The unpublished journal entries include long passages about her first meeting with Sophie Frank, a Squamish basket maker who became a confidante; anguished meditations on her spiritual mission; musings about Native culture and the white community's reaction to it; and thoughts about her sisters and relatives. This collection also features commentary by noted literary historian Susan Crean that offers cultural and historical context.

About the Authors

Emily Carr

Young, spirited and rebellious, Emily Carr escaped a strict Victorian household to study art in the Paris of Picasso and Matisse. In middle age, she shook the dust of acceptable society from her shoes and began a passionate journey into the wilderness of British Columbia; the power of her genius made her one of the twentieth century's great painters. Fortunately, she also wrote. In her books, her warmth, her humanity, her sense of fun and the ridiculous combine to present a self-portrait of a remarkable woman and artist. -- Mary Pratt

Susan Crean was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, and is of Scots-Irish descent. She began travelling in the sixties, studying at universities in France and Italy. In 1989 she moved to British Columbia where she spent a decade researching, writing and teaching. Her articles and essays have appeared in magazines and newspapers across Canada, and she is the author of seven books. The first, Who’s Afraid of Canadian Culture, appeared in 1976. Her landmark work, The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr, was nominated for five awards including the Governor General’s Literary award and won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize in 2002. Crean currently lives in Toronto.

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