I Met Emily Carr

"We artists need moral support, whether we are doing it in the old way or in the new way, it does not matter, so long as it is...with the feel and spirit of Canada".

--Emily Carr



So yesterday I talked to someone who I THOUGHT was dead, and I also talked with someone who I KNOW is dead. But Canadian artist and writer Emily Carr apparently lives on in the form of an actress names Molly Raher Newman who has become a "living history exhibit" dedicated to spreading the spirit of Emily's work by BEING Emily.

Her artist's caravan/shed and awning were set up underneath some trees at the Filberg Festival and Emily/Molly painted busily away, breaking off every once and a while to entertain passersby with readings from the work of Emily Carr.

Molly bears a fair resemblance to the middle-aged Emily Carr, paints in a style uncannily like Carr's, and certainly has a wonderfully theatric way of reading. She shared a little story from "The House of All Sorts" concerning Carr's time as a boarding lady when she was forced to put up with boarders hanging their "peach scanties" (undies) out the front window. Molly railed and fumed and bristled and I don't know if that's what the real Emily Carr would have sounded like but it was very entertaining in any case.

Molly (now out of character) told me about a trip across Canada planned for 2007 which will reenact Emily's trip to meet the artists known as the Group of Seven.

She also autographed a little card for me that proclaims that "I MET EMILY CARR". She said she's won bets from her perfect imitation of Emily's signature.

Mostly what she wanted people to know was that Emily Carr was an author as well as an artist. I adore Emily Carr's writing at least as much as her art so it was nice to be able to tell this lady so.