Volume 35, No. 4 BRITISH COLUMBIA Fall 2002 $5.00 HISTORICAL NEWS ISSN 1195-8294 Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation Womanly Arts Expressions of and creations by women in Victorian British Columbia. Left: Kathleen O’Reilly, age 21, December of 1888. Photo taken at the studio of Lambert Weston & Sons, Folkestone, England. See “How Shall I Frame Myself?” by Liberty Walton in this issue. BC Archives Archives HP50082 BC Our Web site <bchistory.ca> is hosted by Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC British Columbia Historical News British Columbia Historical Federation Journal of the PO Box 5254, Station B., Victoria BC V8R 6N4 British Columbia Historical Federation Under the Distinguished Patronage of Her Honour Published Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. The Honourable Iona Campagnolo. PC, CM, OBC Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia Editor: Fred Braches PO Box 130 Honorary President: Helen B. 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Phone 604.462.8942 [email protected] British Columbia Historical Federation is a charitable society under the income tax act While copyright in the journal as a whole is vested in the British Columbia Historical Federation, copyright in the individual articles belongs to their respective authors, and articles may be reproduced for personal use only. For reproduction for other purposes permission in writing of both author and publisher is required. Volume 35, No. 4 BRITISH COLUMBIA Fall 2002 $5.00 HISTORICAL NEWS ISSN 1195-8294 Journal of the British Columbia Historical Federation WOMANLY ARTS 2 Beauty, Spirituality, and Practicality Last year, Jennifer Iredale, Curator, by Jennifer Iredale Coastal Okanagan Region of the Her- itage Branch, convinced me that she 4 Beyond Recollection: The Early Art of Emily Carr would assemble enough writings on by Tusa Shea womanly arts to fill an issue to coin- 7 When the Flowers Talked cide with Women’s History month. She did what she promised. This issue by Christine D. Currie is in many ways her dream come true. 9 China Painting in Victoria and the Arts and Craft Movement Objects in museums and collections by Marla Stevenson may tell us about skills, talents, art- 12 The Needle Art of Kathleen O’Reilly istry. They may have aesthetic, senti- by Tina Lowery mental, or montary value but without records about their makers and their 15 The St. Ann’s Academy Art Studio lives and times—without a human by Ayla Lepine context—they have little if any his- 18 Pretty in Pink torical value for anyone but perhaps an art historian. by Wendy Nichols This issue of BC Historical News gath- 20 Unravelling the Past ers writings about artifacts with a hu- by Rachel Edwards man context. The articles speak about 23 Yale’s Ecclesiastical Textiles specific women of Victoria’s social by Natasha Slik elite in the late eighteenth century, their talents and the objects they cre- 26 How Shall I Frame Myself? ated. Added are discussions about by Liberty Walton two institutions where women learned and practised these manual skills and developed their artistic tal- 38 BOOK REVIEWS ents. 43 NEWS AND NOTES The preparation of the texts for publi- cation was a greater challenge than 44 FEDERATION NEWS expected, and not only for the au- thors. I want to extend a special thanks to University of Victoria faculty members Karen Finlay and Barbara Winters for their generous and sub- stantial help in the final stages of preparation. Enjoy! “Any country worthy of a future should be interested in its past.” W. Kaye Lamb, 1937 the editor BC HISTORICAL NEWS - FALL 2002 1 Beauty, Spirituality, and Practicability by Jennifer Iredale In 2000, the University of Victoria received a Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, in a new initiative to encourage collaboration between universities and other sectors of the community. Under this grant, which was awarded to the History in Art Department at the University, projects were undertaken in partnership with community heritage organizations to research and document little-known but historically important collections. The articles in this issue of BC Historical News are a product of preliminary research mainly by University of Victoria students and myself in connection with two continuing CURA projects: an examina- tion of the liturgical textiles in the collection of St. John the Divine Church in Yale and a study At work at the Anglican Archives in Vancouver. From left to right Bev Kennedy, Jennifer of “womanly arts” produced by the women of Iredale, Doreen Stevens, Rachel Edwards and Natasha Slik. four historic sites in Victoria: Helmcken House, Emily Carr House, Point Ellice House and Craigflower Manor. University of Victoria number of artifacts made by the women function did their creation play in the faculty members Carol-Gibson Wood, Karen of the household. Although generally not life of the artist? Why did the artist’s name Finlay, Diane Tolomeo, and Cultural Resource of significance to the major story that get separated from the artifact? Why Management Director Joy Davis oversaw most led to the preservation of the house, these didn’t she sign her work? More broadly, of the student research. All the papers published objects caught my attention in that their we were curious about the cultural and here are based on preliminary research, within a creation clearly played a major role in social significance of the art as well as limited time. The program offered these students the life of the maker. These objects the societal or self-perception of these the rare opportunity to learn research practices included the visual arts of painting and women as creators or artists. We wanted based on primary materials. drawing and also many decorative art our research to uncover and provide a objects, baskets, ceramics, needlework, greater understanding of the social photographs, and even books. systems that existed to encourage or Women and Art in Colonial This large collection of “womanly discourage women in the arts and to British Columbia arts” became of great interest to me and discover why so much of this story of when studied together I suspected they womanly arts was untold or had been As curator of provincial historic sites it could reveal untold and lost stories that lost. has been my job to preserve and present could significantly add to our My work on this project has led me significant themes about the building; understanding and respect of women’s to believe that the creation of these often a story in which a woman plays a history and lives in colonial British artifacts can be traced to the ideologies supporting rather than dominant role.