Bringing the Outside In (Grades 3–7)

Objective: Students learn about Emily Carr and how she represented the forests of .

Description of Activity: Students imitate Carr’s process by sketching outdoors and indoors.

Duration: 2 sessions, 60 minutes each

Background Information for Teachers: Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1871. From an early age she had a deep love of nature, which can be seen in her . She had a particularly keen interest in capturing the forests that characterize this region, and she preferred to observe her subject first-hand by travelling to the forest and working there. Sometimes she worked close to home, at Gold Stream Flats, approximately 18 kilometres from Victoria. Other times she went further afield, to places like Pemberton. Wherever she worked, Carr’s intention was to study the intense colours and textures of the trees, foliage, lakes and sky, and to observe the way that light, wind and weather affect how we see the world around us. She represented the landscape from many different perspectives: some of her paintings show the great cedar trees from a point of view directly below their branches, while others show only the tips of the trees, with the sky above as her main focus. Carr would sketch her subject, sometimes making numerous sketches of a single scene, then rework them later in her studio, using them as a basis for paintings.

Preparation for Teachers: • Look at Red Cedar, 1931, A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935, and Above the Trees, c.1939. See Appendix A for reproductions. • Consider how Carr depicts the landscape, focusing on her perspective or point of view: where does Carr position the viewer in relation to the scene depicted? • Read the following excerpt from Carr’s journal (Appendix B) in which she discusses the importance of observing her subject first-hand.

Materials for Students: • Reproductions of Red Cedar, 1931–32, A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935, and Above the Trees, c.1939 • Clipboards or drawing boards • Heavy paper • Oil pastels • Paint (tempera or acrylic) • Brushes • Water containers

Process:

Part I: • Show students two or three of Carr’s . • Have them describe what they see. What is Carr painting? From what perspective does she represent her subject? • Choose an outdoor area that is contained but diverse enough for students to spread out and sketch in different areas, such as a park or green space. • Assign students a variety of subjects and perspectives to sketch from: a single tree; a single tree sketched from below, looking up through its branches; a group of trees that fill the drawing surface so that no sky appears; a view in which the sky takes up more space than the land. • Have students make several sketches of their subject.

Part II: • Have students examine the sketches they made and pick one that they like. • Invite students to use this sketch as the basis for a painting. • Display students’ sketches and paintings together.

Discussion: • Ask students to describe their experience of sketching outdoors and painting indoors. What was it like to sketch outdoors? How was it different from painting indoors? • Ask students why they chose the sketch that they did for their painting. How did the different materials affect the way they treated their subject?

Further Engagement: • Have students sketch a single scene outdoors at different times of day and in different types of weather. Discuss the ways that light, atmosphere and weather change the way we see.

Appendix A: Bringing the Outside In

Emily Carr Red Cedar, 1931 oil on canvas 110.0 x 68.5 cm Collection of the Art Gallery, Gift of Mrs. J.P. Fell VAG 54.7 Photo: Trevor Mills,

Emily Carr A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935 oil on canvas 112.8 x 69.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.17 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Emily Carr Above the Trees, c.1939 oil on paper 91.2 x 61.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.83 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Appendix B: Bringing the Outside In

November 28th, 1935: Working on a jungle. How I want to get that thing! Have not succeeded so far but it fascinates. What most attracts me in those wild, lawless, deep, solitary places? First, nobody goes there. Why? Few have anything to go for. The loneliness repels them, the density, the unsafe hidden footing, the dank smells, the great quiet, the mystery, the general mix- up (tangle, growth, what may be hidden there), the insect life. They are repelled by the awful solemnity of the age-old trees, with the wisdom of all their years of growth looking down upon you, making you feel perfectly infinitesimal—their overpowering weight, their groanings and creakings, mutterings and sighings—the rot and decay of the old ones— the toadstools and slugs among the upturned, rotting roots of those that have fallen, reminding one of the perishableness of even those slow- maturing much-enduring growths. No, to the average woman and to the average man, (unless he goes there to kill, to hunt or to destroy the forest for utility) the forest jungle is a closed book. In the abstract people may say they love it but they do not prove it by entering it and breathing its life. They stay outside and talk about its beauty. This is bad for them but it is good for the few who do enter because the holiness and quiet is unbroken.

Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of An Artist. : Irwin Publishing, 1966, p. 297.

Abstracting the Forest (Grades 3–7)

Objective: Students make an abstract work of art, using Emily Carr’s paintings as an example.

Description of Activity: Students reduce elements of a landscape to simple geometric forms and create a collage using black, white and grey construction paper.

Duration: 1 session, 60 minutes

Background Information for Teachers: At the turn of the twentieth century, many artists began to search for new ways of representing the world. They sought new styles, often moving toward abstraction. Characterized by an interest in simplified geometric shapes and colours, favours emotion, vision, light and form over realistic depiction. Emily Carr began to work in an abstract manner after studying in France in 1910. The work of French Post-Impressionist and Fauvist artists interested her, with its loose brushstrokes and vivid colours. After returning to Victoria, Carr pursued these ideas in her own work, taking further direction from the American artist , who also worked in Victoria in 1928. Influenced by , Tobey used geometric shapes to portray subjects from many different angles, a strategy Carr adopted during this period.

Preparation for Teachers: • Examine Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930, and Untitled, 1931–1932. Consider how Carr uses geometric shapes in these works. See Appendix C for reproductions.

Materials for Students: • Reproductions of Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930, and Untitled, 1931–1932 • Flip chart • Markers • Photographs of trees from magazines or posters • Heavy paper • Black, grey and white construction paper • Scissors • Glue

Process: • As a group, make a list of geometric shapes. • Show students Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930, and Untitled, 1931–1932. What geometric shapes (triangle, square, circle, etc.) do they see? Talk about the absence of colour. What is the effect of Carr’s decision to work in monochrome? • As a group, discuss the ways that different parts of the body can be imagined as geometric shapes. If a student’s head were a geometric shape, what would it be? How about the neck? An arm? • Have students examine images of trees collected from magazines or posters. If they were to transform the different parts of the trees into geometric shapes, what shapes would they use? • Ask students to imagine the forest without colour. Where are the dark places? Where is it light? • Have students use construction paper and scissors to create geometric collages of the forest.

Discussion: • Display students’ work. Have them discuss which shapes they chose to use in their collages. What other shapes could they have used? How did their choice affect the appearance of their trees? How did they show light and dark? Discuss.

Further Engagement: • Older students can explore one of the abstract art movements that influenced Carr. Use Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg’s Off the Wall Museum Guides for Kids: (Worcester MA: Davis Publications, 2000). Have students paint a tree in the style of the movement discussed.

Appendix C: Abstracting the Forest

Emily Carr Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930 oil on paper 88.2 x 60.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.56 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Emily Carr Untitled, 1931–1932 charcoal and oil on paper 46.0 x 30.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.160 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Documenting Cultures (Grades 5–7)

Objective: Students investigate Emily Carr’s interpretation of First Nations cultures.

Description of Activity: Students consider the ways in which the cultural meaning of an object can change when it is interpreted from outside by discussing Emily Carr’s paintings of totem poles and by drawing from a photograph.

Duration: 2 sessions, 60 minutes each

Background Information for Teachers: The First Nations communities of the Northwest Coast were a major source of inspiration for Emily Carr. She visited many First Nations villages, making her first excursion to Hittats’uu (), part of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) territories on western , in 1899. Here Carr developed a keen interest in First Nations cultures, but her visits were brief and she never learned the language of the people she met. Carr’s work representing cultures that were not her own has led some authors to argue that her paintings are more a reflection of her British heritage than documents of First Nations cultures. This point deserves some consideration, as Carr often travelled to abandoned First Nations villages to paint and preferred to focus her attention on totem poles rather than people. She represented totem poles using avant-garde techniques that she learned while studying in France. Geometric shapes and vivid colours abound in her First Nations imagery. At the same time, it is important to remember that Carr was part of a generation in which many Westerners believed that the First Nations peoples of were disappearing, and that it was her concern for these people that led her to try to document Northwest Coast culture.

Preparation for Teachers: • Examine Totem Poles, Kitseukla, 1912, and Blunden Harbour, c.1930. See Appendix D for reproductions.

• Examine photographs of Gitsegukla [Kitseukla] and Blunden Harbour. See Appendix D for reproductions. • See the resource page on totem poles (Appendix E) that follows this activity.

Materials for Students: • Several pieces of cedar • Reproductions of Totem Poles, Kitseukla, 1912, and Blunden Harbour, c.1930. • Reproductions of photographs of the totem poles being discussed • Personal photograph (provided by teacher) • Heavy paper • Pencils, pencil crayons, crayons, markers

Process:

Part I • Introduce students to the totem poles of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast. Describe how totem poles are made while having students pass around a piece of cedar. Point out the various types of poles and note the importance of crest figures. • Have students examine Totem Poles, Kitseukla, 1912 and Blunden Harbour, c.1930. • Ask students to describe what they see. Have they seen a “in person”? How does it compare to the totem pole painted by Carr? Discuss. • Show students a photograph of the totem pole in Carr’s painting. How does the painting compare to the photograph? What does she add or change? Discuss.

Part II • Bring in a personal photograph of a place that is special to you. • Ask students to draw the place, focusing on what they like most about the photograph.

Discussion: • Invite students to share their drawings with the class. • Tell students why this is such a special photograph to you, making sure to point out the similarities and differences between how you see the image and how students represented it. • Return to Carr’s two images. Discuss how Carr’s interpretation of these totem poles was not necessarily the same as their carvers’, just as the students’ interpretations of your photograph were not necessarily the same as yours.

Further Engagement: • Have students look at Vanquished, 1930. Discuss Carr’s concern about the future of the First Nations people in British Columbia. Ask students to research the status of First Nations peoples during this period, paying particular attention to why someone like Carr would have the impression that Northwest Coast peoples were disappearing.

Appendix D: Documenting First Nations Cultures

Emily Carr Totem Poles, Kitseukla, 1912 oil on canvas 126.8 x 98.4 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Founders’ Fund VAG 37.2 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Emily Carr Blunden Harbour, c.1930 oil on canvas 129.8 x 93.6 cm National Gallery of Canada, Purchased 1937 4285

Gitxsan Village of Gitsegukla, 1910 Photograph by G.T. Emmons Royal BC Museum PN 1234

Kwakwaka'wakw Village of Ba'a's (Blunden Harbour), 1901 Photograph by C. F. Newcombe Royal BC Museum PN 258

Appendix E: Documenting First Nations Cultures

Northwest Coast First Nations are famous for their totem poles—monumental objects that are typically carved from a single red cedar tree. All groups on the north Pacific coast, from the Coast Salish in Puget Sound to the Tlingit in southeast , practised this art form.

Totem poles typically record the histories of chiefly families and the greater community. The poles have many purposes: to record real and mythic histories, display ancestral crests, celebrate marriages, memorialize the dead, define territorial claims and welcome guests to feasts and potlatches. Most carved images on totem poles are crest figures. They show the animal, human and supernatural ancestors of a family. The rituals involved in constructing and erecting totem poles are ancient and complex.

Totem poles are made of wood, usually Western red cedar (Thuja plicata), and are carved by a master carver assisted by apprentices. In early times totem poles were traditionally painted with bright, durable pigments derived from minerals, burnt and pulverized clamshells and charcoal, and mixed in a medium of crushed salmon eggs. In the late historic period, commercial oil-based paints replaced the naturally occurring pigments and provided a broader palette of colour.

When a pole is erected, a designated speaker gives a detailed account of the meaning and history of each figure depicted on the pole. The pole is then validated at a feast or potlatch where guests witness the event and the claims of the host chief; the witnesses are then paid with food and gifts to confirm the transactions.

First Nations communities continue to erect and dedicate totem poles for traditional purposes. In addition, many poles are now commissioned by governments, corporations, cultural institutions and individual collectors.

Welcome pole: Usually a single standing figure, often with outstretched arms, erected in front of the host’s house to welcome guests to ceremonial events.

Memorial pole: Erected in front of a house or at a gravesite and featuring the primary crests of a deceased chief. The pole is usually dedicated by his successor at a memorial potlatch held a year or more after his death. Alternatively, a single human figure, often representing the deceased, may be erected beside a gravesite.

Mortuary pole: A pole about 6 metres (20 feet) high. A mortuary pole of the Haida and Tlingit contains a cavity at the top in which the coffin of a high- ranking chief is placed. Crest figures may decorate the column and the rectangular plaque that covers the burial niche.

Interior house posts: The four main structural supports for the framework of the great cedar post-and-beam houses of the Northwest Coast, often decorated with crest figures. The posts support huge beams, which in turn support the rafters and roof planks.

House frontal poles: Poles placed against the façade of a house. These may include a ceremonial entranceway at or near ground level.

Potlatch figure: A potlatch figure may be placed permanently in front of an owner’s house or erected temporarily during a potlatch. It may indicate the privileges transferred at a marriage, symbolize orators, depict the host, ridicule a rival, represent an ancestor or account for the goods to be given away as gifts to the assembled witnesses.

In Her Own Words (Grades 4–7)

Objective: Students learn about Emily Carr the writer.

Description of Activity: Students listen to excerpts from Carr’s autobiography Growing Pains and then respond to the artist’s words in written and visual form.

Duration: 1 session, 60 minutes

Background Information for Teachers: Emily Carr struggled for recognition as a painter for most of her life. Critics, patrons and even her own family complained that her canvases were too experimental. Her work as an author, however, was an immediate success. Her first book, Klee Wyck, won the Governor General’s Award for 1941, the year it was published. A semi-autobiographical account of her travels to First Nations communities in British Columbia, Klee Wyck takes its title from the name given to Carr by the Nuu-chah-nulth people during her visit to Hiitats’uu (Ucluelet) in 1899. Carr followed Klee Wyck with two other books, The Book of Small in 1942 and The House of All Sorts in 1944. Her other major works, Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr (1946) and Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of An Artist (1966), were published after her death in 1945. Growing Pains and Hundreds and Thousands contain some of the most engaging examples of her writing, showing how Carr often worked out her ideas about art on the page.

Preparation for Teachers: • Examine Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1924, and Self-Portrait, 1938–39. See Appendix F for reproductions. • Read the excerpts from Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr (Appendix G) that follow this activity.

Materials for Students: • Reproductions of Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1924, and Self-Portrait, 1938–39 • Notebook (one per student) • Heavy paper • Pencils, pencil crayons, crayons or markers

Process:

Part I • Read selected excerpts from Growing Pains to students. • Ask students to write down points and keywords that they remember from the reading. • Have students draw a portrait of Carr, inspired by her words. • Display student portraits of Carr.

Part II • After a class discussion about the portraits they have created, show students Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1924. Consider how Carr depicts herself in this painting. Where is she? What is she doing? How is she posed? What is she wearing? Carr does not look at the viewer in her self-portrait. Discuss the impact of this with students. • How does Carr’s image of herself differ from how students see her? How are the two similar? Show students Carr’s later Self-Portrait, 1938–39. Compare this painting to Carr’s earlier self-portrait. How do the two portraits differ? What factors might have contributed to this change?

Further Engagement: • In addition to her novels and autobiography, Emily Carr kept a journal in which she recorded her impressions of the world around her. Have students read a selection of her entries. They may choose to write letters to the artist, or short stories, poems or plays inspired by her life, work and words.

Appendix F: The Artist In Her Own Words

Emily Carr Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1924 oil on paperboard 39.4 x 44.9 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.50 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Emily Carr Self-Portrait, 1938-1939 oil on wove paper, mounted on plywood 85.5 x 57.7 cm National Gallery of Canada, Gift of Peter Bronfman, Toronto, 1990 30755

Appendix G: The Artist In Her Own Words

Drawing and Insubordination I wanted to draw a dog. I sat beside Carlow’s kennel and stared at him for a long time. Then I took a charred stick from the grate, split open a large brown-paper sack and drew a dog on the sack. My married sister who had taken drawing lessons looked at my dog and said, “Not bad.” Father spread the drawing on top of his newspaper, put on his spectacles, looked, said “Um!” Mother said “You are blacked with charred wood, wash!” The paper sack was found years later among Father’s papers. He had written on it, “By Emily, aged eight.” (pp. 29–30)

The Outdoor Sketch Class Of all the classes and all the masters the outdoor sketching class and Mr. Latimer were my favourites. Every Wednesday morning those students who wished met the master at the ferry boat. There were students who preferred to remain in Art School and work rather than be exposed to insects, staring eyes, and sun freckles. We sketchers crossed the Bay to some quiet spot and I must say people did stare. Thirty or forty men and women of all ages and descriptions done up in smocks, pinafores and sunbonnets, sitting on campstools before easels down in cow pastures or vacant lots drawing chicken houses, or trees, or a bit of fence and bush, the little Professor hopping from student to student advising and encouraging. (p. 46)

Rejected My pictures were hung either on the ceiling or on the floor and were jeered at, insulted; members of the “Fine Arts” joked at my work, laughing with reporters. Press notices were humiliating. Nevertheless, I was glad I had been to France. More than ever I was convinced the old way of seeing was inadequate to express this big country of ours, her depth, her height, her unbounded wideness, silences too strong to be broken… (pp. 277–78)

Rejected “, Government Anthropologist, told me about your work,” said Mr. Brown (Eric Brown, Director of the National Gallery in ). “He heard about it from the Coast Indians. We are having an exhibition of West Coast Indian Art in the Gallery this autumn. Will you lend us fifty canvases?” We pay all expenses of transportation. Come over for the show. I can get you a pass on the railway. (pp. 283–84)

Emily Carr, Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005.

How Others See the Artist (Grades 6–7)

Objective: Students consider Emily Carr as a woman artist living in turn-of-the-century western Canada.

Description of Activity: Beginning with a photograph of the artist, students research some of the challenges that faced Carr and other women living in Canada in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Duration: 2 sessions, 60 minutes each Independent research time

Background Information for Teachers: In her writings, Emily Carr notes that she was not like other women in her day: instead of getting married and raising a family, she spent her time exploring the forest and painting. Her refusal to conform to social standards extended to other matters, from her religion and politics to her mode of dress. Carr also maintained her individuality when it came to her life as an artist. She found the subjects women usually painted, such as floral arrangements and portraits, uninspiring, and her works on these subjects were by her own admission “humdrum and unemotional.” Instead, Carr enrolled in art academies, which had traditionally been dominated by men, and tackled more “masculine” subjects such as landscapes and totem poles in her work. While there has been a tendency to label Carr as an eccentric because of her unconventional approach, in recent years her decisions have come to be understood in the context of the women’s movement, with commentators and other artists looking to Carr as an early feminist role model.

Preparation for Teachers: • Examine “In the Cariboo”, a photograph of the artist taken in 1909. See Appendix H for reproduction. Carr appears here riding western style, a posture that was not common among women in this period. • Read the excerpt from Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr (Appendix I) that follows this activity, recounting her impression of how others responded to her unorthodox behaviour.

Materials for Students: • Reproduction of “In the Cariboo” • Flip chart • Markers • Notebooks • Pencils, pens • Library resources

Process:

Part I • Show students a reproduction of “In the Cariboo”. • Have them describe what they see. Where is Carr? What is she doing? What pose does she assume? How is she dressed? What else can they see in the photograph? • Have students consider the photograph in relationship to what they know about women’s lives in 1909. Was horseback riding a common pastime? Where did women spend most of their time? What were common careers for women? • Make a list of activities that students think women could and could not do in Carr’s day. You may wish to guide the discussion by suggesting topics: going to school, working outside of the home, voting, serving in the military, running for public office, etc.

Part II • Ask students to conduct research at the library and on the Internet about what life was like in Canada for women around 1900. Were women in Canada permitted to vote? What were common jobs for women working outside the home? Were there other Canadian at that time? • Ask students to share what they have learned with the rest of the class.

Discussion: • Review the changes in society that have taken place since Carr’s lifetime.

Appendix H: How Others See the Artist

“In the Cariboo”; artist Emily Carr on horseback during her visit to the Cariboo, c.1909 Photograph by Archibald Murchie British Columbia Archives I-51569

Appendix I: How Others See the Artist

My sister owned a beautiful mare which she permitted me to ride. On the mare, astride as I had ridden in the Cariboo, my sheep-dog following, I went into the woods. No woman had ridden cross-saddle before in Victoria! Victoria was shocked! My family sighed. Carrs had always conformed; they believed in what always has been continuing always to be. Cross-saddle! Why, everyone disappointed! Too bad, instead of England gentling me into an English Miss with nice ways I was more me than ever, just pure me.

Emily Carr, Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005, p. 248.