Artist, Author, Eccentric, Genius:
Will Emily Carr please identify herself!
9:30 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: free

Canada is justly proud of Emily Carr, whose twin legacies and her own life story continue to inspire both within the country and internationally. What would Carr think of her enduring popularity as an author and an artist? How would she react to being portrayed as a middle-aged eccentric whose menagerie of dogs, rats, cats and a monkey threatened to overwhelm her? What constitutes genius? What is the secret of Carr’s wide appeal, and does it rely on being typecast?

Kathryn Bridge, a professional archivist at the British Columbia Archives in Victoria, British Columbia, wrote The Lost Klee Wyck, the introduction to the 2003 reissuing of Emily Carr’s 1941 collection of short stories and word sketches. Her work with Klee Wyck also involved making detailed comparisons of the first edition with the American edition, the English edition, the educational editions, the current editions, and examining the manuscripts to locate the excised selections. She also researched Carr’s correspondence and journals to see what Carr herself had to say about writing her book and having it published and her position on copyright and on moral rights.

Bridge’s next project, almost on the heels of Klee Wyck, was to convince the Royal BC Museum Corp. that the as-yet-unpublished Carr manuscripts in the collection might be worthy of posthumous publication. The RBCM published, in 2004, Wildflowers, using Carr’s unfinished manuscript, illustrated with botanical wildflower illustrations by Emily Woods, one of Carr’s formative teachers. Bridges wrote the foreword and afterword for this book.

Bridge is nearing completion of a Ph.D. in Canadian history at the University of Victoria. She will be curating a collaborative exhibition of works by a contemporary artist inspired by Carr alongside original Carr art works pared with historic photographs.