“A Little Old Lady on the Edge of Nowhere”:
Canada’s National Treasure, Emily Carr
6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
Admission: free

Today, Carr’s art works set Canadian auction records, selling for more than $2 million. Carr’s story and her struggles to attain recognition for her art make a compelling story, and is a direct contrast to the instant success she had later in life as an author. Carr was first known as an artist. Her love of the West Coast landscapes, and her interest in the First Nations peoples (the subjects of Klee Wyck), are dominant themes in her oil paintings. This illustrated lecture will pair the majesty of Carr’s paintings with quotes from her writings.

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 that the as-yet-unpublished Carr manuscripts in the collection might be worthy of posthumous publication.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.