Vancouver Public Library

Commemorating the 140th Anniversary of Emily Carr’s Birth

Emily Carr was born on December 13, 1871 in Victoria and in her later years was finally recognized as one of Canada’s most-outstanding artists. Carr’s childhood home in James Bay near the Parliament Buildings was designated a national historic site in 1964.

In commemoration of the 140th anniversary of Emily Carr’s birth, the Library and Historic Joy Kogawa House will present a screening of Director Michael Ostroff’s Winds of Heaven: Emily Carr, Carvers and the Spirits of the Forest on December 7 at the Central Library. Kogawa House Writer-in-Residence Susan Crean will speak about Carr’s artistic and literary legacy.

Carr painted in an era when women didn’t paint, adopted techniques of modernism when they were considered dangerous, and travelled to remote locations where few professional adventurers – and fewer women - chose to go. And her chronicling of the extraordinary art and culture of Northwest Coast first nations was unprecedented.

Winds of Heaven draws from first-hand accounts, letters, diaries and Emily Carr’s published works to deliver evocative anecdotes and emotional narratives from the life of one of Canada’s most celebrated painters.

The film dispels myths about Carr’s contradictory relationship with and attitude towards First Nations people, and depicts the rebellious acts of a young Emily Carr against the socially stifling constraints and repressive atmosphere of her Victorian childhood. It goes on to document her fifteen-years of retreat from the art world to her re-emergence as a determined woman and modern artist.

Current Historic Kogawa House Writer-in-Residence Susan Crean will provide further insight into Carr’s life and work. She is the author of The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr that was nominated the Governor General’s Award for Literature in 2001 and won the Hubert Evans Prize for Non-Fiction in British Columbia.