Emily and I in London

On the other side of London is the Dulwich Picture Gallery, this is where Emily Carr is having her first solo show in Europe. I have gone five months without Emily there beside me, she has been a huge part of my life, she has been my home, literally. So when I first saw those signs in the underground tube announcing her arrival I felt at home. On walking into the Dulwich no one knows why we are there. We are two more faces in a crowd wanting admission to the Gallery. They don’t know how important this woman is to us, and how she is not just another Canadian painter. Upon entering the exhibit and seeing paintings more familiar to us than any expert on Carr (except maybe our Mother) a sense of calmness comes to us. We are back in Canada. We are back in Victoria, British Columbia. We are back with our Emily.

From the Forest to the Sea that is what the exhibit is called, as it takes you from room to room to follow her journey through Carr’s works. Oh, those trees we Canadians know so well; nothing lifts us more then to be out walking underneath them. And the totems that are as common to us as the trees that they once were, before master craftsmen carved them into creatures wild and beautiful, and finally ending up at the sea. Growing up in Victoria it was all around us. And understanding was there too about the importance of the Aboriginal People to Carr. It was there in their own art. An homage.  What I truly loved about the exhibit was how the curators saw her as an artist. A true artist. They didn’t care about the monkey that rode on her shoulder, or the baby carriage she pushed around town. To them those things were not important, those trifling things that people in Victoria seem to care so much about, instead of seeing the importance of her painting. What she was showing the world of our untameable forests and sea. And that I know that Emily loved her beasts, nothing need be argued about that, but she wanted above all else to be seen as an artist and a great one.

Here in this beautiful Dulwich Gallery they have done that.