The western edge of Canada called to me since childhood. I was eight years old when we drove up to Expo ’67 in Montreal from our small town in Quebec. I remember massive trees, and a trunk slice, and I knew I had to see these wild trees for myself. And somewhere along the line, perhaps a teacher in grade school, or my mother, but someone showed me Emily Carr’s painting “Grey”, and the two, the trees, and how she captured their wild spirit connected as the muse that drove my art.
In the early 1980’s, crossing by ferry to Vancouver Island for the first time, I leaned on the railing watching the shoreline slide by, and I was home.
But inexplicably, for long periods of time, I’d do other things, and forget my calling. Some distractions were transformative, like traveling to far-flung places, and raising kids. Others imposed; periods marred by surviving chronic illness, besting brain injury, and subsequent, and hard-won battles in mental health.
Through tracing Emily’s influence on my art, values, and spirit, I regained a sense of place as an artist. Going outside to paint locations important to Carr was like entering a vibrational stream she left behind, a kind of signature I like to call murmuration.
Now, freed by retirement, my two grown sons off on their own lives, I’m resolved to follow the Emily Carr muse, pay attention to her mentoring, and as a friend, a Fremily, go undistracted into the wild forest.
Dear artist and art lovers: I invite you to come along, embrace the murmuration, be an active participant in our creative environment, and in better mental health through creativity. Art is symbiotic, artists and art lovers come with special powers, we bring life to an art form through collaboration.
Sometimes, when painting outside, I can feel Emily with me. Would that I could turn, and see her hand holding up her brush. And I feel you cheering me on with a lifted thumb, murmurating together.
Contact: via Facebook: P Jean Oliver Writer and Artist, Inst: opjean, or email: jeanoliveris@hotmail.ca