Emily Carr: Canadian Heritage or Cultural Misappropriation

(written for "Crossing Over" 2006)

Emily Carr in her studio. 1936.

      Emily Carr is a controversial artists since her artistic image and her works pivot between the poles of cultural heritage and cultural misappropriation. While on the one hand she is considered to be a Canadian icon, her works depicting Fist Nation culture seem to disrupt the fine line between the cultural representation and its appropriation. In order to reconcile this duality, we have to consider Carr's work within the time of colonialization when Native People were forcefully missionarized, their culture taken from them and their people were put on the lower social level. Contemporary scholars have reopened a discussion about her work and her artistic position within our society. Voices like Marcia Crosby and Douglas Cole offer interesting interpretations of Carr's work. While Crosby sets the artist within the frame of "salvage paradigm", Cole offers a counter-argument to the accusation that Carr's works display an imaginary Indian but that they are rather authentic. The question of authentisism, thus is contrasted with the imaginary re-construction of a "dying" culture, here the Native culture. These two perspectives on this binaries, consequently nourish the the perception of Carr's work as a heritage or as a result of cultural misappropriation. this essay tries to give an account for both interpretations of Emily Carr's work illuminating her current position within the artistic stage. I argue that Carr's art cannot be discarded as a product of cultural appropriation since it has to be considered within the time frame of colonialization and is rather a revolutionary work.

      According the the biography of Emily Carr written by Cat Clerks, Carr was for her time an unconventional individual in terms of her life style as well as her artistic development. Being born in Victoria in 1987, she was brought up appreciating the English style and culture. The society around her displayed strong conformity and and love for the tradition. Art was then considered as a hobby and not as a way of life. So, did Carr's quest of the nature of art lead her to England where she unfortunately did not achieve much success realizing that in England art appeared under more conservative light than in her hometown. During her time in the Westminster Art School in London she rejected to draw from the "lifeless statuary" worshipping the past. Her visionary and creative notion of art detached her from the tradition of art as a medium of recreating the past. Carr was not interested in the history of art but her motivation to continue her education in art carried progressive roots focusing on the contemporary time rather than creating art that was representative for the the " world mummified"  within the walls of the British museum. Considering her education in England as a failure, she returned to Canada in 1904. Her artistic education further continued in France, in the Academie Colarossi in Paris. The unorthodox use of colour in paintings, typical for the Bohemian style, has inspired her to develop her imagination giving her the freedom to create her own style. Being influenced by the French Impressionism, her art has gained its own dynamic. Her work has found resonance in the words of Gibbs, one of her teachers, noting that Carr was on her way to become the "foremost artist of her time".  In France, her works have been displayed next to the avant-garde elite painters of her time. Her time in France was an artistic success. Returning to Vancouver, she continued to develop her art. However, her works were criticized by the society as childish, bizarre and even threatening. Being rejected as an artist from her local society, she in a way isolated herself from the public life. In 1927, she was invited to display her works in the National Gallery of Canada within the exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art. During that time she encountered the work of the Group of Seven that focused its art on the Canadian landscape images emphasizing its "emptiness and vastness of the terrain" (Moray 2). The impressionistic style of the Group of Seven   has found its echo in the style of Carr's work.

Harris, Lawren. Algoma Reflections

 Her connection to Lawren Harris was valuable to her in terms of her artistic expressionism in the public sphere. However, her connection to the group of Seven is controversial considering Carr's work within the frame of the of Aboriginal culture. Her paintings of the Fist Nation villages and various aspects of their culture stand in the contrast to the developments of the art by the Group of Seven. As Jonathan Bordo points out the landscape motives of their art has eliminated all "traces of Aboriginal presence". Consequently, it is not surprising that Carr's later depictions of the Totem poles within the "vastness" of the landscape  disrupt her connection to the artistic ideas of the Group of Seven.
Carr has encountered Native people during her childhood, however her first artistic encounter has been initiated by her visit to the village of Ucluelet, on the West coast of Vancouver Island. She was inspired by the beauty of the villages within the majestic setting of the rain forest. The devastating condition of the people in those villages and at the same time her witnessing of the cultural exploitation of the Aboriginal Culture as the Totem Poles were taken away from their natural setting and transferred in to the frozen walls of the museum, made her to come to the realization that the First Nation culture is going to disappear within the time. Many scholars argue that her decision to depict Aboriginal art works emerged from the idea to preserve the culture of "dying people" (Crosby 274), however the amount of work that Carr has put into her art is a witness of more than a archaeological recording of a culture. As an artist she has travelled by foot, by train, by boat to reach the villages as remote as in Alaska. It is a historical fact that the Northwest Coast population have declined by 80 percent (Cole 150) and that most Aboriginal villages have been abandoned leaving their art works as witnesses of their culture and history. Within this frame, Carr's work carries the notion of preserving Aboriginal culture, however, the style and creativity of her paintings reject to be an objective scientific record of artifices but gain their own spirit reviving  Aboriginal culture. For Carr, the Aboriginal culture was not a mere folk art but displayed a mastery of craftsmanship which managed to capture the complexity of the stories of native culture. Thus, Carr's approach towards the aboriginal art illuminates her attempt to understand its function and its position within the culture rather than to create a photographic memory of the object.

Carr, Emily.Totem Poles, Kitseukla, 1912

     Carr's early knowledge about the Natives originates from the literature creating an idealized image of the "noble savage". Contrasting Carr's paintings with this notion then it becomes obvious that Carr has disrupted this image not only offering an authentic depiction of the First Nation culture in her art expanding her perception in her book Klee Wyck.

Within the literary frame she describes her experiences while encountering Aboriginal people revealing her understanding of their culture nourished by the connection to the people. Here, she tries to display her understanding of the connection of the Native people with their art. Her inspiration for the Totem poles finds its echo in her observations of their interconnection between the artist and the art object, "he grafted this new language on to the great cedar trunks and called them totem poles and stuck them up in the villages with great ceremony. Then the cedar and the creatures and the man all talked together through the totem poles to the people" (Carr 51). The mutual interconnectedness becomes a guide fro Carr who tries to preserve and deepen this understanding in her paintings.Witnessing their way of life, their difficulties as well as their festive days during the potlatches, experiencing the significance of the cultural values deconstruct Carr's perception as an artist within the frame of "salvage paradigm". The more she immersed herself into the Aboriginal culture the more she understood the spirit of their culture which becomes alive in her pictures. During her lifetime, Carr made many trips to the native villages, creating hundreds of sketches not only of Totem poles but also of other Aboriginal art motives representing the mythical face of this culture. So is the painting of Dsonoqua, a wild woman of the forest standing as guard. Her eagle shaped breasts, extended arms and open mouth create a mythical figure that was considered to have a cannibal spirit.

Carr, Emily. DSonoqua.
                                            

     Carr's interest in mythical figures of Aboriginal culture further reinforces her artistic function removing her from the scene of objective reporting of a culture. While today, her Aboriginal motive are considered to fit into the frame of cultural appropriation, for Carr's contemporary time, her work remains a revolutionary step towards the inter-cultural connection between the Aboriginal and Western cultures.
     Scholars, like Marcia Crosby, however do not remove Carr from the notion of "salvage paradigm". In her essay "Construction of the Imaginary Indian" she discusses the

in-authenticity of the image of the Indian in the works of various artists including Emily Carr. She sets her argument in the frame of post-modernism as a cultural movement towards "embracing of difference". The interest in the First Nation culture has become manifest in form of "dominating or colonizing" approach by the Western civilization (Crosby 267). Crosby further argues that the Western interest has become a "self-interest" expanding its borders within the notion of "salvage paradigm". Salvage paradigm was a phenomenon that has lead museums and anthropologists to collect "remnants" and art works of a disappearing culture. Crosby takes a critical perspective on this movement asserting that those who were involved in the action of  saving a dying culture, made the decision about what is going to be saved, choosing fragments of a culture they are "salvaging". Consequently, as Crosby goes on, they become the owners of the given culture and the interpreters of their art. The "external interest" in First Nation culture and the movement of salvaging their culture accounts for the re-interpretation of Aboriginal art producing "work that that has to do with the observers" own values" (Crosby 270).
Interpreting Carr's paintings of Totem poles and villages, she claims that the "authenticity... is invisible in Carr's works" (276) displaying an image of an Aboriginal culture that is imagined to have existed in the past rather than focusing on the reality. Crosby reminds us that the Totem poles and other Aboriginal works of art being a "material culture..., were created by and belong to the First Nations peoples" (Crosby 276). Carr's depiction of this "material culture" consequently positions her work within the "salvage paradigm".

     According to Crosby, Carr's role as an artist is not justified since she becomes one of the "owners" of the Aboriginal culture in her attempt to "save a diminishing culture" (Crosby 274). This notion nourishes the contemporary perception of Carr's work as a art of cultural misappropriation which fins its echo in contemporary Native artists like Rose Spahan. in her painting "Tea with Emily Carr"  she situates Carr within the frame of a British tea ceremony that takes place in the company of Aboriginal mythical figures such as the Raven, the Salmon and a Native mask. Being the only human being she seems to be misplaced in this setting which is contrasted by the very setting of a typical British tea ceremony, imposing a foreign culture which displaces the Aboriginal figures out of the frame. The cultural misunderstanding becomes obvious in this painting since the language of understanding seems to be distorted as well. All characters become de-framed and disrupt the atmosphere. Rose Spahan, thus creates a visual understanding the notion of cultural misappropriation. This perception sheds a negative light on Carr's work implying colonialization through art.
     In contrast to this argument, Cole offers a different perspective on Carr's work setting her within her time. He argues that the notion of the "vanishing Indian" (Cole 151) was not an illusion. Referring to the population decline within the First Nations, which has reached a low point in 1915 within the Haida people, Cole asserts that the salvage paradigm carried a tendency to consider any artistic development within this frame. The decline of the Indian population has consequently affected the practicing of their culture even  "... some [Aboriginal languages] had disappeared". (Cole 150). Although Carr's work has been created during the time of Aboriginal population decline, her motive reach beyond the notion of "salvaging". With an "artful eye of an observer" (Cole 152), Carr encounters the Aboriginal people acknowledging the reality within which they live. Cole draws attention on Carr's book Klee Wyck, illuminating her compassion towards the Aboriginal people. The characters of  Jimmie and Louisa and Sophie are more than a personifications of the "vanishing or imaginary Indian" but are people who try to understand their own time positioning themselves within the tradition and the modern transitions. "Klee Wyck is a testament to an outsider's perception of the transition in Northwest Coast Aboriginal life during Carr's life time" (Cole 157). Not only her literary work but also her paintings  become a witness of a culture that was experiencing in a way radical transformation within the frame of cultural colonialization.

      Considering Carr within the cultural frame, she  can be regarded as pioneer whose work remains a witness of cultural interconnectedness. It is natural that the works of an artist gain new interpretations during the time. So that Carr's art pivots today between the path of cultural heritage or being a fragment of cultural mis-appropriation. Which perspective we choose, depends from the angle we consider it. Looking though the contemporary cultural lens, it is one dimensional to regard Carr's work merely as a archaeological record of the Native culture within the frame of the "salvage paradigm", within the notion of saving a dying culture. Her paintings display more than an objective perception of an archaeologist or a photographer. Carr's paintings can be considered as revolutionary for her time and within her culture when the Aboriginal people did not have the same status in the society as the "white man". Her attempt to understand Native art and culture are witnesses of a visionary artist who was ahead of her time. The paintings of the Totem poles display an expressive strength of an artist who went beyond the drawn borders of her society. While immersing in her paintings, one has the feeling that the Aboriginal art becomes revived, gaining its own spiritual and cultural dynamic reminding us of the cultural interconnection not only on the individual, artistic level but also on the social level. Thus, her paintings become timeless witnesses of a culture in the circle of birth and re-birth.

Works Cited