Do not try to do extraordinary things but do ordinary things with intensity. Emily Carr More Quotes by Emily Carr More Quotes From Emily Carr I was not ready for abstraction. I clung to earth and her dear shapes, her density, her herbage, her juice. I wanted her volume, and I wanted to hear her throb. Emily Carr juice density earth I made myself into an envelope into which I could thrust my work deep, lick the flap, seal it from everybody. Emily Carr envelopes privacy made If you're going to lick the icing off somebody else's cake you won't be nourished and it won't do you any good,--or you might find the cake had caraway seeds and you hate them. Emily Carr cake hate might Let me not fuss and fret at my incompetence but be still and know that Thou art God. Emily Carr incompetence peace art I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. Emily Carr dialect different half Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul. Emily Carr paint soul writing Up came the sun, and drank the dew. Emily Carr dew sun morning You must be absolutely honest and true in the depicting of a totem for meaning is attached to every line. You must be most particular about detail and proportion. Emily Carr totems details lines When you really think about your hand you begin to realize its connection, to sense the hum of your own being passing through it. When we look at a piece of the universe we should feel the same. Emily Carr connections hands thinking The artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion. Emily Carr artist religious thinking Indian Art broadened my seeing, loosened the formal tightness I had learned in England's schools. Its bigness and stark reality baffled my white man's understanding... I had been schooled to see outsides only, not struggle to pierce. Emily Carr struggle art school I wonder why we are always sort of ashamed of our best parts and try to hide them. We don't mind ridicule of our 'sillinesses' but of our 'sobers'. Emily Carr mind wonder trying The house begins to be a home. The unfamiliar places are beginning to fold the familiar objects into their keeping and to cozy them down. Objects that swore at each other when the movers heaved them into the new rooms have subsided into corners and sit to lick their feet and wash their faces like cats accepting a new home. Emily Carr cat feet home How badly I want that nameless thing! First there must be an idea, a feeling... Maybe it was an abstract idea that you've got to find a symbol for, or maybe it was a concrete form that you have to simplify or distort to meet your ends, but that starting point must pervade the whole. Emily Carr desire feelings ideas The spirit must be felt so intensely that it has power to call others in passing, for it must pass, not stop in the pictures. Emily Carr passings passing spirit Indians do not hinder the progress of their dead by embalming or tight coffining. When the spirit has gone they give the body back to the earth. the earth welcomes the body-coaxes new life and beauty from it, hurries over what men shudder at. Lovely tender herbage bursts from the graves, swiftly, exulting over corruption. Emily Carr lovely giving men The earth is soaked and soggy with rain. Everything is drinking its fill and the surplus gluts the drains. The sky is full of it and lies low over the earth, heavy and dense. Even the sea is wetter than usual! Emily Carr drinking rain lying If the air is jam-full of sounds which we tune in with, why should it not also be full of feels and smells and things seen through the spirit, drawing particles from us to them and them to us like magnets? Emily Carr smell drawing air Perfectly ordered disorder designed with a helter-skelter magnificence. Emily Carr magnificence disorder There is a side of friendship that develops better and stronger by correspondence than contact.... The absence of the flesh in writing perhaps brings souls nearer. Emily Carr stronger soul writing
