As the century progressed, other cultural icons were added, but Emily Carr has remained on top of the list of those who gave a voice to the West Coast experience. Because of her, generations of young British Columbians—and one hopes, Canadians everywhere—grew up to look at totem poles and the Haida's artfully designed and executed copper shields as prime works of art. The Haida, after all, were the only metal workers known in North America when the white man arrived. These copper works represented not only great art—as we have become to realize, in part through people like Carr—but they also represented wealth to their aboriginal owners and told stories that might have been lost if non-native artists had not come along to bring them to a wider public despite the narrow, arrogant view of the laws of the land.

Carr was the only native British Columbian of the three cultural icons. Birney, a Calgarian by birth, and later a resident of Toronto, spent only a comparatively brief time in BC. Pauline Johnson hailed from Ontario. Of Six Nations ancestry, she was the one true 'Aboriginal' Canadian among the three, one who settled in Vancouver just four years before her untimely death there. Yet, Vancouver claims her as its own, and anyone who grew up in the shadow of Stanley Park knew it as the spiritual home of Johnson.

Emily Carr is currently the subject of an extensive exhibition of her work, juxtaposed with works by the likes of Paul Kane and Langdon Kihn, as well as with West Coast Native art and artifacts, period photographs, and Carr's own writings, drawings and caricatures. Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon is a fascinating exhibit of her work that includes paintings executed during her art student years in Europe. The show exposes her great achievements, but also her flaws. That is a good thing for it allows the viewer to see her as a human being rather than an unassailable icon. In many ways, this is a very satisfying exhibition, but at the same time one has a sense of disquiet that its curators went a little too far out of their way to ensure that the icon does not become an idol on a pedestal.

Unlike Kane and Kihn, Carr did not go for detail, but for essence, and there is no denying when it comes to the art of her home province, she was right on. That does not mean, however, that Carr is a regional painter because she captured her native province on canvas for the world to see. After all, we do not call the Group of Seven painters regional artists despite their fame resting mostly on works depicting Northern Ontario scenes, although most of them also went west to paint. Yet, it is only Lawren Harris who is equally well known for his mountain-scapes as he is for his Ontario settings.

The reference here to Carr possibly being a regional artist derives from having overheard a discussion about her on that subject at a media preview at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), where the exhibit will be on view until May 20, 2007. My own thought on this is that I cannot really state with certainty that any serious artist is merely a regional artist. Was Paul Cézanne a regional painter because he was born and died in Aix-en-Provence, briefly traveled abroad only once, to Switzerland, and is to many people the man who painted Mont Sainte-Victoire over and over again? Of course not. No one would ever call him a regional artist despite his frequent regional subjects.

Carr's painting, Women of Brittany (1911) still relates to her early works that she created in BC, before attempting to paint in the manner of Les Fauves. In this work she captured the somber light of the Breton sky and the impact it has on landscape and its people. Her other paintings from the same period painted in France, Market Scene in Brittany, Autumn in France, and Trees in France, are quite different beasts. They are strongly influenced by Les Fauves, and as such they fail to capture the intrinsic atmosphere of the place and landscape. She did not find the soul of these places. Carr must have realized this was not her true métier because she became eventually known as an Expressionist landscape artist, a title much more fitting to her work.

Carr became interested in Native art during a trip to Ucluelet on Vancouver Island in 1898. She then determined to record what she saw because she feared that the totem poles and other artifacts and art objects would be lost to the world. She had good reason to believe so because the laws of her day had the intent to force the First Nations population to integrate into the general population; these laws even outlawed native languages and the Potlatch, a gathering highly important to the creation and dedication of totem poles. Besides, there was evidence of deserted Native villages that would have contributed to Carr's conviction.

In 1913 she wrote, "I am a Canadian born and bred. I glory in our wonderful West and I hope to leave behind me some of the relics of its first primitive greatness. These things should be to us Canadians what the Ancient Briton's relics are to the English, only a few more years and they will be gone forever."

This rather passionate, eccentric, even difficult woman was given the name Klee Wyck—the laughing one—by a local chief. This might indicate that she was far more relaxed among the aboriginal peoples then when among her own kind. But that is just conjecture, based on what one knows about the Victoria of her time, a rather insular, colonial town with all the implications that entails. No doubt, her fervent Canadianism, expressed before the crucible of WWI, must have seemed very much out of place in Victoria, the enclave of Britishness, a kind of British Raj in Canada.

The current exhibition at the AGO had its origins in Vancouver, where it was organized and then circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). It was also on display at the NGC last summer. One takes it that it had a similar format there as the Toronto exhibit. It is divided into sections, with a a variety of headings, and one of which is a partial reconstruction of a 1927 NGC exhibit, The Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art: Native and Modern of 1927. This NGC show brought Carr to the attention of a wider public than she had known in Victoria. Through it she finally met major Canadian artists from the eastern part of the country.

This 1927 show had been created by an ethnologist working for the National Museum of Canada and Carr's works became an instant attraction at the exhibit. Carr, of course, was an artist, not an ethnologist. Consequently, her paintings did not necessarily reflect the complete reality of what she had seen, but reflected an artist's interpretation. The members of The Group of Seven recognized her talent. Of the group's members, Lawren Harris, took an especially great interest in her, giving her much needed advice, and later he became her artistic executor.

Looking at Carr's work one must always keep in mind that she was an artist and not an ethnologist, even when her original intent may have been ethnological. She could not help but paint from a subjective point of view rather than an objective one. Her experiences while traveling along the coast included being asked to leave several Native villages, because the people held the belief that by painting or recreating the totem poles in her sketch book, she was stealing the them. This is akin to the same kind of cultural divide that one encountered, for example, with the Masai of East Africa, who believed that one stole their souls by taking a photograph of them. When one adds Carr's lack of real knowledge of the various indigenous languages to the Natives' apprehension, it is quite easy to see that she unwittingly contributed to the cultural divide that existed between aboriginal and white society. But she surely did not do so out of malice or for any underhanded cultural misappropriation.

It is quite evident that although Carr's initial interest in painting First Nations images arose from a sense that these might be lost to future generations, it was the painter in her that eventually took over. What came out were astounding images that must have hit viewers in the early days of the 20^th century with considerable force. Cumshewa (1912) is a watercolor created in her studio from sketches she made in this abandoned Haida village on the rain-soaked landscape of the Queen Charlottes. Its central focus is a giant raven on a raised pole overshadowing the landscape. It is evident that here her colors are influenced by what she learned in France, but fortunately she did not transpose the French style to the BC environment. In 1931 she returned to this raven to create the oil painting, Big Raven, which is even more overpowering, darker in mood and tone, and quite awe-inspiring.

There are a large number of books on sale at the AGO about Emily Carr, the most important—and most expensive—is the 335-page illustrated, hardcover catalog with the same title as the exhibit. Unfortunately, on the day I viewed the show, it was not available for sale, and so I cannot give my opinion on the book's content. Word, however, has drifted down that essays accompanying this catalog variously accuse Carr of racism, and of 'cultural tourism'. The latter is also one of the headings of the many sections in the current show.

This is an unusual phrase for a heading to connect to an artist. Yes, Carr contributed to this form of tourism, as so many other artists of her time, and earlier, did through their interest in aboriginal art and themes, here and south of the border. Reproductions of their art were readily available for purchase in locations that wanted to attract tourists. In her age, little actual Native art or handicrafts were yet generally available for sale as they are today. People, regardless of where they travel, want souvenirs. They want to take home something that is a reminder of something very different than their own culture. Is this not what we all do when we visit, say, Greece, Italy, or Egypt? What we obtain there is surely nothing more than a reproduction or imagined reproduction of an object created centuries ago, quite removed from its original use, purpose or source.

It seems, in part, what bothers many people today is that Carr used aboriginal motifs on her pottery that were not used in the manner that related to what Natives had intended, and she wove carpets and hangings with materials unfamiliar to the original. These she sold in various tourist locations to make a living. Considering that today cultural tourism is part of the economy of many places, it seems strange that Carr is being accused of contributing to it. The question is then, was Henri Matisse a cultural tourist when he ventured to Morocco and came back after his brief visit with a desire to paint imaginary odalisques? He had not even seen a harem, yet he painted many odalisques quite removed from their cultural reality and we greatly admire him for the gift of his great art, but we never admonish him. We accept that he inspired many to venture to Morocco and other North African and Middle Eastern countries in search of the exotic. Artists have a tendency to take an image and change it to fit their own needs or interpretations. We, the on-lookers, love to buy the copies of their artworks, or their imitations of reality. Must we not forgive them then for what they do? Or do we have to accuse Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Carr—to mention just a few artists who were inspired by cultures other than their own—of cultural misappropriation? I hope not.

Besides, why use cultural tourism in connection with Carr in a negative manner? There is now an Aboriginal Cultural Tourism Association of BC (ATBC) founded by a core group of Aboriginal volunteers because they want to increase cultural tourism in British Columbia. The Native peoples of Carr's home province have a desire to profit from cultural tourism, joining in this effort aboriginal groups right across the country, and even in Australia and New Zealand. The ATBC is particularly focusing on the 2010 Winter Olympics, hoping these games will help to engender economic growth for Natives through cultural tourism. It appears that intellectual thought, as expressed in the Carr exhibit catalog, and reality do not always match up.

Whatever Carr may have been guilty of that prompted the essay writers to call her a racist, even a liar, I cannot say. It can, however, not be denied that she pushed the boundaries of art in a quite fantastic manner. She did a century ago, what young Native artists on the West Coast are doing now—and Native artists have done since the 1960s here in Eastern Ontario—by using modern, non-native methods and materials to express their experiences. They do so often to their elders' discomfort because they are straying from traditional ways. Carr used what might be called innate western knowledge to express her experiences of encountering aboriginal images. She, too, strayed from traditional ways.

What Carr wanted to create was the essence of the places she presented on her canvases. She succeeded. Sombreness Sunlit (1938-40) managed to send me back to a time when as a teenager I encountered just such a tree-scape early one summer morning as the sun rose through the giant cedars and pines while I tracked alone on a path through a section of BC forest. It is an unforgettable experience, and Carr captured the emotional impact as no camera could have. She also captured the dark, even foreboding images that the mountains cast in those areas where the sun is hidden or never reaches. The Welcome Man, despite the friendly title, is shown merely as a dark, almost threatening silhouette. This painting represents the dark, shadowy, overpowering and mystic aspect of the BC rainforest. This is perhaps what people find so difficult to understand about Carr's art. The mountains of BC far exceed the length and breadth of the more accessible alpine, seemingly benign mountains of Europe. To represent the rainforest and the mountains of BC required another kind of art than had existed before Carr started to paint. For this alone, we should mark her as a genius, rather than brand her with today's political correctness that has no application to her time or circumstances.

My advise to anyone going to this exhibit: just enjoy the marvelous paintings and the beauty of the aboriginal objects presented in this show. They are all wonders to behold. And, get a chuckle out of Carr's sense of humor as presented in caricatures and writings about her European experiences.

There is, however, another small exhibition of photographs associated with this exhibit by First Nations photographer, Arthur Renwick, that is worth seeing. Renwick was born and raised in Kitimat, BC, and is a member of the Haisla First Nation. He is a graduate of the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, and holds a Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University, Montreal. He resides in Ontario, and is a tenure track professor at the University of Guelph's School of Fine Arts & Music.

Renwick's exhibit consists of just four photographs of First Nation churches in BC. One immediately finds an echo in his images in Carr's painting, Indian Church [1929]. The obvious difference being that she painted her church surrounded by lush foliage, with no obvious signs of community living around them other than some somber tombstones. In Renwick's photos there are signs of life around these white wooden churches.