Read Online Emily's Dream by Jacqueline Pearce - Free Book Online Page B

impatient sound.
    â€œShh,” Emily whispered. “Listen …”
    A moment later, the little bird’s song filled the room.
    â€œSee?” Emily said. “He agrees.”
    â€œAbout what?” Alice asked.
    â€œAbout coming with me to California and about his name,” Emily told them.
    â€œWhat name?” Dick asked.
    â€œI’ve decided to call him Dick, and whenever I hear him sing, I’ll think of home.”
    Alice smiled and Dick grinned broadly.
    Emily smiled with them. She’d have her bird to remind her of family, and she’d have the memory of rides with Johnny to keep the wild places close. And she’d be back.

Afterword
    Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1871, the same year British Columbia stopped being a colony of the British Empire and joined the Canadian Federation. In later years Emily wrote about her life as an artist, giving us glimpses of her Victoria childhood in
The Book of Small
(Irwin, 1942) and
Growing Pains: an Autobiography
(Irwin, 1946). From these small glimpses, I developed my fictional story to try to fill in the gaps and imagine what kind of girl Emily was and what it was like for her to struggle to follow her dream.
    In
Growing Pains
, Emily says she was almost sixteen when she approached thefamily lawyer to ask if she could go away to art school. Records show that she was actually closer to nineteen when she left for San Francisco in 1890. In this book, I have stayed true to Emily’s own memory of how old she was, even though it is not accurate, strictly speaking.
    She studied art at the California School of Design in San Francisco for three years before returning to Victoria. Once at home again, Emily had the old cow barn loft converted into a studio where she taught art to local children. She also made her first visit to a First Nations village near Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where she was deeply moved by the people and their carvings.
    Emily saved the money she earned from teaching art, storing it in a pair of old shoes tied from a rafter in the cow loft studio. When she had enough saved she went to England to study further. She also spent time in France studying art and learning a new style of painting that used color in a less realistic, more emotional way. On herreturn to Canada, she taught art in Victoria and Vancouver and saved money to travel up the British Columbia coast, visiting and painting First Nations villages and totem poles, as well as the surrounding forest. Eventually she focused her painting on the trees themselves, developing a unique style that captures the living spirit of the wild West Coast forests.
    Being a female artist at a time when women were expected to be wives and mothers and nothing more, and painting in a new style that many people did not appreciate often made life difficult for Emily. Although her paintings were exhibited in well-known art galleries, and many important people praised Emily’s work, Emily never felt totally accepted and understood. Yet, even in the face of disappointment and discouragement, she continued to stay true to her dream. Today, Emily Carr is one of Canada’s best loved and best known artists.

When Jacqueline Pearce was a child, her grandmother lived right around the corner from Emily Carr’s house. Jacqueline used to wish that she had a pair of magic glasses that would show her what Victoria was like when Emily Carr was young. Now she has created a pair of books that provide child readers with more than a glimpse. Jacqueline is the author of several other books, including
Discovering Emily
and
The Reunion
. She lives in Burnaby, British Columbia.