Push Your Purpose
Emily Carr's Process as Inspiration for Modern Work
Emily Carr has been a part of my life since grade school. My elementary school was named after her; initiating an awareness and lifelong awe of her life and work. Her presence in my life had dissipated over the years, until recently. On a trip to Vancouver, I was thrilled to see the Vancouver Art Gallery had a special exhibit on: That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature. The intention of the exhibit was to dig deep into Carr’s process revealing the gap between her experience of nature and how she transformed her perspective into art.
The exhibit has reignited my reverence of Emily Carr as one of my earliest teachers who continues to send inspiring lessons my way. This post explores the Artist as Educator, particularly the ways in which Emily Carr’s process inspires an approach to purpose-driven work today and into the future.
Push Your Purpose
The premise of That Green Ideal as an art exhibit was to convey that Carr cultivated and refined how she saw nature, conveying it through artistic medium that deepened and expanded her initial perspective. She had found a purpose - to commune with nature through art- and she pushed that purpose on and on, to strengthen and emphasize her craft.
“Find the forms you desire to express your purpose. When you have succeeded in getting them as near as you can to express your idea, never leave them but push further on and on strengthening and emphasizing those forms to enclose that green idea or ideal” - Emily Carr, journal entry, June 30, 1931
Her words remind me that purposeful work does not end when an inspiring concept first finds its form. That is just the start. We find an initial format that allows us to express our purpose, and we push it on and on.
The way we might initially see something, feel the spark of inspiration, identify a way to convey or communicate an idea - is just like the initial sketch. We refine, and refine, and refine until our forms of expression take new form. One that captures the essence of our initial purpose but transforms our intention, reaching new heights.
Dancing Trees sketch, 1931 (left) and Logger’s Culls, 1935 (right)
“On first consideration we might unpack [Carr’s process] into three key stages: 1) A deep experience of nature made possible by spiritual receptivity; 2) The arrival of an idea about how to represent that experience visually; 3) Labouring to refine that idea into its essence in a finished painting.
Thinking farther we can deduce an earlier step, an idea before the experience, that makes the experience intelligible and creates the conditions for which an idea about how to represent it can become possible. For Carr, the idea before the experience is that there is a divine essence in nature that produces an emotional response in the artist.”
- Vancouver Art Gallery, That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature, February 2026
Inspiring Modern Work
Extrapolating Carr’s process to shape my own purpose-fueled work, I’m carrying forward That Green Ideal as a way of approaching own creative process. If we are to model Carr’s process as a way to think of modern work, we could -
Connect with a deep experience that rouses our own intellect, spirit, heart, and hands
Arrive at an idea about how to represent that experience through some form of expression or action
Labour to refine that idea, maintaining its essence, while pushing it on and on to transforming it beyond its initial form into something metamorphic and revolutionary
Art as Educator: An Activity
Does art or an artist spur you in a way like Carr does for me? Here’s an activity for utilizing art as a vehicle for pushing your own ideas, purpose, and work further.
Visit the Glenbow Museum’s Art Activities page where they provide digital resources for exploring different perspectives and ideas through arts-based activities. Select a downloadable activity and use it with one of their recommended artworks or an artwork of your own choosing.
I’d love to hear how you take inspiration from art and the artistic process in shaping your own learning, work, and expression.