“The rain continued for one week and for that week I slept waking only to read a little or put the kettle on the oil stove & make tea or run out when there was a lull to loosen up the dogs legs. My spirit was occasionally fret full at the work I was missing but my body was resting in preparation for a mad onslaught. Why we can’t take these stallings to our good and benefit to the full of them instead of fussing & worrying I don’t know. When you look back you can see it. At the time your inward fret at inaction warps the calm out of waiting.”
-Emily Carr, from In the Van, Sept. 1936, Unvarnished, ed. Kathryn Bridge
Creative periods ebb and flow. Today the snow is melting and the robins have showed up, splashing in the puddles at the edge of vast snowbanks that remain. There’s an undercurrent of rising energy. I feel it. However, late winter was an ebb period; not one of complete absence from art, but a change of pace where I was more in my sketchbook, recalibrating. From a browse at the library, I brought home the book Unvarnished: Autobiographical Sketches by Emily Carr. Adventurous, bold, and controversial (then and now), Carr was an intrepid woman who faced lengthy ebb periods of her own due to illness, finances, and family matters. I was surprised at this fact I suppose due to Carr’s success and longevity as a Canadian artist. I never would have guessed at all these challenges in her career. Unvarnished conveyed them in her own words, in an intimately human way. Ebb periods are a part of life, even for the likes of Emily Carr. That’s hopeful news for the rest of us.
Cold Prairie Studio 
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