In highlighting symbolic events in the life of Canadian artist Emily Carr – her loss, her growing pains, her joys and her achievements – a case is made for a transformative relationship with the art complex. These events are initially narrated providing a backdrop to the first half of her life. At age 56, however, she had a numinous encounter that symbolized the transition to the second half of life, ushering in a new relationship with an autonomous intruder. For the next decade, her psychological maturation was reflected in developing her own painting methods, writing, and a more conscious relationship to self. In tracking these events and her accompanying psychological states, feelings and emotions, there is support for Jung's claim that the only genuine cure for neurosis is to grow out of it by attending individuation and thus to embrace ‘the approach to the numinous’. For Carr, such experiences arose through her relationship with ‘Mother Earth’, with the wildness of the Canadian west coast.
The studio for critical making, Emily Carr University of art and design
