YOU must know someone with lovely hands. You will understand then the pleasure that can be derived from watching such hands perform even a simple task. Emily Carr had lovely hands. Even as a youngster it was hard for me to concentrate on the work before me. I would sit and watch those strong, beautiful fingers, as they moulded and shaped the clay into all manner of bowls, vases, menu-holders, ash-trays, door-knobs, buttons, brooches and lamp bases. There seemed to be no limit to the number she thought up. They took shape and grew in her clever fingers. In the cellar, where she did all her own firing, she had had a real kiln built. She had become quite expert at glazing in many different ways.
By 1924 Miss Carr had become very well known for her lovely pottery with the bright Indian designs. I was then about fourteen and had studied with her for seven years, when she asked me to live with her. I was still to continue with my schooling and Art lessons, but I could help her with the pottery orders which were coming in fast. I was thrilled, of course. I was with her most of the time, anyway. I knew her very well and loved her dearly.
One day, about six months after this, she called on my Mother and asked if she could adopt me. I had a sister and a brother, and she said she thought “things could be divided up a little better.” My Mother was a wonderful person. She thanked Miss Carr and said that she knew how happy I was there, and that I could certainly continue to live where I was receiving such wonderful care, but I was to remain Carol Williams. Never at any time was I consulted about it by either of them. I never thought about it at the time; now it seems right that I wasn’t.
Until that day Miss Carr had always been Miss Carr to me. That evening she said quietly, as we sat with the animals, “Child, I have two big wants. One is for a daughter of my own. The other is for a baboon. You will always be my own daughter, in my heart at least, but I am sorry you will not be my legal one. As you know, I am Mom to my dogs and my monkey, so may I be Mom to you, too?” She was saying it in a way she hoped would be half funny, adding the bit about the baboon! “So,” she went on, “I will call you Baboo; you can be to all, for ever my Baboo, and I will be Mom to you.” She was, ever after.
So that my own Mother’s feelings would not be hurt in any way, she went back and explained to her that the name “Mother” was not infringed on in any way. She said she hoped some day I would have a mother-in-law, but she was to be from that time on, my mother-in-love. The very term mother-in-love seems to me to tell you more about this sweet little old lady than I ever could. A heart has to be very soft, a mind very agile and sweet, for terms that sound like that. Then she ran her hand over my head, and went on her way, but my hair tingled; there were kisses in her fingertips.
Nearly every morning during those first years, we walked in Beacon Hill Park. The flowers there were lovely, but they seemed so much more so when I was there with her. She had a deep love for them, her words of admiration coming almost unconsciously as she inspected each bed of blooms to see how many more colours and buds there were than on the evening before.
The birds were a great joy to her also. Many were known to her by name, and would fly down to her when called, though they were the wild birds of the park. They had been tamed and named by her at various times, as she had worked her magic on them! Ego, Perky, Saucy, Yappy, Pretty, Chit, would all fly down from the trees as she called them. She would soon be surrounded; her pockets were always full of the choice things she knew they loved best, and had saved for them. They had grown to know and trust her. That it was not all tummy love was quite evident. I would be sitting off to one side, with my few crumbs, but only one or two of the braver ones ever came near me. Her love and understanding of the birds had developed in England years before, when she had been ill for months and had become very fond of the birds of which she had made pets. It was beautiful to hear her talking to them; it made you hope that when you were a mother some day, your own baby would hear the same tones in your voice. They were there in my Mother’s the day I was married, when she called me to get up. All she said was, “Come on, little lady, time to get up.” Nothing as far as words went, but the same tones were there.
The raw lumps of clay were moulded into beautiful things, with the strength, the skill, and the love in those lovely hands. In the same manner wild animals, domestic pets, and some lucky people, who came in close contact with her, were loved and moulded, by the very depth of her understanding, genuine sympathy, and the Artist in her soul, that just naturally strove to put all it came in contact with in harmony.
The pottery pieces and beautiful pictures, the books that have the power to hold you, are here for the world to see, to admire, and be grateful for. But if there were only some way to measure the good and comfort that she poured on lonely, sick, or wanting people and animals!