Totem and Forest

"I was working on a big totem with heavy woods behind. How badly I want that nameless thing! First there must be an idea, a feeling or whatever you want to call it, the something that interested or inspired you sufficiently to make you desire to express it. Maybe it was an abstract idea that you’ve got to find a symbol for, or maybe it was a concrete form that you have to simplify or distort to meet your ends, but that starting point must pervade the whole. Then you must discover the pervading direction, the pervading rhythm, the dominant, recurring forms, the dominant colour, but always the thing must be top in your thoughts. Everything must lead up to it, cloth it feed it, balance it, tenderly fold it, till it reveals itself in all the beauty of its idea." – Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr 1966