ππ¨ Happy Birthday, Emily Carr π²π
A Letter from Emily’s 2nd Act
Dear Emily,
Happy Birthday π
I feel like I’m only just beginning to know you — and yet, somehow, I’ve known you for a long time.
Over the last year, I’ve been reading, researching, listening, and sitting with your story π✨. Not just the famous version — but the lonely parts, the stubborn parts, the parts where you kept going even when no one was buying, no one was praising, and everyone seemed to think you were too much or not enough.
And something shifted in me.
This past year, I did something brave.
I built a Steam Trunk Art Studio π§³π¨ — a portable, scrappy, beautiful little universe where my art could live and travel with me. That trunk became a safe container, a cocoon, a place where ideas could breathe and my hands could move without fear.
Then I did something even scarier π³π₯
I faced my anxiety head-on and signed up for a Winter Fair ❄️π.
Craft fairs used to terrify me.
The noise. The people. The judgment. The vulnerability of putting your art out into the world and saying “Here. This came from me.”
But I went anyway.
And you know what?
✨ I conquered that fear. ✨
I made a whole bunch of art — paintings, pieces, experiments, things born from joy and curiosity rather than pressure π️πΌ️π«. I talked to people. I showed up. I survived. I even smiled.
Art, it turns out (again and again), is my medicine ππ.
When I create, my nervous system settles.
When I create, the noise quiets.
When I create, I remember who I am.
I like to think you’d understand that.
I’m standing now on the edge of what I’m calling my own second act ππ±.
The vision is clear. The ideas are alive.
I just need a few earthly things — costumes π, housing π , stability π — and then… watch out world.
You remind me that it’s never too late.
That rejection doesn’t mean failure.
That being called eccentric, difficult, or strange is often just another way of saying truthful.
You painted anyway.
So I will too.
Thank you, Emily, for blazing a crooked, forest-lined trail π²π₯.
Thank you for reminding me that persistence is a form of love.
Thank you for proving that art doesn’t need permission to exist.
Happy Birthday, dear Emily ππ¨
I’ll keep going — for you, for me, for all of us still finding our way.
With paint on my hands and courage in my heart ππ️
Tina / Zipolita
Emily’s 2nd Act
