The painting Wild Lilies is very different subject matter from Emily Carr’s more well known works. I first saw it after reading her description of them in The Book of Small. I loved her description of the scent of the lilies around her home – their perfume like heaven and earth mixed – which I think is apt for many garden leaves and flowers.
The New Field was full of tall fir trees with a few oaks. The underbrush had been cleared away and the ground was carpeted with our wild Canadian lilies, the most delicately lovely of all flowers- white with bent necks and brown eyes looking back to the earth. Their long, slender petals, rolled back from their dropping faces, pointed straight up at the sky, like millions of quivering white fingers. The leaves of the lilies were very shiny-green, mottled with brown, and their perfume like heaven and earth mixed.
Emily Carr, The Book of Small
Everyday Cheer 