Inuit Art
QUARTERLY
Vol. 15, NO.1
Spring 2000
Departments
Editorial
An Expanding Network of Stone Carvers 3
Focus On:
Curatorial Collaboration
I. Introduction
By Dorothy Speak
Feature
Soapstone Carvers of
East Africa: Not Isolated
and Not Alone
By Howard B. Esbin
II. Case Study: Interview with
Judy Hall, co-curator of Threads of
the Land: Clothing Traditions
from Three Indigenous Cultures
III. Case Study: Interview with
Sally Qimmiu'naaq Webster,
collaborator all Threads of
the Land: Clothing Traditions
from Three Indigenous Cultures
16
16
19
25
Curator's Choice
John Kaunak
By Maria von Finckenstein
32
Dealer's Choice
African and Inuit soapstone carvers have
much in common, from the difficulty of
procuring supplies to the challenges of
thinking creatively within the restrictions
imposed by a primarily western market
valuing a narrowly defined vision of
cultural authenticity. The Gusii carvers of
southwestern Kenya and the Inuit of the
Canadian Arctic, living at opposite ends of
the world, have evolved similar solutions
to similar problems.
Front cover ...
Rock Landscape. 1991-98, Shuvinai Ashoona, Cape Dorset
(graphite on paper; 26 x 20 in.; collection of the West
Baffin Esk imo Cooperative).
'ofl''''';'. 1997-98. ?f\~ 4?o., P"l,fl'
Courtesy of MCMichael Canadi an Art Collection
InuitArt
<l
V
A
•
T
r •
l
•
Mosha Michael
38
Curatorial Notes
Not Just a Pretty Face:
Dolls alld Human Figurines
in Alaska Native Cultures
By Angela Linn
42
Three Women, Three Generations:
Drawings by Pitseolak Ashoolla, Napatchie
Pootoogook and Shuvinai Ashoona
By Jean Blodgett.
46
Reviews
Books
In Search of Geraldille Moodie
Reviewed by Amy Adams
50
Update
54
At the Ga"eries
60
Calendar
63
Advertiser Index
63
Map of Canadian Arctic
64
Inuit Art
QUA
R
TER
L
Y
Vol. 15, No.
Spring 2000
Editor: Marybelle Mitchell
Managing
Editor: Sheila Sturk-Green
Assistant
Editor: Kale McCanhy
Advertising
Sales: Sheila Sturk-Green
Circulation : Kale McCarthy
Copy Editor: Claire Giga ntes
Design and
Typography: Acan
Printing: Beauregard
Publisher: Inuit Art Foundation
Editorial Maria von Finckenstcin
Advisory James Houston
Committee Maltiusi Iyaituk
1999-2000: Shirley Moorhouse
Dorothy Speak
Directors , Stanley Felix
Inuit Art Juanassie Jack Jllukallak
Foundation: Mattiusi lyaituk
Shirley Moorhouse
Nuna Parr
Okpik Pilseolak
Gideon Qauqjuaq
John Terriak
Honorary
lifetime
Director: Doris Shadboll. DC
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2
Vol. 15. No.1 Sprillg 2Q()()
EDITORIAL
An Expanding Network
of Stone Carvers
O
ne of the important functions of the
Inuit Art Foundation - publisher
of this magazine - is the connecting of
previously isolated arl isis who meet at
foundation evems and gel to know each
Olher through the flluit AI1 Qllal1erly. People
from Tuktoyakmk to Nain are lalk ing to
each other and sharing solu tions to problems and some have discovered thai Ihey
also share ties with indigenous artists
in other parts of the world.
Attendan ce by Inuit at imernationat
fo rums has contributed to the growing
network of world indigenous artists
and, in the mid-1980s, Montreal's McGill
Un iversity -sponsored exchanges of
African and Inuit carvers led to the
formation of art ists' cooperatives among
the Gusii of southwestern Kenya. It is to
further this movement that we publish
Howard Esbin's article o n the stone
carvers of Kenya (p. 4), an article that will
be of interest to artists and to scholars of
Inuit and other indigenous arts.
We think our Inuit readers will be
particularly imerested to know that their
counterparts in the hottest part of th e
worl d are dealing with the same kinds
of challenges they face in Canada's arctic
regions. In some cases, they have come
up with similar sol utions. For instance,
African and Inuit stone ca rv ers ha ve
adopted an identical division of labour,
with men quarrying and ca rving and
women sanding and polishing. Obtaining
raw materials is a problem for both
grou ps and, for the Inuit as for the Gusii,
q uarrying in vo lves unpaid labour and
ex penses that are not usually recouped
fro m the sale of the finished work.
Although the market structure differs,
tourist sales are th e mainstay for both
groups. The fad that the objects are handmade by indigenous artisans - "li ving in
a remote village in the inter ior of East
Africa" or at the top of the world - figures
largely in their market appeal, although
prices for African and Inuit decorative
objects differ markedly, as our directors
were surpri sed to note during a recent
t.rip to an Onawa retai l outlet for African
stone carvings.
Both Africans and Inuit produce from
eco nomic necess ity, the cas h ea rned
serving as a necessary supp lement 10
be treat ed in the same discourse. The
separation of art and other kinds of production seems to have been more clearly
made for African art than for Inuit an,
judging from some of the ridiculous
newspaper accounts of the latter that we
have been treated to in recent years.
The criticisms levelled at Gusii and
Inuit carvers over the years are large ly
food harvested from the land. Neither
unchallenged because of what Esbin calls
Gusii nor Inuit dissemble about the need
to earn money from what they do, and
their frankly expressed motivation is at
odds with the practice of western arlists
and assumptions abollt artistic integrity.
As Es bin writes: "The explicit avowal
of financial reward is an affront 10 a 500year western belief in 'art for art's sake.' "
"the lack of an organized, cohesive and
credible response from the arti sa ns."
Although it may ha ve repercussions for
the sale of non -western art, the debates
animating certain sectors of the western
world have little mea ning for produ ce rs
concerned with such see mingly mun-
Given that the market undeniably plays
a rol e in all all production, it is the explicitlless of financial mot ivation lhat seems to
be the problem.
Furthermore, even though so me
cO nfemporary indigenous production is
begrudgingly labelled "art," its aut henticity is pres umed to be compromised
by acculturat ive processes affecting nonwestern societies. "Indigenous artisans
and Iheir productions are placed in a
grave double-bind ," writes Esbin.
This conundrum might be mitigated if
the indigenous producers subscribed to
th e categorizing of production that is
rampant, if unenunciated, in the western world. Almost as an asid e, Esbin
deals succinct ly with the can of worms
clouding debates aboul non-western arts
and where they belong. He identifies
three categories of produaion: funaional,
decorative and fine art. The Gusii make
both function al and decorative objects
and a smaller vo lume of items produced
meet the criteria for what western critics
accept as art. Although at the beginning
of what we refer to as the contemporary
period, Inuit mad e some functional items
dane problems as the dwindling supply
of raw materials, a problem in both Africa
and the Arctic and the subject of intense
di sc uss ion at recent meetings of the
board of directors of the Inuit Art Foundation. Artists hav e co me to see that
without organization and numbers, they
have no voice. Stretching across national
boundaries, their numbers are greater
than th ey realize. MM
Inuit Art Quarterly is a publication
of the Inuit Art Foundation, a nonprofit organization owned by Inuit
artists since 1994. The foundation's
mission is to assist Inuit artists in the
development of their professional
skills and the marketing of their art
and to promote Inuit art through
exhibits, publications and films.
The foundation is funded by grants
from the Department of Indian Affairs
and Northern Development and other
public and private agencies, as well as
private donations by individuals.
Wherever possible, it operates on
a cost recovery basis.
- ash trays, cribbage boards - many, if not
most, now produce for the decorative
market. Some work is being Signified
as fine art, but the problem is that the
whole range of production tends to
3
FEATURE
SOAPSTONE CARVERS OF
EAST AFRICA:
Not Isolated and Not Alone
By Howard B. Esbin
his article imroduces th e Gusii
soapstone carvers of Eas t Africa
with whom [ work ed and li ved
in the earl y [990s. 1 [n spite of
vast differences in geog raph y
and culture, Gusii and Inuit carvers have
mu ch in co mm on. Not onl y do th ese
di sparate arti san groups share the same
chall enges faced by all carvers of stone,
they mu st also treal with a marketplace
that stands equ all y removed fro m their
communi ti es a nd their d ay· to·da y
realit ies. 2
The relationship between indigenous
artisans and western markets has been
examined in a number of ethnographic
studies (Graburn [976; Ri chter 198[ ;
Ju[es-Roselle [984; Price 1989). Artisan
communities in div erse reg ions have
developed remarkabl y similar social, eco·
nomic and aesth etic responses lO the ir
coJonjal and post·co!onial experi ences. In
most cases, a modest indigenous subsis·
tence acti vity has been transformed, over
the course of this century and especial ly
since th e Second World War, into vital
community·based enterprises with inter·
nation a l mark ets. Moreover, a lthou gh
4
each community of arti sa ns functi ons in
a discrete and even isolated manner, they
are linked in an overarchi ng global trade.
The ha ndm ade wo rk of Austr a li an
Aboriginals, New Zealand Maoris, North
and South American Aboriginals and a
great many African and Asian ind igenous
groups may be purchased in practica ll y
any large western urban market.
WESTERN AND INDIGENOUS
SOCIETIES IN CONTACT
During the 15th and 16th centuries, several Europt'an nations began to ex pand
th eir spheres of infl ue nce beyo nd the
confines of th e European land mass for
both polit ica l and eco nomic reaso ns.
Increasin gly, explorers, soldiers, mis·
s ionarie s and mercha nt s enco um ered
societi es th at had little in common with
European cult ure and its values. Given
western technological and military sophistication, these non-western sodeties were
eventu all y subju ga ted in one way or
another, a patt ern that repea ted itself
throughout the Ameri cas, Asia, Ocea nia
and Africa. Western colonialism existed
for fi ve cent uries, ending onl y in th e
mid·20th century.
Western proclivities throughout thi s
period mi ght best be described as equal
measures of inqui sitiveness and acqui si·
ti veness. The dual im perati ve between
"the need to know" and "the need to con·
tro l" deri ved from a more basic dichotomy
in vo lving two elementary poles, Self and
Other, or Subject and Object. Being quite
natura ll y ego· and ethnocentric, Euro·
pea ns viewed all save themselves in this
latt er gui se . Wh at foll ow ed was th e
wholesale and categorical reduction of all
peoples, regardless of ethni c di ffe rence,
into one subsuming generic "Other." On
this blank scree n of othern ess th e Euro·
pea ns projected whatever characteri za·
tions most sui ted their needs. Their firsl
and most prevalent view was that Native
Afri cans, Asians and Americans, given
visibly different features and lifestyles,
we re "exotic." This, of co urse, revea ls
mu ch about the Europeans and almost
nothing about th ose so labelled.
With each ensuing decade, and with
each new social encounter, western ers
returned home w ith all sorts of exoti c
things from the new places they had visit ed. These artifacts were coll ecti ve ly
referred to as "curiosities," or "curios"
for short. And it was precisely their novel
auri butes, w heth er the result of artisanai
experti se (for exa mple, th e delicate go ld
filigree jewellery of the Incas) or bizarre
image ry (seen, for exam ple, in Javanese
demon masks), th at di stingui shed such
Vol. 15, No. J Spring 2000
\
A carver works on a "spirit design"
in Tabaka, February 1992. The sizes
of such carvings range from under
six centimetres to that of the
example shown here.
"'a.. ~<l'ilon "'0.. ..'tI<l'ilo)'iIo
4'~'l.
artifacts in western eyes. Yet they were .:
not deemed "beauliful" or co nsidered ;tl
"art" per se. Such judgement was reserved ~
for western· made artifacts, like painting 6and sculpture, that reflected prevalent
aesth etic conventi ons such as representational mimesis. The latter, in particular,
with its insistence on unambiguous pic·
IOrial represen tations of id elllifiable
objects and perso ns , clearly ba rred a
wealth of artifac ts from incl usion in
western artistic canons.
Nonetheless, "curiosities" were avidly
collected by the European eli tes of th e
time. Expressly va lued for th eir exoti c
visual q uali ties, they were purposefully
displ ayed, all together, in w hat were
then called curio cabinets. As the demand
for curios grew, th ey also became com·
modified, and a deliberate trade in such
objects ensued.
A look at the 500-yea r trajectory of enabling communication betwee n the
one well·known cu rio type will serve to seen and th e un see n, these artifacts
represent the fuller story. In the late 1500s helped ensu re social stability and cula group of Portuguese sailors returned tura l homeostasis (Anderson 1970, 49).
hom e with objects produced in th e king- The Portuguese, with some adroitness,
dom of th e Kongo, located nea r what is labelled th em feli,aoes, a term mea ning
today Angola (Mlidimbe 1988) . Crafted both "charm" and "something made by
from wood, SlOne, leather and iron nails art" (Sykes 1985). The popular English
and "charged w ith magical substances," translation is "fetish."
they were designed by African arti sans to
Divocced as the y wece from th ei r
attract the man y invisible forces believed indigenous moorings, these objects stood
to be int imat ely involved with human at the ou ter limit of EUIopean experience.
affairs (Maqllet 1986,75). As mediums Wit hout a normativ e reference poinL,
Jitifaoes ha ve e licited a succession of
conceptual responses that reflea the domi·
nam spirit, o ri en tati on and va lues of
western society in each period (ibid.) .
The first pe riod , characterized by an
"
InuitArt
Q
U
••
r
t
•
l
,
I>"dr''''''~ C~a-I> <
4'>,'br
A "spirit design" carv ing from
Tabaka. Carvings o f this type are
the product of a long evolution,
the design appropriated by Kenyan
carving groups from the Makonde
on the Tanzanian coast. for w hom
they served as ceremonia l animistic
objects. The GusH began making
similar carvings in the 1970s with
the growth of the soapstone
carving industry.
Ccrl>< <l"r'"'l.. t>"dr''''' 'iIo
<l<)C""br
"'a....'tI<l1..'iIo
p<l"~r
interest in "curiosities," prevailed from
1500 to th e end of the 1700s, and was
fo ll owed by a period in which indigenou s peoples were regard ed as "savage
primitives" (roughly, 1800 to 1899). Alti tudes had hardened towards indigenous
peo ples. who were now, for th e most
pan , subjects of na tion-slates that COIl troll ed large international empires. It is
beyond the scope of this article to discuss
th e co mpl ex soc ioeconomic factors
infor ming such a senSibility. Suffice it
to say that slavery could not have fun ctioned as a vital economic force for as long
as it did yvithout it. During this period, the
initial exotic appeal of/etiraoes was forgot·
ten, and they were devalued as barbarous
and ugly. At th e same tim e, however,
[iliraoes and the like were beg inning to be
thought of as val id cultural referents by the
nascent field of ant hropology.
5
The third period. which I call the
There is further ambiguity. Along with
indigenous art-objeas-by-metamorphosis,
the 20th century. In 1905 Pablo Picasso we must now add artifacts intentionally
visited the Trocadero, a Parisian museum
produced as "art" by indigenous artisans
within whose vast collection he discov- during the 20th century. This "artered a display of 15th-century pili,aoes. by-intention" purposefully marries western
NO( long afterwards, African-inspired ele- aesthetic conventions (such as represenments appeared in his paintings. Picasso tational mimesis. perspective and fixed was not alone in his new-found appreci - base sculpture) with design motif, or
ation. In keeping with the revolutionary subject matter appropriated from indigequality of this period, western aesthetic nous sociocultural traditions. The quality,
theory and practice were characterized range and creativity of much of this work
by innovative and audacious experi- is comparable to the finest western-based
mentation. An influentiaJ group of Euro- productions.
American philosophers, writers, visual
Yet another level must be added to
artists and musicians took inspiration this taxonomy. There are also those artifrom expressive material forms existing facts, featuring both western aesthetic
outside the canon of western aesthetic and traditional design elements, that are
tradilions. As a result , all things indige- deliberately produced to generate cash.
nous appeared in a new light: "In the This category is often labelled "airport
space of a few decades. a large class of art" because of its often shoddy massnon-western artifacts" came to be reclasproduced look.
sified as "art" (Clifford 1988. 16). Maquet
These three broad classes of indigecalls them "art objects by metamorphosis" nous artifact - an-by-metamorphosis,
(1986.70).
art-by-intention and tourist art - have
generally been jumbled together in critical discourse, causing no end of confuA CONVERGENCE OF SORTS
There is no argument today that a 15th- sion. In this confusion. fine arts critics
century fftifaoe is a priceless masterpiece. and anthropologists usually reinforce
Yet one might find such an object in both each other's perspectives; the artifacts
fine art and ethnography museums. are not considered "art," nor are they
No such ambiguity exists, for example, considered culturally authentic. Consewith regard to a 15th-century painting by quently, the three classes are tarred with
Botticelli. In other words, the indige- the same brush.
Critics are disturbed that monetary gain
nous identity of the artifact is still an
issue. Ironically, the same exotic prop- is such a significant motive for indigeerties that appealed to western society nous artisans. The integrity of the artisans
500 years ago retain their principle value and their work is thought to be comprotoday. The only real change is that con- mised. Indeed, explicit avowal of an
temporary western society now catego- interest in financial reward is an affront
rizes these artifacts more specifically as to a SOD-year western belief in "art for
art or ethnography. As Clifford states: art's sake." What is also often denied or
"The fact that rather abruptly. in the space overlooked in these criticisms is that the
of a few decades, a large class of nonmarket is an omnipresent, albeit subtle,
western artifacts came to be redefined as force illlegrai to the production of all
art is a taxonomic shift that requires criti- aesthetic objects, western and indigenous.
cal historical discussion, not celebration" traditional and modern. Professionally
produced artifacts, regardless of cultural
(1988.196).
provenance, quality or purview, are
designed to be marketed (Esbin 1991).
Indeed, professional artisans ultimately
look to their specialized markets for both
approbation and financial compensation
(Grampp 1989). Academic discourse in
conjunction with market demand ultimately informs and shapes what artifacts are produced. Consequently, the
complex socioeconomic provenance of
such productions is overlooked in favour
of simpler frames of critical reference.
period of the "ethnic artist," encompasses
6
The same critical discourse also calls
imo question the authenticity and consequent validity of contemporary indigenous artifacts. For example, some art
historians and anthropologists contend
that such objeas are culturally unauthentic
because of the unwitting acculturation
of the artisans and the demise of their
indigenous traditions (Jules -Rossette
1984). Such value-laden norms persist as
the standard for any artifact's cultural and
aesthetic worth within the western world.
These three broad classes
of indigenous artifact art -by-metamorphosis,
art-by-intention and
tourist art - have generally
been jumbled together
in most critical discourse,
causing no end
of confusion.
This places indigenous artisans and
their work in a double~bind. The general
process of acculturative reinterpretation
responsible for the global trade in indigenous artifacts in the first place also
provides its basic mode of commercial
cross-cultural communication. Artisans
"attempt to represent aspects of their
own cultures to meet the expectations
of image consumers" (ibid., 1). Paradoxically, western aesthetic and market principles are translated into non-western
idioms only to be transported back to
western markets.
This dynamic and complex indigenous
production system calls for objective
analysis: When does innovation become
tradition? Who is to judge? And against
what criteria? 11 is not solely a question of
motivation, authenticity and tradition,
Vol. 15, No. I Spring 2000
althoug h each is an important determinant. Rather, the work of co ntemporary
indigenous artisan s mu st be co nsidered
dired ly, experientially and holisti cally. It
can then be seen as "deeply embedded in
a comp lex culImal eco log ical system and
transce nd[ing] it. [Such] work can be
viewed both ways, singularly as artifactin-context or as art-standing-by-itseIL
and binocularly as a crea tive work possess ing bOlh local hi story and comparative sign ificance" (Ames 1992,75).
THE (iUS .. : A CASE STUDY
Whil e the ori gi ns of the Gusii are
unknown, it is thought that they emig rated from central Africa to the highlands of the Lake Victori a basin during
the past five centuries. Abou t 250 years
ago, the Gusii reached their final haven, a
then sparsely inhab ited elevat ed plateau
in southwestern Kenya. The entire high land zone came to be known as GusiiJand.
Th e plateau's rugged and isolating features, which afforded scc urity, also
induced radical and lasting changes in
Gusi i social organi zat ion, seulement patterns and land use (LeVine and LeVine
1966). Principally, they had to g ive up
th ei r pastoralist life and their cherished
cattle herds. New subsistence activities,
including agriculture and ironworking,
gradually developed as the basis of highland Gusii socioeconomics.
In th e 1850s the Bomware, a Gusii
subclan, arrived in the highland's southwes tern corner. Their choice of settlement was fonunate. II was stratcgica ll y
sited, very fert ile and had large deposits
of th e mineral steati te, popularly known
as soa pstone. The site came to be called
Tabaka - now in th e administrative district of Bosinange - and it was to become
the epi ce ntre of contemporary Gusii
soapstone carving.
The Bomware learned to exp loit the
mineral 's seve ral utiliti es. Soapstone
powder was used as a cosmetic and medicine (Ochieng 1974; Maranga 1987). It
was soft enough to be ca rved easily with
simple tools but durable enough to retain
ilS fini shed form. From it they fashioned
th eir powers of careful observation. They
are able to sift through myri ad visual
details and idelllify those th at are relevant from those Ihat are ex tr a neo us
(Gamb le and Ginsberg 1981). The practical neceSSity of being abl e quickly and
efficiently to scan wide expanses for
hidden threats is obvious.
Field independence thus contributes to
an increased capacity lor global processing
and for inferring spatial relati ons hips
(C lark and Halfons 1983). Just as an individual's aplitudes and proclivities reflect
the dominance of one hemisphere of th e
SOCIOHISTORICAL
brain, so maya society's. Acco rding ly,
FOUNDATIONS OF VISUAL
field independent societies, with their
COGNITION
Gusii carve rs today readily ack nowledge specialized cognitive capacities, appear to
th at th e ir specialized knowl edg e and display a right-brain bias (Sinatra 1986;
ski lls constitute a priceless "inheritance" John-St e in er 1985). Indeed, Sin atr a
frolll their ancestors. This popular char- (1986, I) characterizes such etlmic groups
actcrization aptl y encapsulates a vita l as "seeing-proficient peoples." When the
hi story and tradition; for a society'S world Gusii became sedentary they jettisoned
view is guided by a blueprint of socio- behaviours th ai were no longer approcultural knowl edge and a corresponding priat e to thei r new context. Howeve r,
interpretative system (Holland and Quinn observation-based training, its worth still
1987). A society's response to particu- evident. survived.
Consequently, when th e Gusii first
lar existenliaJ and ecological co nditions is
perpetuated by its educational strategies. encountered soapstone, they were al ready
Sociocultural knowledge consists of dis- predi sposed socioculturally to see the
till ations of practice drawn from a social mineral's visual properties and va lu es.
gro up 's everyday life - in other words, This new geographically specific phe"what people know in order to act as nomen on provided additiona l impetus
they do ... make the things th ey make ... for a continued reliance on visua l cog ni [and] interpret their experience in the tion. Thus, the subsequent evolution of
the more specialized conceptual and prodistin ctive way they do" (ibid., 4).
Such social knowledge has two facets: cedural ski lls that soapstone des ign and
knowledge holV and knowledge Ihar. This production demanded may be seen as a
is direct ly related 10 occupational tasks. culturally sanctioned and socially conCross-cultural studies have show n, for struoed visually oriented system grounded
examp le, th at "Mexican children from in traditi onal procl ivi ti es. Writing abou t
families occupied by pottery-making per- lan g uage, thought and consciousness,
formed beller on tests for conservation of Vygotsky (1978; I98Ia; 1981b; 1987)
substances using clay, than children fTOm examines how such social construct ions
other famili es of comparable socioeco- bl"Came transmilled through chHd-rearing
nomic status ... in other trades" (Berry and socialization processes. Studies have
shown that thi s sociohistorical transm is1988, 234).
sion
ultimatel y cOlllributes 10 a dist incConsequently, the Gusii, who had been
pastoralists for many centuri es, literally tive perceptual ori entation that, in turn ,
had at hand a distinctive sociopsycho- reinforces aesthetic sensibilit y and outlogi ca l heri t.age and ori entati on. Given look (Berry 1988; Fisher 1966; Maqu et
t.he demands of nomadic existence, which 1986; Whiting 1963).
entai ls wandering in an ever-changing
terrain, they are consid ered to be "field
independent." This means they can eaSily
iso late specific elements within a complex visual field . Indeed, both hunting
an d pastoralisl societies are noted for
s mall pots for snuff, herbs, medicines,
coo king fat and cosmetic oils, pipes for
smoking, small stools, and baa, an ancient
African game (Ochieng 1974; Maranga
1987; Eisemon et al. 1988). By 1900 these
carv ing sk ills had been passed on to a
numb er of Bomware famili es (Tile Daily
Natioll 1991). Specialized art isa nal ski lls
w ere historically the province of certain
Gusii s ubel ans. This knowl edg e was
protected by ensuring th at sons always
married within their kin ship group.
7
A Gusii woman finishes
small animal figurines
depicting the "Big Five"
of the Serengeti: lion,
leopard, rhinoceros. ele·
ph ant and giraffe. These
are seen by First World
consumers as prototypica lly African symbols.
These carvings can be
seen in shops around the
world. from Auckland.
New Zealand to
Disney World, Florida.
Tabaka, April 1993.
p<l"'E,.rl>C<Io <l~o.... q, 'f' .... c-q,"'.6.~q,
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In spite of Gusii carve rs' "overwhelming compl exi ty of visual experience," a "transm ission of effecti ve visual
schemata" from one generation to anoLher
continu es unabated (John-Steiner 1985,
82, 90). In other words, the cognitive
developme nt of GusH carvers, mediat ed
as it is by "socialization, learning and
experience," is nattually oriented towards
the visual processing of information (Das
1988, 50). Such an "indigenous preference for cog nitive processing" decidedly
undersco res th e success of kinaesthetica lly demanding tasks like carving (ibid,).
In other words, Gusii carvers and th eir
enve loping society have been histo ri cally animated by a specialized cognition, language and communication that
co ntinues lO be vi tally visual in nature.
8
'" \
CONTEMPORARY SOAPSTONE
CARVING
Portuguese control of East Africa, which
lasted for two centuries, was supplanted
by the British around 1750. In spite of
the g radual opening of the East African
interior, Gusiiland remained remote and
was conq uered on ly in 1895, The highlan ds had originally been intended as a
British co lony, but the high cost of the
conquest and th e continued belligerence
of the Gusii made this impracticable.
Instead, the British looked to the development of their new territory. Like the GusH,
th ey sa w ag riculture as (he economic
mains tay and thus precipitated changes
in Gush life as d rastic as those experienced when the Gusii first settled the area.
The GusH were inexorabl y introduced
10 both a cas h-based economic sys tem
and its mass-manufactured commodities.
Bomware soapstone carving was irrevocably redirected as well. In 1914 Richard
Gethin became the first licensed trader in
the newl y established territory. He saw
some Bomware ca rving and became
intrigued by the slone's commercial possibilities as an exotic cmio and as a laic
powder. Th e carvers, however, would
not cooperate. Ult imat ely achieving hi s
goals through coe rcion, within a few
years Ge thin controlled a small trade in
soa pstone ca rving and talc production .
During the decades between the world
wars, British Gusi il and socioeconomics
continu ed to revolve around agriculture.
Soapstone was va lued primaril y for its
laic powder, used as a cosmeti c, and this
talc trade continu ed until the end of th e
1940s. Carving was a minor activi ty at
best. OccaSional ly, British settlers would
commi ss ion th e Bomware to produce
specifi c desi gns. In th e 1930s a Catholic
missionary unsuccessfull y attempted to
use soa pstone ca rving as a basis for a
work program for the un employed (Tile
Daily Natioll 1982), With the end of the
Second World War, nationalists across
Africa intensified efforts to win self-rule.
Ult.imately th eir aspirations were advanced
by a number of international sociopolitical trends.
Kenya's independence was achieved
in 1962. In that year, there were perhaps
100 carvers in Bosinange and few women
were involved in soapstone production.
AI! were members of the Bomware subclan. These men carved on a pan-t ime
basis for tourists who wanted souvenirs.
Their earnings supplemented their cashcrop ag ri culture. With independence,
however, Kenya exper ienced a dramatic
acceleration in socioeconomic activity.
Thi s included the development of modern infrastructure, the introduction of
universal primary education, rapid populat ion growth and the adve nt of western
mass- markeltourism.
Demand for soapstone carvings began
to increase. AI firs t thi s was met by a
cor respond ing increase in the num ber
of Bomware carvers. By the early 1970s a
few men from contiguous subclan territori es began carving as well. Western market demand continued to rise throughou t
the late 1970s and 1980s. As a consequence, more and more carvers entered
Vol. 15, No. J Sp ring 2000
Each day after school, young boys
congregate at the carving sites
where their adult male relatives
work. There, they assist the men
in small tasks, and attempt to carve
themselves, using small, discarded
bits of stone and improvised tools.
Tabaka, April 1993 .
..ob<A<]' <l":Jrl L .6.c-Lo-<]'i»C
~a.. ~<]('\.t>'i>~o-Ir p<lL!:rr
••
the market. SeveraJ local cooperatives were
established. Given the increasing demand,
the wives of Bomware carvers joined in.
In keeping with traditional values, the
couples instituted a division of labour
whereby the men continued quarrying
and carving while the women assumed all
finishing processes. At present, there are
approximately 1,500 adulL male carvers,
2,500 adult women sander-polishers and
some 1,000 children and youth of both
genders serving as apprentices.
MARKET APPEAL
The visual appeal of a Gusii soapstone
carving derives from a complex interplay between exotic and aesthetic factors. The Taw material itself is visually
pleasing. Gusii soapsto ne occurs in a
variety of hues of differing intensities
ranging from bone white, through ochre,
pink, orange and brown. It is also sometimes found in black and grey. Often,
the soapstone appears striated with agatelike bands admixing many of the hues.
Skilful carving and polishing enhances
this natural colouration and brings out a
high lustre as well. Western consumers
also value the fact that it is handmade by
an indigenous artisan living in a remote
village in the interior of East Africa. These
factors all help to determine the western
market value of a Gusii carving.
InuitArt
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The carvings that have been produced
since the Second World War fall into three
basic categories. There are functional
items such as vases, bowls and jars. There
are also decorative items such as animal
and human figurines. Typically, westerners use both as display pieces. African
motifs are integral 1O each category. For
example, a cup will be carved in the
shape of an elephant head with its trunk
serving as a handle, or the surface plane
of a box lid will be incised with a repetitive palm leaf pattern. Figurines will
depict stereOlypical images, for example, a crouching leopard or a warrior
with a spear. In addition to these more
overt visual qualities, a carving's overall
design and construction must accord
with western aesthetic conventions such
as composition and balance.
The third ca tegory consists of oneof-a-kind carvings. These creatively and
skilfully fuse western aesthetic conventions with tradHional Gusii subject mat ter. The western market, for the most
part, treats these carvings as fine art. This
is apt, for the very few GusH carvers who
produce such work ha ve been well
grounded in western-based art education programs. Elkana Ongesa, whose
sculpnrres grace the entrances of UNESCO
in Paris, the United Nations in New York
and Caltex Oil in Houston, is typical. He
studied fine arts at Makerere University in
Uganda and McGill Univers ity in Canada.
In comparison to the great number of
functional and decorative carvings that
have been produced, the output in this latter category remains quite small. Moreover, while its symbolic worth is high,
its economic value for the Gusii remains
negligible.
The growth of the Gusii cottage industry over the past 30 years is a direct consequence of the rise in overall western
demand for indigenous handiwork.
However, such demand is both cyclical
and fickle. For example, at the beginning
of the Kenyan "boom" in the mid· I 970s,
two other indigenous products - wood
carvings and sisal carry-bags, called
"kiondos" - were much more popular
and accessible. Both could be exported
easily and in significant quantities
because they were relatively inexpensive to produce. Sufficient quantities of
wood and sisal were readily available,
and there was a trained and inexpensive
labour force of the right size. Western
fashion trends, and inexpensive Asian
copies, ended the demand for kiondos.
Western environmental concerns also
eclipsed demand for products made from
wood. Since then, not surprisingly,
Kenya's export of soapstone carving
has matched and then eclipsed that of
kiondos and wood carvings. I believe that
demand for GusH soapstone carvings is
now at its peak. Indeed, large buyers
from Europe, the United Kingdom and
North America have indicated to me that
they are overstocked in soapstone carvings
and are actively searching for alternative
products.
9
Two women from an
extended work group finish
carvings, Tabaka, April 1993.
The profusion of vases, all
repeating the same design,
represents the very lucrative
mar ket for hand-made.
mass-manufactured items.
It is quite possible for an
order to be placed for
thousands of such items.
L~?~ <ll~ ~ 'f''- C-q,.L\.6:~C t>~d,A"1T
~o.. ~<lL.a-
A typica l Gusii stone quarry, Tabaka,
February 1992. Each of the several
quarries in the area around Tabaka
holds a distinctive soapstone. in
terms of both hardness and colour.
While geological surveys suggest
that the land around Tabaka holds
enough stone to meet the demands
of the local cottage industry for some
time to come, experienced carvers
have noticed a decl ine in the overall
quality of the quarried stone.
Jt>~ t>'dl",~
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P<l'~
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10
remark ab le. Animating this comp lex
endeavour is the Gusii's pred il ect ion for
adap tation an d innovation, itse lf a consequence of the sustained learn ing style
that is central 10 the Gusii's particular
experience.
At least n ve generations of GusH have
been involved in soapstone carving. Each
generation has passed on relevam knowledge to the next through traditional educational processes. Yet each generat ion
has also so ught 10 improve and standardize various facets of the prod uction
process. For exa mple, women expe rimented to renne th e sand ing and polCOTTAGE INDUSTRY
ishing sk ills needed to bring out the
luminos it y and colour of a carving. Such
STRUCTURE
The co ttage industry derives its st Tue· ingenuit y also led to the discovery and
lUre from the phases of its marke ting use of a local leaf as a form of natural
cycle - produd design, produdion (quar- abras ive in the production process long
rying, carving, sa nding, polishing) and before sandpape r was ava il able.
With such a dynami c social learning
sa les. It has neither a centralized hierarch ica l leadership nor any convention- process, overa ll expertise among cottage
all y organ ized local body overseei ng its indust ry wor kers has increased prop oroperations and mechanisms. BUL it does tionally from generati on to generat ion .)
have internal logic, cohesion and consis- However, in creased m a rket demand
tency. Moreover, w hile some structural for soapstone carvings during the past
features of the industry mark eli.ng cycle 25 years has limited expression of th is
ap pear crude (usin g axes to quarry Slone · proficiency. In today's extremely compeand oxen to transport it) and others appear titive in dustry, a carver's co ncerns for
naive (prelimi nary labour costs such as quality are overshado wed by his need
quarrying, transport and fin ishi ng are to produce carvings in q uanti ty. Ind eed,
nol always factored into local w holesale most middl e -aged carvers believe th e
pricing formul ae), in most respects the quality of execu ti on has eroded over
industry is quite sop hi stica ted. With out the past two deca des.
a modern communica ti ons infrastru cture, the nearest telephone or fax being
30 ki lomet res away, the speed and vita lity
w ith which th e industry operates is
Vol. 15. No. I Spn'ng 2QO()
A carver begins a SCUlpture, Tabaka,
February 1992. He has blocked out
the rough form of his intended
design; in this case he is carving
a flat soap dish. The tools pictured
next to him are locally made,
although some tools used by
the Gusii are imported, typically
from China.
"a.."~<N1 N<lc-<io><io "a..cr"f" <1-L...f
'"'f~nr nJr 41'n
There are al least 200 distinctive products being carved in Bosinange today
and these fall into the decorative and functional categories described earlier. Each
generic cat ego ry has many variations.
The development and proliferation of
such des igns occurs on an ad hoc basis
and this results in a somewhat amorphous
common inventory from which anyone
can borrow. Most of the designs w ithin
the overa ll invent ory pool have a discernible provenance and chronology. Older
carve rs in Bomware can remember wha t
producl lype was imroduced when and
under whal circumstances.
Inuit Art
Q
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,
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•
Yet the competitive nature of the market has led to family specia li zation in
certain product types. With such a broad
inventory range, it is impossible for one
carver to master them all. Today's cottage
industry is largely controlled by local
middlemen. An "outsider" customer will
usually brin g an order to a wholesaler,
who finds it expedi en t to give that order
to someone who can ca rve it quickly and
well. The middl emen are aware of which
famil y carving groups, given their respective ex pertise, ca n most effeclively meet
which orders.
There are 11 acti vely mined quarries in
Tabaka. Everyone involved in soapstone
production an d markeling must have
access to one of the quarries for their
raw mat er ial needs. Quarries are si mple
open pits into which carvers descend on
foot to extract stones. Most occupy less
than five hectares. The land immediatel y
surrounding th ese sites is given over
to resid ences and farm s. Each quarry is
privately owned and referred to locally
by the owner's nam e.
Given the industry's competitiveness,
larger-volume custom ers will now rent
an entire quarry for up to two weeks at a
time to satisfy their raw material requiremellls. During thi s period, th e quarry
will not be available to any other middlemen or carvers. In 1993, for exampl e, a
GusH wholesa ler, based in the Un ited
Slales, remed IwO of the largest qu arries for severa l weeks 10 ensure she had
enough stone to produce 10,000 pairs of
candlesticks. The larger quarr ies remain
continually rented out throughout the
year and so it is increasingly difficult to
oblain carving mat erial The relative softness of soapstone prohibils the use of
heavy equipment in its mining. Rather,
workers manually "pry rocks from
the hillside with crowbars and levers"
(Eiseman et ai. 1988, 225) . They then
use two-man rip saws to cut the quarried
stone into rough blocks of various sizes.
When lhe stone has been excavated and
paid fo.r, it is transported from the site
to a production area, which marks the
next phase in the cycle. Trucks, donkey
carlS, oxen chained 10 large boulders and
human ponage are all used in the transpon process.
11
The production and marketing of
soapstone carving is divided along
gender lines. Men quarry and carve,
whi le women, for the most part,
finish the carvings and market
them. This traditional division of
labour generally finds bot h men
and women working t ogether in
extended group ings such as the one
in this photo. Tabaka. April 1993.
Jl>~r 'b'C'tJcrr c
~a.. "1.J<lq,bnr r":» c.<1":Jcn~c "Q.,":J<lq,n..."rc
<1' 0.. "f'C L"'O""\bc~"...:J:'c
Carver Thomas Mogendi works on
a carving, Tabaka, January 1993. The
object' s form has been roughed out
and the artist uses a file and knife to
refine the component shapes.
LL" jl,,"'n ,",a.."'''V<l'')'' !, ..o<ln.. 1993r
SoapSlOne is a mineral composite, Various
mixtures of sericite and kaolin, a long
wi th various other mineraJs, exist w ithi n
any given deposit. Certain quarries produce particuJar mixtures thai have a characteristic colour and hardness. Colours
are referred to loca ll y by their Eng li sh
designations - white, ye llow. pink and
brown . This prov ides loca l indus u y
workers with a usefu l cod ing system for
qui ck referen ce an d identifi ca tion. As
not ed earli er, soapstone colours are more
nuanced than these designations suggest.
Some Slone has one dominant co lour
throughout; others feature a va ri ety of
colours and ton es. Some have agate-like
12
banding, while others are mottled. Sensitive arti sans attempt to maximi ze th ese
colours through skilful carvi ng, sanding
and po li sh ing. While geological surveys
suggest that there are extensive deposits or
soapstone lying under the hills ofTabaka,
not all of it is suitable as carving materi al.
Older carvers comp lain th at the present
quarr ies, most or which have been open
since the mid-1960s, are fast being dep leted
or the belter grad es or sto ne.
As w ith all busin ess endeavours, th er.e
is a defini te correlation in carv in g
between profit, cost and production lime.
Carvers know exactl y wha t is needed to
produce any given design they have mastered in lerms or ston e quantity, 1001s,
water, sandpaper and so on. They also
know exactl y how many units or a given
d es ig n they ca n produ ce in a give n
period or time. Manag ing these two compon ent s well is esse ntial to commercial
success.
or the esLimated 1,500 carvers operating
in Bosinange today, abou t one-third do
nothing but ca rve. That is, they do not
engage in the local wholesal e trade or
buying an d selling carvings. The balance
of th e carvers are involved in marketing,
It is not unusua l ror a carver-trad er to
subcontrad a large order to other carvers,
or for those carvers to subconLract parts of
this order in turn. It is, th erefore, often
difficult to ascertain an item's upperlevel se ll ing price; th ai remains to be
det ermined by the whol esa ler and the
outside buyer, The carvers have two local
venues for marketin g thei r carvi ng. The
first is throug h the cooperati ve system
of whi ch they m ay b e me mbers; th e
second is through lhe open market, which
they rerer to as "carving fo r wholesale,"
Carvers earn from und er $300 to over
S 10,000 an nually from their work. Th eir
success d epends on sk ill, energy and
ambition. In a ll, some $2 million is
earned by the community annuall y.
There is a d istinct sequence in the use
of too ls dur ing th e ca rvi ng process. A
carver b eg ins by paring down a raw
block or stone with hi s mad1etc. A rough
Val. J5, No. J Sprillg 2(}(){)
approximation of the final shape is
carved oul. The carver gradually refines
this rough shape using various 1001s such
as a knife and rasp. In keeping with the
egalitarian traditions of the past, male
work groups gladly share their tools with
those in need. Each product type has a
specific set of design and carving requirements which must be mastered.
However, mastery of one product does
not easily translate 10 others. Even the
most experienced carver will have difficulty with certain passages while fabricating less-familiar products - hence the
importance of specialization. Throughout
the entire procedure, carvings are soaked
and resoaked in water so that the porous
stone will remain soft and easier to carve.
When the SlOne softens it is also imperceptibly enlarged, which tends to expose
hidden fractures that, when detected
early, can save the carver time, energy
and money.
There are two distinct production processes that women alone are responsible for: sanding and polishing. This is a
recent development of the past two
decades. Both production steps are laborious, repetitive and time consuming.
The sanding process involves a series of
adivities ranging from sanding to soaking
carvings in water. As the sanding progresses, the women resort to ever-finer
grades of sandpaper. In keeping with tra ditional norms, daughters learn these
skills by obseJVing their mothers at work.
Carvings are usually ordered through
the aegis of the wholesale sector, which
consists of men and women, families and
cooperatives. In IUrn, these various actors
channel direct orders to the producers.
Some of the local wholesalers operate
their businesses from outlets along the
Tabaka road. Others maintain their businesses at their homes. Each of the cooperatives manages a separate showroom.
The wholesale sector has a number of
InuitArt
Q
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Small warehouses line the fivekilometre Tabaka road. featuring
the carvings produced by members
of the extended family groups.
The profusion of carvings in all
sizes, designs and qualities is typical.
Tabaka, April 1993.
.6.~->~~<I~C~b <Dx:t>,.k~
crt>"<l"",%~"t> .. ->cr
levels. A ca rving may pass through five
transactions before it is shipped from
Tabaka 1O either the national or export
market. In broad terms, there are insiders
who sell to other insiders locally, and
insiders who sell to outsiders - merchants
from either the national or international
markets. Insiders may sell lO outsiders
who visit Tabaka or they may travel to
other points in Kenya 1O sell their merchandise. Local cooperatives are organized 1O sell large quantities directly to
the export market.
The carvings being produced and
wholesaled in Tabaka are destined for
two interconnected western markets. The
national market is coterminus with Kenya.
Each year, tens of thousands of Germans,
BrilOns, Italians and Americans visit the
country. A network of retail stores, kiosks
and mobile street and beach vendors sell
souvenirs, including soapstone carvings,
to these tourists. Many of th e western
countries comprising the export market
are home 10 businesses that retail soapstone carvings. Many national market
enterprises also operate as wholesalers
by reselling their carvings to this export
market. There are many venues through~
out the Wes t specializing in handmade
indigenous artifacts, including stores and
catalogues.
"'Q.. ..~<lL~a-
CONCLUSION
The Gusii, along with most other ind.igenous artisans, must deal with the profound challenges stemming from the
changing, as well as changeless, demands
of the western marketplace . These
include the problem of producing and
marketing carvings that are made from
the same materials and feature the same
subject matter but that stand at opposite
ends of the continuum in temlS of quality;
the impact of pervasive cri ticism from
art critics and anthropologists as well as
th e lack of an organized, cohesive and
credible response from the artisans themselves; the continued importance of carving
as an economic mainstay; the implications
of dwindling raw materials for production, and the socioeconomic implications
for coming generations of a maturing
co ttage industry. The artisan communities continue in their labours, believing
they are isolated and alone in confronting
the cha llenges, problems and opportunities created by their market, which,
ironkally, is a marketlhat they share with
many other such communities.
In the mid-19BOs, Gusii and Inuit a.rtisans came together both in Tabaka and in
northern Quebec to share experiences
and learn from each other. The most tangible outcome was the development of a
cooperative in Tabaka modelled on the
Inuit cooperative system. The book Stories
ill Stolle was published as well. It featured
myths and stories from both societies,
complemented by photographs of the
carvings of both groups. Finally, Gusii
13
and Inuit carvings were featured in a well-
Anderson, J .
attended travelUng exhibition in Canada,
Kenya and the United Slates. It is obv ious, however. thal such exchanges could
1970 The Strll9gle for tile ScI/ool: r/le lllferactioll of
Missiollar)', Colollial GovernmCllt alld Na tionalist
Emerprise;11 tile Dew/opmmt of Formal Educalioll ill
Kenya. Lond on: Longman (Development lexls).
accomplish a great deal more. Sadly, they
remain all 100 rare.
It is my hope that articles such as this
will show that indigenous artisan groups
like t.he Gusii and Inuit are neither alone.
nor isolated .
Howard Es/Jil', director of HOPE. a l'Oitmlar organiza·
tioll raising fU llds for charities, completed his doctoral
resellrch ill allthropology at McGill Unil'ersilY i" /998.
His dissertatioll fOCI/sed 011 IIII' socioeCOllomics of tile
Gusii soapstone canrillg il/duslry.
NOTES
I The Gus ii, a Banlll people, have been living
in the h ighlands of western Kenya fo r aboUi
200 years (Och ieng 19 74). The Bantu a re a
w id ely di spersed et hn ic group consist in g of
man y different peoples living throughout equatorial and southern Africa.
2 I usc the more neutral term "art isan" rather
than "craftsperson" or "artist," terms that unduly
categorize the anifacts each produces into separat e classes, co mpelling the unresolved - and
here unn ecessary - debate as to what is "art"
and what is "craft."
3 The sk ill level of the est imated 1,500 carvers
operating in Bosinange today may be situated on
a bell curve. A minority sits at either end. The first
is d isti nguished by its lack of skill. This group is
further subdi vided into {hose who arc novices
and those who, while experienced, remain deficielll. The other m inority is d istinguished by its
virt uosity and by ils ability 10 innovate new
designs. This laller skill is relatively unim portant
in the industry as il exists loday. given the economic imporlance of standardized production.
This ca tegorization, however, also und erscores thai there are two aspects of art isana l
expertise (Halano and Inagaki 1996). The firs t
d ifferen tiates the master from the novice and is
based on proficiency in conceptual and p rocedural know ledge and skills (Perkins et al. 1977).
The second differellliates the routine expert from
the adaptive expert and is based on manipulating
conce ptual and procedural knowledge 10 new
and/or di fferent ends.
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199 1 "Wes tern Aes the tic Convelllio ns and
Artisanal Produdion in Non-Western Cultures."
Unpublished master's thesis. McGill Uni versity.
Fisher, J .L
1966 "Art Styles as Cultural Cognitive Maps." In
Alltllrop% B)' alld Art: Readings ill Cross-ClllllIra/
Aesthetics, edit ed by C M. Ollen. Garden City:
Natural History Press.
Gamb le, T.J., and P. E. Ginsberg
198 1 " Di ffe renti at ion, Cognition, and Social
Evolution." Jou rnal ofCross-Clllluml PsycllOlo.qy 12.
no. 4: 445-59.
Graburn, N.
1976 Ethnic alld Tourisl Arts. Berkeley: Un ivers ity
of California Press.
Grampp, W.O.
1989 Pricing tile Priceless: Art, Artisls and EctJllomics.
New York: Basic Books.
Halano, G., and K. Inagak i
1996 "Two Courses of Expenise." In Child
Developmellt and Educatioll ill Japall . edi ted by
H. Stevenson et al. New York: W.H. Freeman.
J ules- Roselle, B.
1984 Til e Messages of Tourist Art. Ne w York:
Pl enum Press.
LeVine, R.A., and B.B. LeV ine
1966 Nya l/sollgo: A Gusii Colmmmiry ill Kenya. New
York: J ohn Wiley & Sons.
Maq lleL J.
19 86 Th e Aesthetic Experience. New Haven. CT:
Yale Uni versil Y Press, Nairobi.
Maranga, l.S.
1987 "Schooling, Cog nit ion and Work: A Study
of Cogn itive Aspecls of Stone-Carving." Paper
presen ted at the Bureau of Educat ional Research,
Nairobi.
Mudimbe, V.Y.
1988 Tile 11Ivemioll of Africa: Gellesis, PhilosopJlyalld
the Order of Kllowledge. London: James Currey.
Dchieng, W.R.
1974 A Pre-Colonial History of the Gusii of Westem
Kw)'a c, 1500- 19 /4. Kam pala: East Afri ca n
Literature Bureau.
Perkins. D.
1977" A Beller World: Studies of Poetry Editing."
In TIle Arls fl!ul Cogl/ilion, ed ited b y D. Perkins.
Balt imore: Johns Hopk ins Press.
Price, S.
19 89 Primitive Art ill Civilized P/aees. Ch icago:
University of Chi cago Press.
Richter, D.
1981 Art, Ecol/omies, a/ld Change: The Kiliebele of
Nonllerll Ivory Coast. LaJo lla: Psych / Graphic
Publi shers.
Sinatra, R.
1986 Visllal Literacy Connecrions to Tllillkillg, Rradil/g,
aud Writil/g. Springfield: Charles C Thomas_
Sykes, J .B.
1985 The Collcise Oxford Dictiollary of Cllrrellt English.
Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Vygotsky, L.S.
1987 "Think ing and Speech. " In L.S. Vygotsky,
Coffected Works, Vol. I, edit ed by R. Richer and
A. Canon, New York: Plenum.
1981a "The Genes is of Higher Mental FunL1ions."
In Tile COl/cept of Actipity ill Soviet Psychology, ed ited
by J. v, WeClsch. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.
1981b "The In strum ent al Method in Psycho log y." In The COllcept of Actil'ity ill Soviet Psychology,
ediled by J.V. Wertsch. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.
1978 Mind ill Sodety: Ti,e Developmem of Higher
Psycl/Ological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Un ivers it y Press.
Whit ing, B.B.
1963 Six ClIlllires, Studies of Child Rearillg. New
York : Wiley.
Holland, D., and N. Quinn
1987 "I nt roduction: Culture and Cognition."
In Cil/lural Models ill Lallguage alld Tllol/glrt.
edited by D. Holland and N. Quinn. Cambridge:
Camb ridge University Press.
John -Steiner, V.
1985 Notebooks of tlte Milld . Albuquerqu e:
Un iverS it y of New Mexico Press.
14
Vol. 15. No . I Sprill9 2000
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15
Foe U 5
Focus On:
CURATORIAL COLLABORATION
For over a decade, the natllre of mratorial practice in Canada has been undergoillg c/wllenge and turmoil as cultural
museum workers struggle to deal with the increasing First Nations insistence on being included ill their own representati"on
in exhibitions and museum displays. Collaboration and consultation with the concerned communities, once rare in the
IIIl1seUIII world, have becollle a critical part of the exhibition development process, althollgh still controversial alld often
difficult to negotiate. The following article by Dorothy Speak provides a background for the current revolution in mratorial
practice, which will be explored ill a series of case studies highlighting the practical and innovative sollltions reached
by curatorial teams to ensure accurate represelltation and meaningful community inptll. In this, part one,
Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) curator Judy Hall and Baker Lake gallery owner Sally Qilllllliu'lIaaq Webster
disalss their experiences collaborating 011 Sanatujut: Pride in Women 's Work, tile Inuit component of the 1995 CMC
exhibition Threads of the Land: Clothing Traditions from Three Indigenous Cultures.
I. Introduction
By Dorothy Speak
l is now more than a decade since
the Lubicon Lake Band of Cree boy·
COiled The Spirit Sillgs, an exhibition
of Indi an and Inuit artifacts at th e
Glenbow Museum in Calgary. The
exhibition sponsor. Shell Oil, was leasing
Lub icon land from th e Alberta government , resulting in disruption of the
band's livelihood. The band objected to
Glenbow's use of Shell money to mount
a show claiming to ce lebrate the richness of traditional Cree culture while
ignoring present realities. Although many
international institutions, in response to
the Lubicon lobby, declined to lend works
for the ex hibition or to host it, the show
went on as planned. Subsequent requests,
ignored by Glenbow, that certain sacred
16
objects be removed from the exh ibi tion
raised the thorny issue of repatriation
and pointed to the need for institutions to
co ll abora te with subject communities in
the conceptualization, plaruting, research
and mounting of exhib iti ons of ethnic
mater ial. The Lubicon protest was a landmark event for Canadian cultural institutions, raising awareness of the need
for sweeping changes in museum policy and practice w ith respect to the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples and
that of other minority groups held in
public collections.
The cris is at Glenbow was followed
two years later by the controversial illto
Ihe Hearl of Africa at the Royal Ontario
Museum (ROM) in Toronto. This exhibition, which set out to examine Canadian participation, both as British soldiers
and as mi SS ionaries, in the coloni zation
of Africa, led to somet imes vio lent
protests by the nedgling Coalition for
th e Truth about Africa. This group
accused the exhibition organizers of the
very racism the show purported to expose.
Though the ROM had, in developing the
exhibition, held focus-group meetings
(0 gauge the reaction of members of the
black commun ity to the material, the
breadth and depth of consultation were
clearly superficial. pointing to an imperative to form genuine and equa l partnerships with subject commun iti es from the
very moment an exhibition is conceived.
Of course, these precise issues of owner~
ship and interpretation of cultural properties had for decades been percolating in
minority and indigenous rultures around
Lhe world, from Amerindians to the Australi an Maoris to South Africa's blacks. In
the United States, the growth of political
awareness among American Indians preceded politicization of Canadian First
Peoples and event uall y had repercussions
here. Fo llowing th e In dian Awareness
Vol. 15. No. / Spring 2000
\ IN WHOSE
INT£Kr~1'
~'E~"rlfr
movement of the 1960s in the United
ItlT
States, Indian people enrolled in
unprecedented numbers in colleges and
universities, choosing Indian topics as
their subject matter. This focus led them
naturally to museums, the repositories
of Indian cultwa l material. Indians began
to protest exhibition of their ancestors'
remains and sacred objects, eventually
demanding return of such items to their
places of origin.
Calls around the world for repatria·
tion of human remains, the first and most
fundamental of the demands, were ini ·
tially met with shock and sometimes with
obstruction by museum professionals.
who until then had considered themselves
the allies of indigenous peoples. The
religious imperative behind the request
was the central belief that disturbing
the dead interferes with their afterlife.
Furthermore, public display of human
remains was considered a humiliation.
Chief among the arguments by
Once repatriation of human remains
museum officials against repatriation of
human remains was loss of material had been brought to the fore, it was only
va luab le for historical, biological and natural for indigenous peoples to begin
medical research of benefit to all sod· to demand the return of sacred objects, an
eties. However. considering the nature of area far more complex than that of the
contemporary global communications and ske leta l remains because of questions of
the sophistication of modern imaging definition. 11 can be argued, for example,
technology and information storage, it that most traditional material has, to
has been increas ingly recognized that some degree, sacred or spiritual power
possession of the object is far less impor- simply by virtue of the energy and feeling
tant than access to data about it. In the invested in it. in addition to sacred objeas.
meantime, many governments have return of objects fundamental to cultural
passed legislation with respect to repa· patrimony or objects taken from graves
triation of skeletal remains, some strin· began to be discus se d. When housed
gently requiring it, others (such as in in museums, these artifacts are, in the
Australia and Canada) recognizing the view of some Natives, "hel d in exile and
claims and interests of both the sci en· denied their intended role within the
tifi c and the indigenous communities, communi ty" (Crop Eared Wolf 1997, 38).
It was also pointed out thai man y
encouraging tolerance and cooperatio n
in resolution of th e disputes and recom· Native objects were illegally or uncthi·
mending that the future of collections cally acquired. Ln Canada, onc of the most
be determined in partnership, rather than famous cases of this was confiscation by
federal agents in 1921-22 of Kwakiutl
imposed by one group upon another.
Potlatch ceremonial materials. First
Nations began to ins ist that objects form·
ing the foundation of Native cultural
identity should be returned to their
Alvin Wandering spirit
protests the Glenbow
Museum exhibition
The Spirit Sings,
Calgary, 1988.
<r-<:'
~<l')"VA~\'
places of ori gin because their return
would re·e stablish vital co nnections
between First Peop les an d thei r pas!. In
th e words of one Native spokesperson,
''There are objects in museums which we
require to awaken us" (Tivy 1993,27) .
Again, demands for repatriation were
resisted by some museum s defending
their obligation to hold co llections in
trust for all citizens. For awhile, the word
"repatriation" struck fear into museum
officials, who were concerned that all
kinds of objeds would be claimed, leaving
the collect ions compromi sed or depleted
and the educational mission of museums
undermined. This, of cou rse, has not
tTanspiJed.
17
Gradually, through discu ss ion a nd
negotiation, many museums have tried to
undertake a fund amental shift in philosophy with resp ect to ownership, ethics
and social responsibility to First Peoples
and their cultural heritage. Among these
p rofess ion als, many have di scove red
unexpected benefits in the repatriation
process. Stronger ethical rel ationships
with First Peoples, a deep er understanding of mu se um collections and the
values that make the relevant objects
meaningful to Firs t Peoples, and new
partnerships with Native groups in the
attemp t to int erpret and preserve the
objects are chief among th e gains. They
are all considered Lo be of far greater vaJue
than act ua l p ossess ion of th e objects
themse lves.
The 1988 prot ests in Canada against
The Spirit Sings led to the formation of the
Task Force on Museums and First Peoples.
It s repor t, re leased in 1992, ca lled for
three changes: in creased involvement of
Aboriginal peopl es in the interpreta tion
of th eir cuJlures in exhibitions; improved
access by Aboriginals to collections; and
rep a triation of a rrifacrs and human
remains. Canadian museums have looked
wi th mix ed success to the repoT! as a
framework for chang es in philosophy
and practice with respect to Abori g inals
and the int erpretation of their hi stories.
Since then , some institution s hav e
taken steps to esta blis h form al links
with First Nations groups. At Gl enbow
Museum, for inst ance, a First Nations
Advisory Council was form ed in 1990
to advise the museum on the collection,
care and handling of Native materi als,
appropriate mar keting of im ages and
development of exhibitions. Council members also act as reso urces for researchers
and liaisons wilh Native communities. A
First Nations Policy outlines avenues of
coopera tion. Gl enbow also has an active
program of lend ing sacred materi al to
18
originalOrs. A First Na tions person has
been appointed 10 th e muse um 's board
and staffing pra cti ces place a grea ter
emphasis on moving towards ethnic
div ersit y. Glenbow's co mmitm en t is
d es igned to ensure a strong and deep ly
entren ched poli cy of co nsultation and
collaboration with First Nations p eopl es.
Methods by which museums con ce ive
of and mount exhibitions ha ve been a
centra l issue of reform. Some museums
have begun to recognize the import an ce
of emering into partn ers hips with communiti es at the very inception of an ex hibition. Attempts at co llaboration have
revea led fundamental differences in th e
way First Peoples and traditionally objectoriented museums view cuJrural artifacts.
Says Roy Wagner in Tlte 11lvemiofl of Culture, "Our attempts to metamOlphize tribal
peopl es as 'culture' have reduced them 10
techniqu e and artifact" ( 198t, 29). For
their part, indigenous peoples object to
b ei ng seen as "a nthropological speci me ns ," their cultural heritage frozen
in the past rather than cominuous and
living and their patrimony held in trust
and explained by their fonner colonizers.
Th ey are insist ing more and more th at
th ey be recognized an d co nsult ed as
exp e rts on their own culture. Th ese
dem ands are of course much strong er
among Aboriginal socie ties livin g in
geographic proximity to museum s and
their audiences than, for instance, among
th e Canadian Inuit, who live in greater
isolation.
Museums and crnators are being urged
to re-exam ine their role and fun ction.
Muse ums, for example, have been as ked
to see themselves less as mausoleums,
elite sa nctums or temples and more as
forums and theatres. The paramount
import ance of perform ance as a central
expression of Aboriginal culture has been
incre as ingly recog ni ze d. "To prese nt
Indi an artifacts as a su bstitute for th e
living presence and vi s ion of Nativ~
Am eri can people, as if objects and not
peopl e epitomize cultu re, is a distorti on.
To minimize li ving presence and live
performance as a vehicle of expression, as
mu se ums do by nature, is to negate a
'way of knowing' th at is recogni zed
as essential b y many Native American
societies" (Tivy 1993, 30).
Cu rato ri a l meth odo logy is slowly
becoming democratized. In the process,
predominan tly white curators have been
asked to co nsider themselves less as arbi(rators of facts and sole voices of authority
and more as faci litators. The need to work
with First Peoples to p rov id e them with
the tool s of the histori an, to understan d
how they wish their cultures to be portrayed and to adapt their sk ills to translate these co ncepts into exh ibitions and
educat ional programs has presented new
challenges for museum professionals. As
curatorial-based mod els for exhibition
developm ent are abandoned for communit y-b ased o nes, th e input of e ld ers
stands to enrich and deepen exhibit ions.
If a shift towards communi ty val ue s
results from new inspinti ons and frameworks, changes may al so be seen in th e
scope and elitism of collection policies
and in the traditional em phas is on the
primacy of th e artifact.
It has also been pointed out thaI museums mu st adjust their use of terminology
and their concepts of human history,
which are foreign to indigenous ones, so
that AbOriginals may fee l less alienated by
the language of cull ural insitutions. This
may necess it ate a complete re-evaluation
of what is meant by "culture." Cultural
institutions have begun to recognize the
need to abandon "primitive" stereotypes of
Natives as inferior or disappearing societies.
Co incident with a gradual shift in th e
role of curators is a general re-examination
among art historians of fundamental critical structures: entrenched ways of defming,
understanding and prese nting art are
being qu es tioned. "In the art museum
... the object was purposely viewed withOUI external references in order to make
possible a purely aesthetic experience of
its 'immanent' fonnal qualities" (Phillips
t 988, 65).
In an effort to better understand the
relationship between art an d ethnicity,
enlightened art historians have begun
Vol. 15, No. I Sprillg 1000
Foe U S
to recog nize the narrowness of eurocentri c, universalist aest hetics that demat erialize or deconlcxlUalize an, divorcing it
from its imrinsic contex ts. Gradua ll y,
th ese new approaches are having an
impact on institutional philosophies. Art
museums have begun to develop methods
of di splaying Na tive an "not merely in
the limited context of aesthetics and art
edu ca tion but as instruments of social
education in which the [art] project[s]
w ell beyond th e circumstan ces of their
origin (0 become implements of crosscultural understandi ng in a much wider
sphere" (Robbins 1994, 37).
The National Gallery of Canada's decision in 1988 to collea and di splay Inuit an
reflects a new willin gness to relax longheld curatorial divisions between art and
artifact. Similarly, the Canadian Museum
of Civilization's creation of an Inuit art
gallery in its new quarters seemed to signal new, less ethJlographically ce ntred
approaches to its co ll ection of contemporary Inuit arl. The "false d ichotomy"
creat ed by se parating Aborigina l "art"
from "ethnological" collections and the
need to explore the "tor31 creati vity of LIaditional peoples" are being more widely
di scussed around the world (ibid., 38).
An institutions are increasingly reassessing
their inherent exclUSiv it y and recognizing
their obligation to broaden the interpretations of minority cultures.
REFERENCES
Crop Eared Wolf, Annabel
1997 "PrOieding Religious Rights and Freedoms:
Blood Tribe/Kainai Efforts through Cuhural and
Intellectual Properties Poli cy and Repatriation."
Alberta Museum RL'View 23, no. 3 (Fall): 38- 40.
Phillips, Ruth
19881ndian Art: Where do you PUI it?" Muse 6.
no.3 (Autumn): 64-7.
Robbins, Warren M.
1994 "Making the Galleries Sing: Displaying
African An." MUsell1ll News 73, no. 5 (Septemberl
October): 36-4l.
Tivy, Mary
1993 "Passing the Point of No Return." Museullls
Ja"mal93, no.3 (March): 25-S.
Wagner, Roy
19S1 The Inve1/tian a/Cullure. Chicago: University
of Chicago Prcss.
II. Case Study:
Interview with Judy Hall, co-curator of
Threads of Land: Qothing Traditions from
Three Indigenous Cultures
AT THE CANADIAN
MUSEUM OF CIVILIZATION
HULL, QUEBEC
FEBRUARY
1995
TO SEPTEMBER
1997
By Kate McCarthy
Kate McCarthy: Where did
the concept ion of the exhibi t
Threads of tile Lalld and its
methodology com e from?
Judy Hall: It started in 1989
and ca me about in qu ite an
odd way. We had a travelling
exhi bi t here called COS /lillie
as Communicatioll, and it was
about clothing fro m Bolivia.
My supervisor, Andrea Laforc!.
director of the Canadian
Ethnology Serv ice, realized
that three of us in the divis ion
had been doing a lot of work
InuitArt
Q
Y
~
•
T I
•
,
y
on Native clothing in the collection. We had spent q uite a
number of years cataloguing
and resea rching it. That gave
us the idea of doing a clothing
exh ib it. Ini tially it was to augmen! that exhibit [CosllIme as
Comnllmicalioll J, and th en we
aJi rea li zed what an amaz ing
collection Ihe mu se um has.
And so it evemua lly developed
int o TllTeads o/the Land, which
was an 8,OOO-square-fool ex hibition, divided int o three
seoions: the Copper and Caribou
Inuit, th e Denc, which was
curated by Judy Thompson,
and the NLaka'pamux, which
was curated by Leslie Tepper.
I suppose we could ha ve done
cl OIhing from all around the
North, or from all Nat ive
groups of Canada, but it was
just too enormous. So it all
started when we realized w hat
a slTOng co ll ection we had.
That was back in 1989. When
we started working on the
exh ib ition, it was alwa ys
in our minds that there w ould
be a great in vo lvement of thewell. in my case, the Inu it commun it y. I don'llh ink it crossed
our minds not to do it thai way.
McCarthy: At what point were
Native individual s or group s
consult ed, or brought into the
process?
Hall: Th ey were brought into
the process right from the ve ry
beg inning, even though the idea
for the exhibit was initiated by
the museum. The first thing
I did, for my secti on, was to
cont act peoplc in the Ottawa
In uit community, at Pauktuutil ,
the Inuit women's organizat ion.
I wen! over there with s li des
of cl othing and presented them
with what we were thinking of
doing. I basica ll y asked th em:
"Do you think th is is a good
idea? Do you think people w ill
be interested ? Do you think
the Inuit comm unity would
be interest ed?" And if they
had said no, we wouldn 't have
done it. So they were involved
even from th e idea stage. I
worked with PauklUUlit a 101
on the exhi bit. Sally Webster,
who is now in Baker Lake bu t
w ho w orked at PauklUutit , was
am azing. Sh e hel ped me with
con tacts in the communities up
North and was a member of ou r
des ign team. We had representa tives from alli he communi ties
Sitting on the design team. The
19
consultants helped
OUI
LIS
figure
how [he design could best
be put together. They also
helped us with the posler and
carne up w ith the title of the
exhib ition. We didn't always
have the same people on Ihe
design team through the whole
pl ann ing siage, except fo r
Sa ll y Webs ter who was preuy
well involved throughout
[he whole process.
The app roach I took for working wi th the women in the
community was sort of new, a
way of consulting we hadn'l
tried before. Thc OIher two
curators went ou t to the com munit ies themsel ves, and took
boxes of slid es and got input
from the communities. 1 could
have done thai with my
section, but I k new that in
Holman they had seen a lot of
histori c photographs and pictures of the older clothing, and
had been inlcrcsted in making
Ihe o ld designs. I Ihought thai
if I we nlup Ihere, I would jusl
be showing them photog raphs
Ihat they'd a lready seen, and
I didn't th ink Ihal wou ld really
help them allih at much.
What I thought wou ld be a different approach was to actually
bring people into the museum
from the communities, and
Iha t's what we cnded up doing.
With the in val uab le help of
Bernadette Driscoll -Eng lestad
and Ji ll Oakes, two groups of
three seamstresses came down.
each woman representing one
of three age groups - an elder,
a midd le-aged and a young
woman. The idea was to have
them work together, so that the
elder seamstresses could teach
the younger seamstresses, giving
con tinuity ove r the generations.
Elsi e Nilgak, Alice Omingmak
and Julia Ogina came from
Holman. Lizzie In inuar carne
from Rank in Inlel, Em il y
Nipishna Alerk from Bak er
Lake, and Sally Webster, who
is also a seamstress, acted as
interpreter. We laid out the
ent ire clot hi ng colleclion from
Iheir areas. I think it worked
rea ll y well, because they could
aduaJly see the clothing in stead
of just p hotos; lhey could see
for themselves the textures.
how the patterns were worked
and how the fur wen I. They
cou ld feel how thick the fur
was. We videotaped those two
sessions and took photos. Then
we sent that information back
10 the individual seamstresses
a nd the ir communi li es.
McCarthy: It sounds like
you gave their communities
a chance 10 see everything
as w ell, instead of j ust the
seamstresses who carne down.
Hall: Yes - they could go back
and show the tapes and
photographs in the community.
So I th ink that worked out very
well. It was a different way of
doing it. bUl I think thai il was
a lot morc prod uctive for them
tha n my going up to the communities with slides. This
way they actually saw the
old clothing, which was such
a thrill fo r them.
Hall: Usually the curators do
the research and consultation
fi rst, and lhen part way throug h
thai, an exhibition team kicks
in: a coordinator - who keeps
everybody meeting their deadlines - and a deSigner. But
the design [cam starts at least
two years in advance. For this
exhibit, it was composed of the
deSigner, the coordinator, all
the curators, plus two members
from each of the Native communities represented in the
exhibition .
McCarthy: How were they
recru ited?
Hall: Usually, it was people
we had met in the commu nities. I know that o ne of the
NLaka'pamux seleclcd for
the design tearn was a teacher
who lhe curator, Leslie Tcpper,
had met in the community and
w ho had experience in education, especia ll y of chi ldren.
We looked for peop le who
either knew about education
or had had some ex pe rience
in museums. For example, the
two Inuit onlhe desig n learn
were Sa Uy Webster ~ who had
been involved from the very
beginning - and Sally Kusugak
from Rank in Inie L She was
highly recommended by many
people and she had worked at
the Pri nce of Wales Museum
Island d isp lay o f clothing
in t he Inu it component
of Threads of the Land:
Clothing Tra ditions from
Three Indi genous
Cultures, February 1995 to
September 1997.
b~ Cr
Cd,V\,''''-i<l'L
~r"C"'f'\.0"'t> r~..o
h.~..:JI~<lldCO'" ~\\p~lncn ,.h.
<I.....o<~o", <In'bI..,)O''' Thr eads
of the Land
r
[Yellowkn ifel . and she was
young and knew aboul education. She provid ed a different
kind of experience that could
guide us for the design . But lhe
consultants weren't the only
voices, because they would go
back 10 th ei r communi ty and
ask people's opinions about
the des ign . So il was broader
than just the opinions of those
people silling around a table.
McCarthy: So both of them
wou ld go to many d ifferent
communities in the North?
Or was it primarily their own
communi ties?
Hall : No. it was thei r own
communities. What I also did,
as far as Ih e des ign and the
McCarthy: How were the
d es ign tcams formed?
20
Vol. 15. No. I Spring 1000
(Left to right) Sally Qimmiu'naaq
Webster, Emily Nipishna Alerk (Baker
Lake) and Lizzie Ittinuar (Rankin Inlet)
with a beaded amauti in the
Canadian Museum of Civilization
collection, January 1992.
l"'l>r"cr C~"A".o) ~~ t><I<'», <lLc- crA"o..
<I...)" IbLO"'C)<llrt>c <IlL....> c-,l .6.n ....o<l..
(b'1","<r'f~CI ba.Cr Cd,l"<I1'~<1'l,
r~.o .6.~...)~...!<l1dC0'"
fU,,lC-f\.0"'t>
whole concept went, was to
send a copy oflhe preliminary
design and th e concept paper to
every hamlet ornce in the areas
of the Copper Inuit and Ihe
Caribou Inu it, as well as to Ihe
Inuit CulturallnstitUie. J asked
if they could look it over and
let me know ifl hey had any
suggestions or comments. J did
hear back from a couple of
them. So J got input by go ing
directly to the hamlet ornces as
well. And that was prelly early
on in the desig n, because we
didn't want to get (00 far and
then ha ve somebody say thai
maybe we should have done
Ihis different ly. One thing the
consultant s did express was
how important it was to show
contemporary clothing. I know
we got a 101 of these kinds of
comments when we were
doi.ng the initia l consultations
for the CMe's First Peopl es
Hall. A lot of Ihe consultants
would say, "We're always
depicted in the past; we want
museum visitors to know Ihat we
are still here, slill contributing,
and our culture is still vibranl."
I don't know if you saw Threads
of/he Lal/d, but it opened with
contemporary clothing and
ended with contemporary
cloth ing. The reason the
clothing at the end was open
on an island - and this came
(Left to right) Julia Ogina,
Elsie Nilgak and Alice
Omingmak of Holman
examine a wolfskin parka
at the Canad ian Museum
of Civilization in
November 1992.
I"'t>r"cr C~"A".o1 ...!c-<l t>ro..,
.6.<l . . r' cr"'"L," <IlL...) <Ie.."
~r'L' (~-' ·~·j'f~CI ba.Cr
Cd,l"<11' ~<1'l, h..D,' "'<r~
~.o .6.~...)~...!<NL 0",
out of the design consultations was because the consuhants
wanted the clOIhing to look
alive, rath er than being placed
in a museum exhibi t case. The
museum 's conservat ion department had concerns about dust,
but the clothing was monitored
regularly. We also rotated it
on the islands so we could
show more examples of
contemporary designs.
McCarthy: So the consultatjons had a great impact on the
design of the enl ire exhibit.
I was readi ng the book as well,
and 1 noticed Ihat, at least in
th e later sections, the text consisted mainly of quotes from
people in the comm unities.
Hall: That's right. And I think
it 's even progressed since
Threads. J mean, when exhibits
were done in the past, it was
always the curatorial voice that
to ld the story, and what we
did with Threads was to
amalgamate thaI with a very
strong Native voice. Th e curatorial voice was th ere to link th e
thread through the exhib it,
keep the sto ryline going and
make sense of the progression
of the exhibit, but the story
is also told by the Inu it voi ce.
I think the process now is to
have more and more of the
Nati ve voi ce, 10 !ellthe story
from the Native perspective.
But Threads of tile Lalld opened
awhile ago - in 1995.
McCarthy: I suppose it would
be difficult for you 10 say how
you think the approach was dif~
ferent for Sallall/jut versus th e
other sections, apart from
bringing th e seamstresses here.
to have brought in morc
seamstresses. But. as with any
exhibition - or any in stit ution tbere is on ly so much money,
and it 's quite expensive to bring
people in from Holman. The
othe r curators going out to the
communiti es also worked
well. bUll liked having the
seamst resses down here
because, not on ly did they see
the collections, bu t th ey could
also see wh ere we were located
and what we were doing. It's
sometimes hard for peop le in
the communi ties 10 visualize
what it is we're trying 10 do
here. I could show them where
the exhibit was going to be,
and what we were tryin g to do.
I think that fostered a bett er
undersl anding of the process
and beller dialogue between us.
Hall: Yes, the approach was different in th aI way. I was very
pleased with the way it worked
oul. The only downside of it,
I think, was that I wou ld like
21
Lizzie Ittinuar (Rankin
Inlet) holds the beaded
amauti she made in 1975.
now in the collection of
If I had any questions that.
for example, Sally Webster
couldn' t answer, she would
phone somebody in the North
and ask th em. So Pauktuutit
was a great, great source of
support an d in fo rmation. And
they' re busy the mselves with
other things.
the Canadian Museum of
Civilization (IV-C-4538),
January 1992.
r.-' Ml' .c~' Ib 'f" r~'r~C)
~L~.-'~ '~d~ ~<'l.'b')
1975-r nJr ~«
McCa rthy: What do you think
was the motivation behind
wantin g this leve l of collaboration? I don 't think that every
institution or every curator
would have Ihoug htto bring
in th is level of consu ltation
10 years ago, when you began
planning. Or would you
say that 's not true, that even
10 years ago, there was an
impetus towards collaborat ion
in an exh ibit lik e thi s?
McCarthy: How did the
groups or individuals you
approached react to the
request for contributions?
Hall : J always had good rcaelions. I worked closely with
the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation {IBC] on the videos, and
I worked closely with Pauktuutil
throughout.
We also puttagether a travelling ve rsion of the exh ibition.
Threads wasn't going 10 tra vel
because it was j ust too enormous and because it was on
display here for two and a half
years, and the co nserva tors
fel! that was enough for the
clothing. But it was always at
[he back of th e mind s of the
curators to send something to
the commu niti es, 10 get some
of this informat ion back to them.
What we e nded up developing
were small "ex hibit boxes."
They were fi ve-foot-long
trunks that opened up into
four drawers filled wi th artifacls, with panels on the
lap with text in English and
Inuklilut a nd hi storic photos.
We included cop ies of the
ex hibit poste r, the vi deos, the
book and binde rs of hi storic
photos. The boxes travelled to
Baker [Lakej, Ra nkin [Inlet),
Arviat, Coppermine, Yellowknife, Jqaluit and Cambridge
22
Bay, circulated by the Prince
of Wales Northern Heritage
Centre in Yellowknife. Th ey
were small enough to be set
up in ha mlet offices or school
gyms and th ey were used in
school classes. It was a good
way 10 get the information
back illlo the communit y.
I a lso sent a copy of the book
to schools in the North, for
their libraries.
McCarthy : Were there any
strategies that you want ed to
attempt that ended up being
impossible to implement, or
were dropped for other reasons?
Hall: Yes, well. there was one
thing. The exhibit was trilingual: English, French and
Inuktitut. We had also wanted
th e cata logue to be in all three
languages, but unfortunately
it's only in English. That was a
disappointment, because I think
it wou ld have been a lot more
accessible to a lot more people
in the North iJ it had been in
Inukti tut. We also wanted 10
bring in more people, because
the more voices you ha ve, the
better. Bul we tried to d o other
things as well - like sending out
packages 10 the communities
and having the peopl e who
were directly involved talk
to other peopl e in the communit ies, so I th ink we reached
out further into the commu nities. But still il would have
been better to have more
people involved. But we're
so lucky in Ottawa - there
is an act ive Inuit co mmunity
here with organizations lik e
Paukluutit, Inuit Tapirisat and
IBe. I th ink th e museum was
very luck y in that way. Any
olher museum across the country probabl y would."'1 have had
such a good base right in town.
If there was any question of
translation, or if we were
editing a video and wanted to
make it just rig ht, I cou ld find
Inuit in Ollawa to check it.
Hall: I'm not su re there was,
years ago. I k now exh ibits done
prio r to Tllreads of lite Lal/d, even
through this institution, djdn't
have that level of consultation .
We just neve r thought that we
should do an exhibit an y other
way. Anoth er thing we did,
because we wanted a very strong
contemporary com ponent, was
to commission a number of
pieces from seamstresses in the
communities. We had hardly
any contemporary clothing
o r examples of what kind of
fashion s arc being designedand what they're doing is
in credibl e. So, by commissioning seamStresses in the
communities, we were, in a
way, deve loping that link.
I suppose a lot of museum s
have been fo rced 10 consid er
consultation because of the,
should I say, "co ntroversy"
over the Spirit Sings lat the
Glenbow Mu se um, Calgary, in
1988J exhibit, which sparked
th e Museums Associations/
Assemb ly of First Nations Task
Force. But I think thai even
if that innuenee hadn't been
there, we still would have done
that kind of consu ltation.
vat. 15. No. f Sprillg l OOO
McCarthy: Do you think Ihal
the desire 10 co llabora te came
ou( of your personal train ing
and the traini ng of the other
curators?
corne and look at what is here
and study it. We are trying to
get the word out that th ey call
come here, thai they call be part
of w hat we're doing.
Hall: Yes, I think so. Because
wc had worked in Native communities on oth er projects, we
all had contacts - peop le th at
we knew in the comm un it y.
McCarthy: Did YOll fi nd that
there were an y major obstacles
to collabo ration? Did you find
the language barr ier diffi cult,
fo r example?
McCarthy: And do you feellhis
is a more valid way of go in g
about this son of exhibi t - one
tha t dea ls with cultu ral or h istorical artifacts and contemporary works? H thi s level of
coll aborat ion isn't present in
an exhibit of this sort, would
you say there's a problem with
thai? That it is less valid, or
less app ropriate?
Hall: The language was a factor
bUI, when the seamstresses d id
come down. I had a tran slator.
So I th ink that was okay. But
the curators also hired peopl e
to imerview residents of th eir
own comm un ities, w hich I
thought worked qui te well too.
Copies of the interv iews were
kepi for the communit ies as
well as being sent here, so
they have interviews and oral
histories of their elde rs. That
crossed the language barrier;
they were interviewed in their
native language, and w e got
an English translat ion . For
the Inuit section, I also used
in terviews by IBe and from
man y other sources - lik e Inuit
publications that had English
translations.
Hall: It 's hard to say, beca use
it depends on what the goal of
the exh ibi l is. But I know that
when we are asked to comment
on travelling exhibits th at are
being considered for thi s insti tution Ithe CMq, one thing
I look fo r is whether there has
been any consultation with the
Nat ive commun ity. And if there
ham" been, I q uestion w hy.
What kind of message is that
ex hibit sending if the people's
voice isn't importa nt enough
to include?
McCarthy: Right. I was goin g
to ask if you th ink that Threads
aftlle Land and other exh ibi ts in
the last few years have changed
the museum 's policy.
Hall: Oh yes, I think cu lt ural
ex hibits now are done with a
strong component of consultation w ith th e commun ity. But
you see it in other muse ums as
well. The McCord in Montrea l,
for exampl e, is collaborating
w ith the Native commun ity
for all its ex hibits. It 's really
becoming more and more
"jUSt the way you do it." This
museum is trying 10 open us up
to welco min g Nati ve people to
Inuit Art
Q
U
••
T
(
•
l
,
We are trying to
get the word out
that people can
come here, that they
can be part of what
we're dOing.
McCarthy: Did you find any
opposition with in the museu m
to th is k ind of approach?
Hall: It was very supporti ve
from the beginning. My boss,
Andrea Laroret, director of
this divi sion [the Canadian
Ethnol ogy Service/, su pport ed
us from the very beginni ng.
[ don 't th ink the methodology
was ever question ed. The exhi bi tion did have cu tbacks, but
the consultation part was never
jeopardized; the curatorial team
cu t components of the actual
exhibit as opposed to anything
to do with consu ltation. The
w hole introductory section,
which was supposed 10 act as
an overview lying the three
sections toget her, for example,
got CUI. But we never comprom ised the way we did it, or
the consu lt ation process.
McCarthy: Do you think that
wou ld have been different if
this had been an exhib it of
Inuit art? I know there is a
large collecti on of Inuit art in
the museum, and it seems that
there is no hassle fo r cons ultation in a cultura l or hi storical
exh ibit; whe reas, when you
enter the realm of arL, it suddenly becomes a much more
contentious issue.
Hall: Well, I don't know. I'm
not an art historian and I don't
know anything about doing an
art ex hibit. But collaborati ng in
ex hibitio ns is certainly not an
iss ue within thi s instituti on. I
know that when Odette Leroux
did ISlI11IaI'Itllan exh ibit ion of
work by female artists fro m
Cape Dorset, 1994), she did
a lot of consultation in the
comm unities, and thai was
very mu ch supported by
this institu tion. I used contemporary p rints in th e exhibit,
and there seemed to be no
problem with using them in
that way. I didn't get any letters
from an historians sayi ng it
was nOt an appropria te way
(0 use the print s. I can just
speak about my ex perience
wi th Threads of tile La"d, and in
thai case r was using the prints
10 show cont emporar y manifestations of clothing styles. skin
preparation and adornment.
And I had no comment s from
any of the consultants that it
was inappropriate 10 use them.
McCarthy: Were any cr iti cisms
levelled at the show when it
opened?
Hall: I th ink th e one criticism
was the fact that we didn 't have
anything that linked all the
scctions together. Anoth er was
thm we could have had more
programming in th e exhibit.
We did ha ve people come from
various communiti es; Lizzie
Illinuar did a works hop on
sk in preparation, and Sall y
Webster was in qu ite often
do ing workshops on bead work
and making duffle bools. But
I think we cou ld have had a
lot more involvement. Finall y,
what we really wanted fro m
the very beginning was 10 hire
interpreters for the ex hibit.
I wanted an Inuit seamstress
or student to be ill that exh ib it,
to answer question s (rom tht,
public throughout the w hole
run. We did eventua ll y have a
Native interpreter in the ex hi bition during the s ummer and
fall of 1997. I th ink hav ing an
interp reter in the exhibit ion
made it so much more meanin gful to the vis it or. When Sall y
Kusugak was down, she wore
her amaut i as she walked around
the display space and people
were asking all sorts of questions about it , like "How do
you fit the baby up th e back?"
Having somebody there who
was actuall y living that culture wearing those clothes - reall y
broughllhe ex hibit alive.
McCarthy: Was there anylh ing
else that you wish you could
have changed or improved?
Hall: Well, one of th e criticisms
that I did gel from the Inu it
community was that people
would come and not see their
cloth ing in the exhibit. There
was a reason why; I would
have needed Ihe entire exhibition space to do an exhibi t of
In ui t clOIhing from all regions
of the North, and it wasn't
intended to be that incl usive.
But I did think th at haV ing
clothing representing all
reg ions of the North wou ld
have improved il.
23
McCarthy: What do you think
the sea mstresses ga ined from
the expe rience? You mCllIioned
that they had a beli ef unde rstanding of the museum itself,
and were able \0 interact with
each olher. Were th ere lasting
benefits for the commun ity.
do you think?
Hall: I think there's been a
lasting benefit in Holman. The
seamstresses who came down
here got to look 311he way the
pieces were put together - 1
mean Ihey hadn 't seen this sty le
ofclOlh ing since the 1920s!-
and Ihey could use this knowledge 10 make the older clothing
sly ies. In the book of the exhi-
bition there are pancm drawings
of some of the parkas, which we
had done by Dorothy Burnham.
and all those palle rns have
been sent back North . The
sea mstresses now have a much
better understanding of haw aII
th e pieces work, and how the
fur nows, and how thick it is,
as a result of coming here.
McCarthy: So you're working
togeth er both to understand the
artifacts beller and to document
them.
Hall: Yes, they certai nly helped
liS in documenting the collection . For example, we have an
ama Uli which Emily Alerk recogn ized as being made by ber
mother in Bake r Lake. Emily
remembered working on the
decoration and fringes as a
child. Having that information benefited the museum's
knowledge of the collecti on.
McCarthy: Were you sat isfied
wit h th e results of the consultation in terms of how it enriched
the exh ibit?
Hall: I was satisfied with the
way it worked, beca use nobody
had ever really done tha t kind
24
of collaborat ion before, and
I was unsure as 10 /tow it was
going to work. But I think it
worked very we ll and everybody benefited. Of course, it's
never enough. As I sa id before,
I would have lik ed to talk to
more people. but I suppose you
have to have some sort of either
time or fisca l rest rain t.
McCarthy: Was the historic
aspect of your exhib it enriched
by ta lki ng to people? Did you
get a beLLer perspective on the
hi storic chain of events, or
was that primaril y draw n from
academic and archaeological
sou rces?
Hall: We ll , 1 slart ed by going
through all the literature on
the subject, but the consultants
prov id ed an add iti onal cultura l
perspective. The ethnographic
literature documents regional
clothing styles, design fealUres
and decorative motifs. But the
seamstresses cou ld identify
commu nity or individua l cloth ing styles and designs and
changes. The seamstresses are
the ones who made the clothing
and who li ve the cu lture.
McCarthy: So. wha t you were
allempting to do was reall y
to find as Inuit a perspective
as you could, given that you
weren't Inuit yourself?
Hall: I was trying to preselll
what the seamstresses and
consul tants wanted to see in
thi s exhibit. The museum was
always say in g, "Judy. who are
your audience?" My ball am
line was that if the Inuit community is happy w ith it, then
it 's been done ri ght. Tiley
were my aud.ience. But if Ihe
museum's audience karns
something, then that was
good too.
McCarthy: It sounds as if the
point of the ex hibit was more
in the process than in the actual
disp lay itself - that the process
of com ing around 10 the final
product is more import ant
because it has to do with the
interaction and understanding
and fostering of dia logue
between Ihe Inuit community
and the museum community,
and within the Inu it
community it self.
How did they want
to be represented?
That was key. We
were always asking,
"How do you want
people to feel
about you when
they come out
of this exhibit?
What do you
want them to
have learned
about you?"
Hall: Yes, that's true. Well,
I guess the ultimat e result of
an exhibit is to educate people.
The point was to show people
who have never seen Inuit
clothin g before how remarkab le
and beautiful and complex it
is. and how it is tied up in the
whole culture. And if that's
what people got out of the
ex hibit then it was a success.
For me, the process was th e
most wonderful pari. and if in
the end the Inuit community
was pleased with it: and if
the museum-going pub li c
gained some know ledge of
and respect for Inuit culture,
then we achieved our goals.
Hall: Yes - how did they want
to be represellled? That was
key. We were always aski ng.
"W hat would you like? Do you
th ink this shou ld be exh ibited?
If so. how? How do you want
10 be represented here? How
do you want peop le to feel
about you when they come
out of th is exh ibit? What do
you want th em to have learned
about you?" The answer was
that the cu lt ure is very vibrant,
very alive.
McCarthy: What would you
say your role is as curator? You
mentioned it earli er, but could
you expand on that ?
Hall: The way I see it, my role
as a curator of Sal/ail/jill - which
might be completel y different
from anybody else's; it's an
individual thing - was as a
facilita tor. Thc curator is the onc
who has don e the research and
is familiar with the collections,
how enormous institutions like
this museum work and how
exhibits work. who can facili tate the community's ability 10
co me in and see what they
want to see and say what they
walll to say. As a curator.
I pulled it all toget her, beca use
I was here in the South and
at the museum; I could do the
research and the organizing.
They certainly directed the conlent and des ign of th e exhibit.
Th ey wou ld tell me what kind s
of material they would like
to sec, and because I knew the
coll ections (of thi s museum
and other museums) I was able
to lind what they we re looking
for or commission new pieces.
So I see myself more as a facilitator than anything else.
McCarthy: So the object was
accurate representation.
Vol. 15. No.1 Sp ring 2000
I
I
Foe u 5
ill. Case Study:
lI
Interview with Sally Qimmiu'naaq Webster,
collaborator on Threads of the Land: Qothing
Traditions from Three Indigenous Cultures
By Kate McCarthy
Kate McCarthy: Can you slate
your name and pos ition?
Sally Qimmiu'naaq Webster:
I'm Sally Qimmiu' naaq
Webster and Tam manager and
owner of Baker Lake Fine Arts
and Crafls. My Inuit name was
given 10 me al bi rth. My grand mother named me after my
grandfather. For Inuit, it doesn't
make any difference whether
you give a child a woman's or a
man's name. lL's given to th e
child to pass on a family name.
McCarthy: Threads of tI,e
Land actually opened in 1995,
I believe? But the planning
started Mound 1989.
Webster: I slaned gelling
ca lls arollnd that time. I didn't
really help out Ihal much - I
proofread what was in the book
for accuracy and as to whether
the clothing illustrated was
from Caribou or Copper Inuit.
I didn't deal much wi th the
Copper Inuit materiaJ. Jill Oakes
[co-a uthor of the Sallaflljlll exhib ition catalogueJ did that.
And we had two people come
down - Emily Alerk from Baker
Lake and Lizzie Ittinu ar from
Rankin Inlet - to look at the
Caribou Inuit cloth ing. Emily
was talking abou t preparation
of caribou skin.
McCarthy: How did you
get involved at the p lanning
stage? Were you working
at Pauktuutit at the time?
Webster: Yes. I don't know
who gave my name to Jill
Oakes, but I started getting
phone calls from her aski ng me
to read some of the tex t for the
book. When she was in Arviat,
she wanted to do work on
caribou skin. She actually
learned the whole tech nique
of working the ca ribou skins.
In order to underst and whatever
you're doing, you have to get
involved - to sec how hard it
is, to sec how peop le do what
they do. Even for myself - I'm
not good at working skins,
but I learned from watching
how my mother did it. On the
weekend, I'll be helping my
younger sister to learn. We'll
be stretch ing the skin; you
stretch it from th e edges and
leave it all night. In the next
slage, we'll put some cold
water on the dried skin, and
stretch it as much as we can
w ith the stretcher. It will
expand wi th water. When
we've finish ed stretching il,
then we scrape all the dead,
dried skin off. When it's soft
enough, then wc'll cut the
pattern out and start sewing it.
That takes awhilc - probably
two or three weeks. My sister
works during the day and we'll
have to do it on the weekends.
McCarthy: That's interesting.
So that's the son of thing you
were showing Jill Oakes?
Webster: Ycs.
McCarthy: Was she learning
to do these things so she could
understand how other people
do them?
Webster: Sa/la/lljlll in Inuktitut
means "pride in women's
work." My grandmother, when
I was born , made me a hat. She
sewed it and put it on my head,
Sally Kusugak of Rankin Inlet
(left) and Sally Qimmiu'naaq
Webster take a break during a
design consultation meeting
at the Canadian Museum of
Civilization, January 1993.
~. deL' (b'f".<T'r~C) <I'L-,
~. ~<I ~) bo.Cr Cd~L"'N<<I'!.
a..br' c.-n...O""t>
.6.~....) \~<I\:JLO""
r""..D
and sa id that she wanted me to
be a good seamstress, because
my mother was too busy looking
afler my brothers and helping
my grandmother to have time
to teach me how to sew. If you
wan I to be a good seamstress,
you have to pay allention. If
I see somebody wearing traditional clothing, I will glance
at thai woman, without letting
her know that I'm looki ng at
her, 10 see how the amauli's
pattern is, and how the sti tches
are don e, to sec if she took
pride in that work, or if she
was ru shing it. I can tell by
looki ng at clothing who made
it and where it came from. I can
SpOI Arviat peopie, Baker Lake
people and Rankin peop le.
Webster: It's just knowing
how to be a good seamstress,
taking pride in your work. Like
how our clot hing is practical
and useful. To free our hands,
we put the baby on our back this was before houses, when
we lived in igloos. They didn't
have a crib or anything, so if
the baby was awake and the
mother wanted to do some
work, she would put the baby
on her back so she could carry
on with what she was doing,
maybe working on a skin or
cooking. Everybody's different.
My younger sister is different
from me. She's not a good seamstress, bUI she's a really good
cook! So everybody's different.
My s ister and I were just young
McCarthy: Was that something you tried to get across
in the ex hibit?
25
killik [the front downward
extension of the amauti]
around the edge. I don't know
what th e other women use. They
probab ly use new material, but
older material is better because
it moves more eaSi ly and it's
not as tight when you do the
bead work on it. On the beadwork, you have to do each
st itch, and when you put it
together it gets hard and tight.
Woma n' s out er amauti,
Caribou Inu it, collected by
A.P. Low, west coast of
Hudson's Bay, 1903-04.
(Canad ian Museum of
Civi lizati on IV-C-628).
<lu>n~ 'bC''('l.
McCarthy: How do you see
teenagers when my mother gal
TB and had to go to Clearwater
Lake [sanitorium], and we
had to figure out how we were
going to look afler our lillie
brothers. Because I can se w,
I made their clothing and
kamiks, and she did the
coo king. It worked very well.
that connection from the old
cloth ing to the new clothing?
Was that something you tried
to present in the clothing that
was selected for th e exhibit?
Webster: 1 guess Judy chose
the Caribou and Copper Inuit
clothing. You have 10 be selective. She selected the ones we
put in the book accord ing to
the old traditional way and th e
new way. It's not old - it's the
same pall ern, but instead of
using th e white belly and th e
brown fur of the caribou, we
just use black or red or white
stroud. Bul it's the same pattern.
McCarthy: You said you
started to get calls from Jil l
Oakes and Judy Hall about
helping with Sallatujlli in
1989. What wefe you doing
al Pauktuutit altha! tim e?
Webster: I was lhe receptionist.
McCarthy: When Jill and Judy
started calling you, what were
they asking you?
Webster: Whether I would
be interested in looking at the
book, and also to go 10 work
althe CMC with Jud y Hall
when people come down
from Bak er Lake and Rankin.
That's my interest - clothing.
I love sewing.
McCarthy: Were you exci ted
when they presented thi s
project to you?
Webster: Yes. Even though
I was just an interpreter for
those two people, I was
learning as well.
McCarthy: In what sense?
Webster: I was learning how
they do th e caribou skins: how
important it is to soften the
skins, if you want a rea lly nice
sk in 10 work with. How lO
match the pall ems so they fit
nicely. The patterns we have
26
McCarthy: Did you help to
choose what went into the
exhibit and the book?
are intended to make movement
of your body easy; it's not too
tight, iI's not too loose; it's a
pattern that our ancestors made
for us. Even how to put a newborn baby under your arm
inside the amaUli. You swing
it over your left arm. That's
hard to do when you've j ust
had your first baby, and 1 had
to learn how to do that. I swing
it over my left arm and pUi it
in the back of my pouch.
McCarthy: How were the old
pauerns that you saw different
from Ihe onl'S people are making
today?
Webster: They're not different
at all. Traditional clothing is
made with the same pattern,
even the beaded amautii.
Beaded amautii use Ihe exact
pattern of traditional clothing,
using ca ribou skin from th e
white pari of the belly. If you
look althe traditional amauti
on page 41 of Sallallljll t, and
the beaded one on the cover,
they're based on the same
patte rn. It 's just that the front
part is beaded. There is a liule
white line there to break il up,
and after the fri nges and on the
sleeves; it's the same decorative
pattern, just done in bead work.
We don't have much caribou
skin now. We do, bUI it takes
a lot of tim e to work on . Since
we have lot s of stroud in the
North, we now use stroud with
bead work. You see the bOllom
of the beaded amauti, near the
fringes? What you use for that
is really soft material. I use old
sheets. Because old sheets have
been worn over the years in the
washing machine and by use,
Ihat's whal I use on my beaded
Webster: The clothing was
already there. I just looked
at ii, and we agreed on what
would be good in the exhibit.
Most of it was already there; it
had already been selected.
McCarthy: But you helped 10
choose th e ones that would
actuall y be displayed?
Webster: Yes.
McCarthy: What were your
criteri a for choosing the pieces?
Webster: Caribou Inuit, 1920s
and early years, and today.
McCarthy: So you wanted to
show both Ih e older and the
newer ones.
Webster: Yes.
McCarthy: Did you try to show
how they were connected?
Webster: Yes. It's the same.
We wanted to lei the people
know that ii'S the same pattern,
Vol. 15, No . I Spring 2000
the traditional pattern. I wish
we had a copyright. I think the
Inuit Women's Association is
working on that.
Woman's beaded inner
amauti, made by Lizzie
Ittinuar, Rankin Inlet, 1975
(Canadian Museum of
Civilization IV-C-S142).
<lLl>nl> L:.-,<:?C'\, ,<'\,"'-,,,"
M cCarthy: Was anybody
else al Pauktuutit involved in
working on this exhibit?
Webster: No. They were
busy, I guess. I was the
one who was available to
help; I guess that's why they
picked me.
100
the clothing in the collections
with your bare hands because
they're oily; you 're supposed
to have gloves on. When they
were putting the amauti on display and they asked me how
to do it, I just picked it up and
put it properly on the stand,
Then I looked at Jill and at
the other people, and thought,
"Uh-oh, I'm not supposed to do
that." So I quickly just finished
it. And they said, "It's okay,
it's yours, you can touch it!"
[Laughs.] I just stopped and
waited (0 see if they were going
to tell me, "Don't do that!" But
nobody said anything, so I just
finished.
McCarthy: And it was something you wanted to do.
Webst er: Yes, it's something
I'm interested in.
McCarthy: Had you ever done
any work for a museum before,
or worked on an exhibit?
Webster: I had a beaded
amauti that they put in an
exhibit before, I have it here
with me now, I'm passing it
on to my eldest daughter in
my will. When I told her that,
she was so happy! She was so
excited. So I'm making another
one for her younger sister, II's
going to be even better, because
now I know what I'm dOing!
[Laughs.] I started making the
amauti here in Baker Lake,
but when r left I had no one
[0 turn to; I used [0 make long distance calls home to ask an
elder what to do next.
McCarthy: When this project
was suggested to you, why did
you want to participate?
Webster: It's interesting to
see the men's outfits, women's
outfits, pants and kamiks,
those aliqti - Inuit didn't have
purses; they had a pouch on
their kamiks. When a mother
is travelling on a qamuti Is led]
with a baby, she has to feed the
baby along the way, so what
she does is take her mitts off
and put them in that pouch,
because when you're travelling
on a qamuti, you have no time
to put them somewhere safe.
That's a safe place to put them;
McCarthy: Were you part
of the design committee of
people from the communities
represented in the exhibition?
Webster: I didn't meet them,
but Jill Oakes had been talking
with them.
otherwise, she would lose her
mitts - mitts, or diaper, or
whatever she had for the baby.
McCarthy: What was that like,
having the three of you there
looking at the clothes?
McCarthy: And this was one
of the things that interested
you in working on the exhibit?
Webster: Oh, it was exciting!
I didn't want to leave! [Laughs.]
It made me want to do more
sewing; it gave me the courage
to do more. I even made kamiks
there at the (Me, caribou-skin
kamiks, Another book I was
helping Jill Oakes with was Our
Boots at the Bata Shoe Museum:
Webster: Oh, yes. I had heard
about it [the clothing]; but
when I saw it there, it was
interesting to see it.
McCarthy: So it was a chance
to learn about the older clothing
that was in the collection.
Webster: Yes, to see things
that r had only heard about.
M cCarthy: Did you interview
anyone?
Webster: No, but when
Emily AJerk and Lizzie Ittinuar
came down, r interpreted for
them while they talked about
clothing,
McCarthy: How were you
helping with this exhibit? What
do you think was your role?
Webster: They would ask me
how things should go. Like
with my beaded amauti - they
asked me how I would put
it. At first they were putting
the hood on top. You know,
you're not supposed to touch
McCarthy: Did you find that
all of the seamstresses you
were in touch with were
interested in this project?
Webster: Oh, yes. They all
said, "Oh, this is how we used
to make it! And oh, how soft it
is, and the woman took great
pride in sewing it and wasn't
rushing iL"
McCarthy: How was Ihis
exhibit different from working
on Our Bools, for example?
Webster: With Our Boots I was
mostly working on the book.
I went to look at it just before it
came out. The opening of that
exhibit was very int eresting;
they had kamiks and shoes
27
McCarthy: More than before?
Webster: Morc than before.
Everybody is coming up
with really nice patt erns, with
different colours. Al so, the
Jessie Oonark Cenlre [in Baker
Lake1 has embroid ery sewing
machines, so they do some
embrOidery there 100.
Emily Nipishna Alerk
(Baker Lake) holds the caribou-skin amauti made by
her mother, Mary Ataagat
of Baker Lake, Canadian
Museum of Civilization,
January 1992.
McCarthy: Was that an important part of the exhibit, showing
what's happening now?
<lLc- crl\"o.. <l..J~
("L<T')<l'-~() <lrr <I<i.<>-'1.'(
~<>-'-~« nJr <l«
from all over the world . Kamiks
are mostly from the North. They
had beaut iful sluff there.
McCarthy: What was it like
doing demonstrations during
Threads of lhe Laud?
Webster: The opening was
excit ing. You got to see and
compare all the different types
of c101 hing there, li ke contemporary clothing and older
car ibou-skin clothing. I think
there was even a piece by
Jessie Oonark. It was duffle
with wolverin e fur. She was
one of the firsl seamstresses
to do embroid ery all duffle.
McCarthy: Did you give a
sewing demonstrat ion at some
poin t dur ing the exhibit?
Webster: JU SI with a class; we
made some caribou-skin kamiks.
McCarthy: What was that like?
Webster: It 's hard er 10 do it
in warm buildings because the
caribou skin tends to get dr y;
what I usuall y do is pm it in
the freezer to keep il cold. That's
what we do up nOrlh now.
I made caribou-ski n kamiks
last year and I kept them in
the freezer. Ot herwise the hair
doesn 't come up and become
sofl.
28
Webster: No, I'm just telling
you what I see in fashi ons
today. It 's not in th e exhibit.
McCarthy: When you were
doi ng thi s in the exhibit, you
had pcople watching you, and
talking to you about it?
Webster: Yes, chi ldren.
McCarthy: Whal did Ih ey
think?
Webster: Th ey had some
questions. I don't know . It was
Saturday. I guess it was JUSt the
one weekend. And J did that in
the Bata Sh oe Museum, 100.
McCarthy: Did people ask
you a lot of questions?
Webster: Yes.
McCarthy: What do you think
was the most importam message
that Sallallljltl had to give to
visitors?
Webster: How Inuil clothing
is made; how practical it is.
We never used to wear frin ges
on our parkas, but now young
people do. It looks ni ce, too.
The young people wear parkas
wi th frin ges, w ith a tail in the
front and the back. I guess it's a
new pattern that almost copies
the traditional clothing, but
the pall ern is more for young
peopl e. Adults are wearing
a lot of bomber jackets now,
with cl ast ic at the bottom and
cuffs, w ith colourful patterns.
They're beautiful. Some say
"N unavut" on them, and some
have the owner's name on
Ihem. Everybody's gelling
more fashionab le [lOW.
McCarthy: BUI there were
some commissions of contemporary cloth ing for the exh.ibit?
Webster: I was morc interested
in the old traditiona l patt erns,
to pass on. My moth er had a
pattern for a black -a nd-white
outfit. She passed away, and
J have her pall ern now. I'm
going ro pass it on to my
younger siSler who wants to
learn the preparat ion of car ibou
skin for c101hes. I ha ve to leach
her to pass on the trad it ional
technique of how to work on
caribou skin.
McCarthy: So it 's important
for that to be passed on?
Webster: Yes. Because it's so
cold up here. Caribou s kin is
the warmest clothing we have,
other than down-fill ed parkas,
of course.
McCarthy: What do you think
your job was in Threads of the
Lalld?
Webster: I guess I was helping
out there with my joy and
pride, because I wa·s invo lved
with it; it makes me happy
that I cou ld help other people.
McCarthy: And why did Ihal
mean so much to you?
Webster: I wan t peopl e to
carryon wi th our trad itional
clothing. You kn ow, w hen
I start ed mak ing my beaded
amauli. younger people said
to me, "If you can do this, I ca n
do il too." There are a lot of
younger peopl e making beaded
amautii now; it's not just for
old peopl e; anybody who is
in terest ed can do it. You don',
have to be ol d to stan doing
beaded wo rk or caribou-skin
clothing. Seei ng the old clothing
makes you want to start again;
you think, "If they can do it, r
can do it too." Nobody's going
to make that amauti for you.
You have to try things. My
mOl her didn 't know how to
make a beaded amauli, so
I had to figure it out fo r myself.
I wamcd to make it so badl y.
McCarthy: And what has
thai mea nt 10 the communit y
of seamstresses? Have other
peopl e start ed to se w now
becau se of this?
Webster: Yes. Even in Arvial,
a lad y told me, "Because you
started making those amaUl ii,
Sall y, I mad e one, 100." Even
people in other comm unities.
Do you get II/Ilk/illll magazine?
My amauti was on the cover,
and a lady from Whale Cove
fOld me just a coupl e of weeks
ago, UI saw your reall y nice
bead ed ama ut i on the cover of
IlIllktilllt magazine, and now
I'm making one." She's much
older than I am. I even told her,
"If you do itt his way, il will
look nice." At the airport, I drew
her a little pattern, just to help
her out where I went wrong.
I had made a mi stake on mine,
and I didn 't want her fO make
the same mistake that I d id .
She was so thrilled.
McCarthy: Th ere were two
groups of seamstresses who
came down from the Nonh
when you were planning the
exhibit. Judy said that she
had chosen an older person,
a middl e-aged person and a
younger person to come down.
Was that the case in your group?
Vol. 15. No. I Spring 2000
Webster: Yes. After they saw
the work I had done, there
were quite a few people who
staned doing il. I bought beads
for awhile an d when I though t
I had enough, 1 slaned the
headwork. It takes a long time
to collect all th e beads you
need. It tak es years to do that.
Because when you have chil dren, your first priority is to
buy them food and shoes and
clot hing, and whatever you
have left over you can buy
some beads with, Beads are
not the first priority when you
have a family !
McCarthy: Would you be
int erested in working on an
exh ibit lik e Threads again if
it ever came up?
Webster: Yes.
McCarthy: Why did you enjoy
it so much?
Inuit Art
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Webster: I've always been
interested in clothing. I'll
never forget that, in 1950something, 1 was walking
home from church on a Sunday
afternoon, and I heard an old
lady talking to her grandchildren. She said, "Look at that
lady walking by!" And we
looked, and oh! I've never seen
a more beau tifu l sig ht than
that woman wearing a perfect
amauti, with a baby on her back,
It was an abso lut ely perfect
pidme. I'll never forget that.
She has since passed away, and
[he child she was carrying has
grandchildren IOday. But I'll
never forget how beautifully
that amau ti was made, There
was nothing wrong with il.
That was woman's pride of
work in there . And that's what
I wanl to make sure I do when
I'm sewi ng. I wan I 10 look at
it and say, "That's a very nice
Sealskin
stretched on a
frame, Churchill,
Manitoba,
August 1993,
,x"~".
<l~r '.
oulfiL" Seamstresses want to
do better than other women!
J want to do better than that
lady. That's w hatl have in
mind when I'm sew ing, I don't
want people to say about my
clothing, "That's not very good
looking; that 's not ve ry nice."
] wam th em to say, "Thai'S
very nice."
La- j<.
1993
Kate McCarthy conducted ti,e
above illterview willI Judy Hall
at the Canadian Museum of
Civilization il1 November 1998. The
illterview with Sally Qimmill 'naaq
Webster was conducted by telepholle
from Baker Lake Fine Arts, Baker
Lake, Nllllal'1l1, in October 1999.
29
30
Vol. 15, No.1 Spring 2000
110 Montague Street, Box 1055, lunenburg, Nova Scotia Canada SOl 2CO
902-634-8869 fax: 902-634-8332 email: inuit@houston-north-gallery.ns.ca
lnuitArt
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Curator's Choice:
John I{aunal<
By Maria von Finckenstein
here are a number of outstanding
artists in the history of Inuit art,
especiall y during the turbulent
1950s and 1960s, who did wonderful work but eventually
found paid employm ent and stopped
carving. Among them is 10hn Kaunak of
Repulse Bay, whose work I have long
admired. When [ phoned the Repulse Bay
cooperative to find out his current situation, I was told that he was "out hunting
caribou." He apparently stopped carving
around 1982 or 1983. Known pieces by
Kaunak cover a 20-year span, from 1963
to 1983. At some point in the early 1980s
he found employment as a mechanic at
th e power plant in Repulse Bay.
While his work reflects the general
John Kaunak, Repu lse Bay. 19105.
a;'" \.I>"'a.."', QJ>~O'"
preference of Repulse Bay artists for smaUscale figures and scenes - often anacheq
to bases - ils technical virtuosity and its
sense of drama and lively action stand
oul. The Canad ian Museum of Civilization owns eight of his sculptures, the best
of which show the full range of his personal style and technical ability. [ have
also included here four works from other
public collectio ns to present an overview of the work he produced over his
20- year career.
32
Man and Woman Pulling
a Bear Out.
1981 (black stone. antler. wood and
sinew; height 6 in.; Sarick Collection.
Art Gallery of Ontario),
<I"tI.. <ILL...> <I~Q.. t>cr<lV>.6. Q...D1r,
1981-f 'o..'~O"d
Action and drama run like a red th read
throughout Kaunak 's work. Often the
depicted episode revolves around hunting . In
later w orks, such as this, excessive use of
gra phk incisions for details in cloth ing and
facial features introduce a cartoon-like flavour
which lessened t he dramatic impact found in
earl ier sculptures.
Maria von Finckenstei" is curator of colltemporary
Inu;1 art at tile Canadian Museum a/Civi lization.
REFERENCES
Blodgett, J ean
1979 Repulse Bay. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art
Gallery.
Brandson, Lorraine
1994 Carved from the Land. Ch urchi ll : Eskimo
Museum.
von Finckenslein, Maria
1999 "'A few things in (he way of curios:'
Hi slOric Ivor ies at t he Canadian Museu m of
Civilization." 11111i( Art Qllarterly 14, no. 4 (Winter):
28-32.
Vol. 15, No. I Spring 2000
CURATOR'S
CHOice
Two M en Viewing Northern
Lights, 1965 (stone, antler an d
i vory; 4 .5 x 7.5 x 8 i n.; Eskimo
M useum).
L?' <I'tIn <I'~'cr'f Ct»')A
L
1965-r
~<>-~t> crd
While Puvirnituq's Davidialuk used a
spiral motif to represent the swirling
movement of the No rthern lights,
Kaunak employs the irregular shape of
a piece of antler towards the same end.
Accord ing to th e artist. "two men
watch in amazement at the northern
lights (arsaniq) as they shift and sway
across the sky" (in Brandson 1994, 24) .
Hunter with Spear, n.d. (grey stone
and antler; 4 .5 x 3 x 9 in.; Twomey
Collection, W innipeg Art Gallery).
<l'J<>-r'n bP<:'r nJr 4')
Two Hunters Battling a Polar Bear, 1968
(stone and ivory; 5.5 x 9.5 x 6 in.;
The Hudson 's Bay Company Collection,
Winn ipeg Art Gallery).
L?' <l'Jn <>- .DLr')t.
L
L
Possibly the greatest challenge for a hunter
is the killing of a bear, especi ally if his only
weapon is a knife or harpoon. This scene, filled
with tension and danger, does not glibly idea lize
the heroic strugg le. Both hunters look terrified
whi le the bear appears fierce and an gry.
lnuitArt
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Of all Kau nak's documented works, th is
figure of a hunter is most rem inisce nt of the
ivory carvings that A.P. l ow and l.E. Borden
collected in this area 60 years earlier (see
von Finckenstein 1999). Compared with
Kauna k's dramatic rendering of a figure
with his body thrust forward and the intense
facial expression reflecting the effort and
excitement of the hunt, the earlier ivory
figures seem tentative and stiff.
33
Stalking Bear, 1963 (stone;
3 .5 x 10.3 x 3.2 in.;
Twomey Collection.
Winnipeg Art Gallery).
Q...Dq, O"'\~nr Lc-·)",
1963-r '~>~<rd
The exaggerated neck and open
mouth - its tongue curled in
eager anticipation - enforce this
image of the bear as a dead ly
predator, silently and urgently
stalking its prey.
Man Attacking Bear, 1968 (light grey stone; 7 x 8 x
6 in.; Canadian Museum of Civilization IV-C-3726).
<l~r' Q.....D1r t><::n.."", 1968-r ~a...).t>CT"d
Some of Kaunak's pieces are like intricate puzzles in which
each piece supports the others to complete a scene. In this
case, the hunter would topple over without the support
of the harpoon he holds in the bear's neck.
Woman Running, before 1968 {dark green and white
stone and wood; 4.5 x 5 x 3.5 in.: Canadian Museum
of Civilization IV-C-3732},
<l~Q.
t> . . c...~)C\
1968-"tIc...t>~n""...)J
"'o.7-t>O""d
With his characteristic flair for drama, Kaunak has captured a tattooed woman, fear or agita iton on her face, runn ing away from
something or someone. She holds onto her billowing hood in an
effort to keep it from slid ing down, the tails of her parka flying
beh ind her as she moves. What might she be running f rom?
(Opposite page)
Father Carrying Wife and Child across Water, 1975
(light brown' and grey stone; 18 x 13 x 10 in.;
Canadian Museum of Civilization IV-C-4848) ,
<lCCt>~"
..Dc-<lO"" <1-L...) 'f>Y"t...O"" nJr <ll.,..)crf'
Ab','> &J. 1975-r
'~>~<rd
For this work, Kaunak chose an atypically large piece of stone
to tell t he story. The father's legs are cut off where they are
submerged in water. Although work ing on a much larger scale,
Kaunak has retained his characteristic sense of urgency and intensity. Judging by the expressions on their faces, the fam ily is deal ing with an emergency, possibly a matter of life and death.
Canadian Museum of Civil izat ion
34
Vol. 15, No. 1 Spring 2000
Narwhal, 1969 (black
soapstone, ivory and antler; 2.5
x 5 x 5 in.; Canadian Museum
of Civilization IV-C-3923).
'f''-JLA 1969-1
'~>~a-d'"
Narwhal travel in pods, swimming and
diving in unison. The three f igures,
each captured in a different
movement, wonderfully suggest
a qu ivering mass of bodies surging
thro ug h the water.
Man Spearing Seal, 1971 (stone, antler
and ivory; 5 x 7 x 4 in.; Eskimo Museum).
4't1' bP<: '''~ ~'n'f, 1971-1 '~>~a-d
This narrative scene catches the moment when the
hu nter, having patiently stalked a sea l, jumps forward to spear it before it can sl ide back into t he
water. In characteristic fash io n, the most dramatic
moment has been chosen. A small slab of antler
serves as a base.
Woman with Two Children, 1982-83
(black stone; 7 x 4 x 2 in.; Sa rick Collection,
Art Gallery of Ontario).
<lla.. L?"'O" 'P)"'Lc-L,.I), 1982-3-r ~a..L,.t>O"d
The use of inci sed lines is remin iscent of sculpture
from Nunavi k and artists like Jimmy Arnamissa or
Simeonie Elij assiapik, Both the mother and the two
children react with fear and horror to some unknown
t hreat, possibly a bea r. ......
36
Vol./5, No. / Spring 2000
GALLERY PHILLIP
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS
WE CARRY A WIDE SELECTION OF FINE INUIT A RT
Pauta Saifa
Sculpture: stone, whalebone and ivory
Inuit Graphics, Original Drawings
,
939 Lawrence Ave. E.. Don Mills Centre,
Don Mills, Ontano, M3C IP8 416-447-1301
InuitArt
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Dealer's Choice:
MOSHA MICHAEL
Iqaluit, Nunavut
Nominated by Ann Tompkins of the Guild Shop, Toronto, Ontario
osha Michael was born on
skills. He remembers watching his
July 6,1948 at the Nuggagut
grandfather carve to make money for
fishing grounds outside of
gasoline and ammunition to take him
hunting out on the land.
Iqaluit, the son of Mike and
Newkinga Michael. Stricken
Now 51, Michael lives in Toronto,
by an outbreak of tuberculosis when
Ontario,
Michael was three years old, the family
was dispersed into southern sanatorilUlls.
jewellery-maker and teacher of Inuit art
Michael returned five years later to live
with his grandfather, who helped him
learn to speak lnuktitut - he knew only
French and English - and taught him
Inuit heritage and hunting
a professional sculptor,
and culture. His dedication to making
art, however, came quite late in life;
although he carved casually for cas h for
many years, as had his grandfather before
him, he has considered himself an artist
by profession only since the mid-1980s.
During his colourful and varied career,
he has worked as a filmmaker for
the National Film Board (NFB),
a senior producer and
videography instructor for
th e Inuit Broadcasting
Corporation (IBC), an
interpreter on the medical ship CD. Howe and
a carpentry apprentice for
the Government of the
Northwest Territories (GNWT).
In the early 19805, an ad in the local
Dancing Bear, 1999
(brown-black and green-gray
stone; private collection.
Toronto).
Q..D'"
38
Jr'"), 1999
Flying Shaman, 1999
(black stone and antler; private
collection, Toronto).
4' \} d' "'I,CJ·. 1999
newspaper and a desire to try something
new resulted in his working for the
GNWT jewellery-making workshop in
lqaluit. The workshop provided him
with training in metalworking and smallscale ivory carving, and he was paid an
hourly wage to fill jewellery orders.
Quickly outgrowing the constraints
of made-Io-order handiwork and preferring to work on his own terms, Michael
soon began to work from home, developing his own style and building a local
reputation for his intricate jewellery. He
filled privale commissions from local
residents while continuing to write scripts
for lEC and leach videography to young
Vol. 15, No. 1 Spring 2000
DEALER'S
CHOICE
M osha Michael dem onstrates
carv ing techniques to t he staff
of the Guild Shop, Toronto in
September 1999 .
JL~ Ll>.d' I>,,'b'>
".D
~<>- ''tI<I?'tI"'C,,
Inuit. "The outcome has always been a
lot bener for me when 1 work freelance,"
he says. "That was how I decided to go
Comp anions, 1999
(grey stone and antler;
private collection, Toronto).
<t.6. <~ "'. 1999
independenl."
Having decided 10 further his film-
making career, Michael moved south in
1985 to take courses in photography and
editing at Ryerson College, only to be
told upon arrival Lhat his registration
had been lost and that he would have to
wait until the follow ing year to reapply.
Stranded in Toronto and bereft of his
scholastic funding, he turned 1O carving
full time to survive, selling pieces privately to dealers in Toronto and London,
Ontario and slowly building up a base of
clients and commissions. Michael became
known to Ann Tompkins. gallery director
at the Guild Shop in Toronto, during his
first year in southern Ontario. Tompkins,
who has watched Michael's work develop
over the years, says that "as time went
on, he became more and more careful
with his work, and it just got better and
better."
Michael's work is difficult 10 charac-
terize. It demonstrates a broad range of
finishing techniques and a flair for
unexpeded combinations of materials and
subjects: a white stone owl perched
whimsically on the arm of an inuksuk; a
twisting narwhal made of orange alabaster; a pair of slate snow goggles poised
on the tip of a caribou antler. His carving
has a solid "earthbound and calm-looking"
and eventually 1 see what it will become.
r just carve what the stone holds inside."
Michael takes great pride in his culture. ills ability to communicate its depth
and significance, his desire to share what
he knows and an innate creative sensibility seem to have combined to guide
quality that Tompkins associates with
his endeavours throughout his life. While
camp life and the carvings of the 1950s
and 1960s. "I think Mosha's style reflects
the 'old' way of doing things. You're not
living in Iqaluj( he made severall1lms for
overtly aware of the use of more elaborate
tools in his work, even though he has
the full range of dremels, sandpaper and
diamond-tip tools. Many of his pieces
make me think oflhat earlier 'unfinished,'
simpler style, in which pieces don't exhibit
the kind of complex negative spaces that
the NFB about Inuit hunting on Baffin
Island, including Natsiiq Hllnters and
Whale Huntillg, and taught young Inuit
in his community filming and editing
skills, allowing them to cominue documenting life in the North. As a teacher of
Inuit culture and artist-in-residence at
the Scarlen Heights Emrepreneur Academy
you see in the work of many artists his
muit Heritage Centre in Toronto, Michael
passes on knowledge of his culture to
age or slightly younger. His pieces don't
sOUlhern children and youth through
have the 'restlessness' people associate
with the younger generation of artists."
demonstrations with furs, skins and
Michael. for his part, says simply of his
work. "I carve with the shape of the stone.
There's a number of things that anyone
Slone can become; I sometimes want to do
them all! But 1 leave it alone for awhile,
InuitArt
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'0
Narwhal, 1999 (orange alabaster and i;;"
antler; private collection. Toronto), i::
<I<'(_:~J<lq" 1999
8
hand-mad e harpoons, slide lalks and
carving classes. much as his grandfather
passed Ihis knowledge on 10 him. He also
teaches carving lO adults in night school
at Scarleu Heights and Toronto's Central
Tech. "[ leach them everything to do with
ca rving," he says, "although I can't provide their imagination! I give them little
hints, but from there, I leave them be."
The combination of leaching and carving
seems to allow him to pass on his culture
in a tangible way, through a medium
that has a lways been, in one wa y or
another, a factor in his life. "I always do
carving, even when I have another job. It
relaxes my mind; it 's very peaceful."
For Tompkins, Michael's carving also
communicates his culture in an immediate and intimate way. "I think his style
reflects his interest in the more tradi ~
tional lifestyle - he depicts anima ls, for
instance, hut from a hunter's perspective. His interest in recent years also seems
to be moving towards more personal
beliefs; lately, his work has depicted
shamanistic themes and shows more
elaborate conceptual designs. But with
Mosha, what 's wonderful is th e lack of
obscurity; you find yourself relating 10
the message right away. It's a feeling you
get from his work."
Dis played in several exhibitions ill
the Toronto are a, including at the
Isaacsiinnuit Gallery and the Guild
Shop, Mi chael 's work is well known in
sOllthern Ontario and he has a strong
base of clients in the area. His work has
also travelled to countries the world over.
According to Tompkins, it is increasingly
in demand, and with good reason, "His
work is becoming ever more artistic,
w ithoUl being fussy or contrived; hi s
pieces are sincere and beautifully finished bUI never showy. His work keeps
getting more, for want of a better word ,
poetic - but with a sensibility th at is
definitely Inuit. I think it's because he's
doing wh at's meaningful to him."
Dealer's CI,oice is a column devoted {a emergillg
lalellts ill file IlIlIil arllVorld, as idL'Iltifled by commercial
IlIIlit drlgalferies and pn"vdle dealers. Tlldllks 10 A/III
Tompkills of Ille GlIild SllOp in Torol/lo, Olllario for
/laminating Mosha Michael/or Ihis COIUIIIIl.
Galler\1
"fthe
Mi~l1i511t 51411
Specializing in coJ/ector's
pieces from across the
Canadian Arctic. Appraisal
services available. Dealer
Muskox Spirit. by Simon Tookoomee,
Qahr lake , 1997, h. 5" x W. 7.5 Xd. 13/4 ~
M
inquiries welcome.
INUIT
EARLY NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN
ART & ARTIFACTS
5005 Bryson Drive
Yellowknife, NT X1A 2A3
(867) 873-8064 (867) 873-8065 fa.
www.gollerymidnightsun.com
golleryofthemidnightsun@conodo.com
40
THE ISAACS/INNUIT GALLERY
9 Prince Arthur Avenue, Toronto M5R 182
Tel. (4 16) 921-9985 Fax (4 16) 92 1-9530
email: inuitgal@ islar.ca
Web Site: hllp: ll www.novator.comJlsaacs·lnn\J~/
Vo!.l;, No.1 Spring 2000
Galerie Elca London
INUIT MASTERWORKS
LATCHOLASSIE AKESUK
MATHEW AQIGAAQ
BARNABUS ARNASUNGAAQ
KIAWAK ASHOONA
DAVIE ATCHEALAK
OSUITOK IPEELEE
JOHN PANGNARK
MIRIAM QIYUK
PAUTA SAILA
LUCY TASSEOR
JUDAS ULLULAQ
*Yideo catalogue available upon request
KIAWAK ASHOONA
1196 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3A lH6
Tel: (514) 282-1173 · Fax: (514) 282-1229
E-mail: elcalon@totai.net
http://www.total. neU-elcaion
Membre de ['Association ProfessionneUe des Galeries d'Art dn Canado Iw.
Mcrnbcr oj Professional o41"t Dealers Association ajeunada Inc.
41
CURATORIAL
NOTES
Not Just a
Pretty Face
Dolls and Human Figurines
in Alaska Native Cultures
AT THE UNIVERSITY
OF ALASKA MUSEUM
FAIRBANKS. ALASKA
JUNE
5
TO DECEMBER
1999
CiUEST CURATED BY
ANCiELA LINN
Curatorial notes by Angela Linn
Unless otherwise indicated, all
illustrated artifacts are in the
collection of the University of
Alaska Museum. They are
catalogued and accessible
for research purposes.
42
o a child, a doll can
mean anything. It is a companion with which to share adventures, a child to care for, a persona l confidante and holder of
secrets. ThroughoUl the history of
humankind. ch ildren everywhere ha ve
found partners in dolls. This attachment
does not necessarily end with puberty.
Fo r an adult, a doll can represent an
equally wide range of things. A doll can
evince nostalgia for the past or pride in
the present. It can be a pretty decoration or a creation intended for a muchloved child . It may be an aide to understanding the universe. The miniaturized
human figure has taken many forms in
all cultures of the world. It is perhaps
one of the few un iversals in material cullure. Archaeological digs reveal human
figurines from days long past and modern doll makers produce images for us to
enjoy today and in years 10 come_
The exhib ition Not lust a Pretty Face:
Dolls al1d Humall Figurilles i" Alaska Native
Cli itures was a collaborative effort of
museum professionals, students and
Alaska Natives. The overall intent was to
illustrate non-play uses of dolls and
hum an fi gurines among Alaska Natives
Fig. 1: This marionette
was the main character of a dance
held during the New Year's celebrations in Point Hope. The dance is
called Choyaq/uqa in Inupiaq_
'f')"\,~~'1J<l' <l'L'J t\'1J<h~~?'
>l>"'
ii>'r""L'Y
<lc.'br
Barry J. McWayne
in both th e past and present (jig. 2) .
Originally conceived as a survey exhibition of the doll co llection at the University of Alaska Museum (UAM), the scope
of th e project ex panded and contracted
ulltil participants reached agreement on
the final forma t, approx imately olle year
before the open ing of the show. As a
mast er's candidate in the Anthropology
department at the Uni versity of Alaska
Fairbanks, I conducted lab, field and
academic research on the dolls and human
figurines in the UAM collec tion and
pulled together references from various
Alask an ethnographies from the past two
centuries.
Vol. 15, No. J Spring 2000
Fig. 2: These objects illustrate many
c" ~-----------------------,
;;of the ways in which play helps
~
children to learn adult behaviour.
:;:
The miniatures were made with
as much detail and precision as
their full-sized counterparts. Left
to right. back row: Yoke doll.
St. Lawrence Island Yupik; Baby
doll. St. Lawrence Island Yupik,
made by Miriam Kilowiyi; Baby doll,
St. Lawrence Island Yupik; Baby
carrier. Athabascan. Front row: Model
kayak, Yup'ik; Miniature bow and
arrow, Canadian Inuit: Baby belt.
Athabascan, made by JoAnn Beaver.
I..,.h.*'< j~e..o., 'Ppll{~~<la-~"Y' '(N
'f')"\,~!,."f' ()-,,~ .. 'YJ, ~C<'bI~C~
.DC~c:.. IJ a.
"'u>n"t.
Fig. 3: On St. Lawrence Island, Otto
Geist reported seeing human
figurines that were used as house
guardians to discourage the entrance
of evil spirits. These figures may
have been used for such a purpose.
~d~ f:.j,~I:.' '-.1:.'" j\~ 'f'p·C'<~a-"'\.·Y
<Ie:.. "br <I)"O><:c.J> ~>11 11~-, J
<~r~~<:,-~'>I:.
Barry J. MCWayne
>
3
~
~
>
c.
8
"
From the beginning, all the exhibit
planners felt il was important to involve
the Native community both in the planning and the research for the project. We
formed an advisory team (fi9. 4) in order
to maintain a balance of perspectives
between the museum and the Alaska
Native points of view. Beginning in
October 1998, the adv isory team met
once a month to discuss the exhibit outline, scope of the projeo and the information to be conveyed, to view the selected
objects and contribute personal knowledge and to review label lext and discuss
th e impact of doll s on learning in childhood through adulthood. Originally, th e
commillee consisted of a few older Native
people; it soon grew to include non-Native
InuitArt
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academics, more Ala ska Native elders,
middle-aged adults and co llege-aged
students interested in perpetuating th e
knowledge of elders.
In organizing th e exhib it, we chose a
format that combined a temporal, spa tial
and functional analysis of the dolls and
human figurines at UAM. At the final
mounting, over 350 figures were included
in the show, approximately 70 of which
wefe archaeological in orig in. Because
many of those had been excava ted on
St. Lawrence Island in the late 1920s and
early 1930s, there wa s very little documentation as to where th ey were found
and little to no record ed ora l hi story to
prov id e insight into their funoion. Elders
who visited UAM in past years dismissed
the ea rly researchers' classification of
these miniature objects as children 's toys,
saying they were more than likely used
for cere monies or ritual s (fig. 3). Because
Fig. 4: The advisory team met in the
museum over several months to discuss and refine ideas for the exhibit.
Clockwise (from bottom left):
Molly Lee (partial). Angela Linn,
Terry Dickey, Eva Heffle,
Martha Demientieff. Glen Simpson.
Phyllis Morrow. Rebecca Petersen,
Poldir:1e Carlo (hidden), Velma Kuntz.
l1r'Lc-t>V"l*- 4q,.p~"".6rr·J Not Just a
Pretty Face -r .6.c-La-<l\(\~"(<llr <Ie:.."bt>
Cd~[''I>'''~a-
43
------------------~ ~
~
Fig. 5: Young
Yup'ik girls in
southwestern
Alaska played
with rag dolls
just like girls
everywhere.
~N 'f')"i,~~,\"
4c.:.."br
Fig. 6: The author with dolls colleded
in the Cup'ik village of Chevak,
September 1998. Perhaps inspired
by the success of local doll maker
Rosalie Paniyak, other women in
Chevak made dolls with sealskin
faces, engaged in interesting
activities and dressed in creative
outfits. The dolls pictured are the
work (left to right) of Rose Kanrilak.
Monica Friday. Natalia Nayamin,
Betty Fermoyle, Anna Martins and
(four on far right) Rosalie Paniyak.
All dolls in the collection of the
University of Alaska Museum, save
Honeybucket doll, third from right:
nn~ln,
44
collection of Pamela Stern.
<tLr'"c.... c-", 'P)I"'Lt>).C-!r'"') <l1Q...J
~o....;'l>crd.6. bNr <lc:_"br
of the possible connection between the
figures and the old Native beliefs, the
advisory team recommended that UAM
staff write to regional and village corporations to seek permission to mount the
exhibition and photograph the objects.
The majority replied in the affirmative
and were pleased that their permission
had been sought.
After months of consulting with the
advisory team, museum staff and written
and oral sources, the exhibit opene'd
on June 5, 1999. The resulting work
illustrated the richness of Alaska Native
traditions and the depiction of the
human figure in all the Alaska Native
groups. Archaeological discoveries from
5t. Lawrence Island and the Yukon-
Kuskokwim Delta suggested the use of
figures as objects to help combat infenility. Both oral and written hjstories discuss
the use of dolls by shamans, primarily in
healing ceremonies.
Objects colleered by ethnographers and
explorers in the early 20th century document the use of marionettes (jig. 1) and
large-scale models in Point Hope whaling
ceremonies, yet these ceremonial items
sit side-by-side with dolls that were used
by children as playthings. This is the crux
of the exhibit's theme. Dolls for play and
dolls (or human figurines, as we chose to
label them) for ritual were essentiaIiy
being used in the same way, the only
difference being the age of the owner.
After reading much childhood development literature, including the work of
many psychologists and anthropologists,
it became abundantly clear to me that
play and ritual were two sides of the
same coin. Children use toys and dolls
to make sense of their universe and to
deal with new experiences and stresses
in their young lives. They also play with
them in activities that have fairly rigid
rules and take place in a time and place
outside of the ordinary, Adult ritual is
Vol. 15, No.1 Spring 2000
similarly constructed. Ceremonies take
place in a special place and time outside
of th e norm and the activiti es follow
strict rules. Through both play and ritual.
participants often transform themselves
into so meone else. In ritual, adults are
attempting to gain control of future events
by offering suggest ions to their guiding
spirits. This recalls children's use of a toy
to con trol and understand their reality.
Another topic examined in the exhibit
was the influence of an oUlside audience
on the form and function of dolls and
hum an figurines. After the com ing of
Americans, the inlrodud ion of new materi als alt ered th e way dolls were made.
Trade cloth often rep laced indigenous
mat erials (fig. 5) . Clothing styles reflected
the changes taking place in the rura l
Alaskan villages as a resuJt of the introduction of Christianity, the increasing
presence of the federal government and
tourism. Priests replaced shamans and as
a resull, the shaman's toolk it - including
his dolls, which were seen as idols - was
destroyed. Th e old ceremonies no longer
took place. Famili es of teachers, nurses
and gold miners brought western-made
dolls into the villages. Fascinated by the
exotic differences between the traditional
local dolls and those made in France or
Germany, many Alaska Native child ren
substituted the old form with n ew
bisque-headed dolls in fancy dresses and
curl ed tresses. The Native peop le traded
and sold locally made dolls to oUisiders.
These show the influ ence of the introduced materials and aesthetics.
Tod ay, Alaska Native doll ma kers
maintain the tim e- honoured tradition of
reproducing one's se lf in miniature form.
Dollmaking is one of th e most lucrative
supplemenls to the subsistence economy
of the arts-and-crafts industry. Some dollmakers say they are inspired to show
the younger generation the ways of their
forebears, and to help increase cultural
pride. To others, doll making is primarily
an economic endeavour. Whatever the
inspiration, Alaska Native dolls ca n be
seen at vi rtually every g ift shop in the
state. Some seem to echo tbe past while
others ca ll to the future (fig. 6) .
Allgela Liml is collectiolls mal/ager oJ etlmolo,'IY alld
history at tile Ullh'ersity oJ Alaska Musel/m.
SELECTED READINCS
Cameron, Elizabeth L.
1996 1m 'f SlHe a Doll? Play ami Rimal ill A/rimll
SCIIlplllre. Los Angeles: Universit y of California,
Fowler Museum of Cultural Hi slory.
Filzhugh, William W ., and Aaron Crowell, eds.
1988 Crossroads oJ COlllil/(!J/fS: Cuill/res oJ Siberia alld
Alaska. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian lnst itut ion
Press.
Hedrick, Basil, and Susan Pi cke l-Hedrick
1983 Ethel Washillgtoll: The Life al/d Times oJ all
Eskimo Doll Maker, Anchorage: Alaska Historical
Commission .
Jones, Suzi, ed.
1982 Eskimo Do/ls. Anchorage: Alaska Siale
Council on the Arts,
Murdoch, J ohn
1892 "Ethnological Results of Ihe Point Barrow
Expedition." In Tlte 19111 AIIJllIal Repon oJtlle Bureall
oJ EfJlllology to the 5ea'etary oJtlleSmifhsnllian IIlSfillitioll.
Washington, D.C.: Government PriOling Office.
Nelson, Edward W.
1899 "The Eskimo aboul Bering $Irail." In The
18th Annual Heporl oJ tIle Bllreall oJ American
Efllllology Jor lhe Years 1896-1897. Washingto n,
D. C.: Governm eOi Printin g Offi ce .
Strickler, Eva, and Anaoyok Alookee
1988 IlIlIit Dolls: Remillders oJ (/ Herila,qe. Toronto:
Canad ian Stage and Arts Publications.
IMAGES
ART GALLERY
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3345 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON M4N 2M6
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UPCOMING SHOWS
Josiah Nuilaalik, B.P.
Judas Ullulaq
Nick Sikkuark
Alex Alikashuak
45
CURATORIAL
NOTES
Three Women,
Three Generations
Drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona,
Napatchie Pootoogook and Shuvinai Ashoona
AT THE McMICHAEL
CANADIAN ART COLLECTION
KLEINBURG, ONTARIO
MAY
OCTOBER
15
TO
31, 1999
CURATED BY JEAN BLODGETT
Curatorial notes by Jean Blodgett
aving been involved in th e
field of Inuit art now for
some 30 years, organizing the
exhibition Three Womel1, Three
Generations was a refreshing
learning experience for me. Examining
the artworks, doing the interviews and
research an d pulJing the information
together gave me new insights into Inuit
art, debunked some old theories and
demonstrated the continuing vitality
of the graphic program in Cape Dorset.
46
The work in the exhibition represents
three generations of the Ashoona family:
the grandmother, Pitseolak, her daughter
Napatchie and her grandaughter, Shuvinai,
daughter of Kiawak Ashoona and his wife
Sorosilooto and niece of Napatchie.
In 1991, the West Baffin Eskimo
Co-operative and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection entered into an agreement involving a long-term loan to the
gallery of the co-op's archival collection
of some 100,000 drawings, prints and
sculptures, the bulk of which are the
drawings made by Cape Dorset artists
over the past 40 years. One of the conditions
of the loan was that the McMichael
Stairs and Kelp. 1998. Shuvinai
Ashoona. Cape Dorset (felt-tip pen
and graphite on paper; 10 x 13 i n.;
collection of the West Baffin Eskimo
Cooperative).
L ,,\~(). <l'L-, 'f"d<l', 1998, ?f\o..ll
<l?o.., P"'C'"
would undertake the visual documentation of the archives, a process that is
expected to take about seven more years.
To date. approximately 60 per cent of the
drawings have been photographed and
stored on a laser videodisc system, thus
allowing researchers LO flip through
Vol. 15. No.1 Spring 2000
y
, ,\
/
'
Tape Recording Throat
Singing. 1982, Napatchie
Pootoogook, Cape Dorset
(colou red penci l and felt tip pen on paper; 22.5 x
30 in.; collection of the
West Baffin Eskimo
Cooperative).
b(l''T'IIo).6. (T'Ac-t> ~Ct>"",
1982. ,,-<',J »J", P""'I,t:.'
Drawing for print of Summer Bear
Hunt, 1973, Pitseolak Ashoona,
Forced to Marry, 1998, Napatchie
Pootoogook, Cape Dorset (coloured
pencil and felt-t ip pen on paper;
26 x 20 in.; collection of the West
Baffin Eskimo Cooperative).
L
t>.6.(T'~d~t>"'IIo, 1998, o..<c,-l »)J'IIo, p "'L.6. C
Cape Dorset (felt-tip pen o n paper;
24 x 18 in.; collection of the West
Baffin Eskimo Cooperative).
<It>~~d Q
,:' .oLr~)A 1973, Acnt>c:..'110
<1,',,-, P""'I,t:.'
images on a video monitor rather than
physically review th em one at a tim e.
The videodisc system also has the capacity
to prim out five-by-seven·inch colour
images of (he artworks, although (he
reprodu ctions are not high-quality resolution and eventually fade . They are,
however, suflldem as visual reminders.
In preparation for this exhibition, all of
Pit seolak's drawings, and those of
Napatchie's lO which we had access, were
recorded on the data system. More recent
works by Napatchie, and Shuvinai's
oeuvre, were then s h ipp ed to the
McM ichael from Cape Dorset and from
the coope rat ive's Toro nto warehouse
so that they cou ld also be documented.
To select the works for the ex hibiti on,
[looked through the photographic image'S
and made a preliminary short list of those
to be printed. From th ese reproduction s,
I eliminated wo rks an d crealed a short er
list of drawings to be pulled from the
archives. Once I had the actual drawings,
I worked with them and th e photos to
InuitArt
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The syllabic text on this drawing reads: This
is Napatchie who is being carried to the
boat. Josephie and Etidfooie are trying to
take her because Josephie wants her as a
wife. Eegyvudluk Pootoogook INa patch ie's
eventual husband] is in the boat waiting for
them to put her in,
narrow down the lis t to a manageable
si ze of rep resentatio nal artworks. Th is
method of resea.rch has several advantag es ove r the older method of go ing
through the actual drawi ngs one by one.
From the conservato rs' perspective, it is
advantageous in that the artworks themselves are not handled over and over by
differe nt researchers. For the researcher,
th e quick access to digital images provides an opportunity to apprehend more
works over a shorter period of t ime,
which is more efficie nt and allows beller
retention of the images for comparative
purposes in the short term. The longterm benefit comes from having unlimited access to prints of th e ava il able
works; the researcher can always go back
quickly to look at, or print, additional
images. I find this process allows for a
bener grasp of the mat er ia], someti mes
difficult when dealing with as vas t a
number of drawings as those contain ed
in the archival coll ecti on.
Over a period of wee k s, I exam~
ined almost 9,000 Pitseolak drawing s,
5,000 Napatchie drawings and 150 by
Shuvinai, as well as slid es or photocopies
of th eir prints. From these I selected for
the exhibition 14 drawings by Pi tseolak,
31 by Napatchie and 19 by Shuvinai. In
spi te of the numbers, I found it eas ier
to make th e Pilseolak se lection; the
exceptional drawings stand out clearly
ami dst 'the more repetiti ve works of her
24·year career. I could only try to give
so me idea of Napatchie's vast range of
subject mauer, style and media. Not only
has she been drawing for some 40 years,
bu t s he has cont inuall y experimented
with new id eas and materia ls and
47
developed considerably as an artist.
Strange ly enough, it was the Shuvinai
drawings that were hardesllO select; I was
trying to fit just one more onto the gallery
walls until Ihe day before Ihe opening.
Her works are so unusual, so well drawn
and so appealing; each is allracli ve and
complex enough to reward closer exami·
nation. And since the exhibition has been
on display, many visitors - especiaUy those
not familiar with Inuit art - have seemed to
prefer the Shuvinai drawings.
My selection process and the written
documentation of the exhibition were
greally enhanced by lhe 0pp0rlunily 10
int erview both Napalchie and Shuvinai.
Napalchi e was parlicularly helpful. pro-
viding much information about herself,
her mother and her niece. We also talked
a great deal abom the content of her
drawings, although this was nOI neees·
sary for most of the drawings made after
1995. when Napa tchie started to write
"captions" in Inuktitut on th e work itself.
explaining wha t she was representing.
The captions sometimes refer to actual
people, including herself, and Ihey lea ve
no doubl about whal is laking place. Many
of these drawings have sombre subjects,
illustrating such things as suicide. a man
bealing hi s nephew and Napalchie herse lf being forced into marriage.
The subject mauer of these later works
by Napatchie is in marked cOnlrast to
those in Pitseolak's drawings. Pitseolak
concentrates on the brighter side of traditional life. showing people int eracting
with other people or wit h animals. or
an im als interacting with other animals,
sometimes in a landscape setting. I cou ld
find only one drawing oul of 9,000 in
which th ere was any obvious violence
(an individual throwing rocks at another
who cowered in th e foreground); even
those showing hunting scenes are more
decoralive lhan bloody . Through
Pitseolak's eyes, th e world is a busy,
playful and friendly p lace. Napalchie,
who survived a period of trem endous
change in Inuit ruJture and society, treats
a much wider range of subjects and emotional interactions, including some difficull subjects that are usually avo ided in
Inuit art. Finally, in contrast to her grandmother and to her aunt, Shuvinai creates a world of her own - a seem ingly
silent and often unpeopled world of complex, delailed lableau x of land and rocks.
With Three Womel1, Three GeJleratiolls,
I hoped visually 10 demOnSlrale lhe differences between the three women 's anwork. In the first of the exhibition'S two
adjace nl gallery spaces, I placed Ihe
Pitseolak and Shuvinai drawings on
oppOsi te walls, using the freestanding
central panels to show the beginning
and end of Napa tchie's career. The early
Napalchie drawings faced Ihose by her
mother, organized chronologically to
circle the second gallery and return to
the first, ending on the opposite side of
the freestanding panels facing Shuvinai's
work. It was thus possible for a visitor
standing in the central area of th e first
gallery to see the relation ship between
th e drawings made by the younger artists
10 Ihose made by Ashoona: her bold,
colourful drawings full of li fe and aaivily
cont rast with the detailed, monotone and
strangely silent works by her granddaughter Shuvinai, and with Napatchie's
early works, more similar to her mother's,
her later works approximating the world
of her niece.
Jeatl Blodgett is director oJ colleaiolls alld programs a/
Ihe McMichael Calladian Art Co/Jection ill Kieillbllr.q.
Olltario.
=
Inuit Artists'
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=
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HOP
owned "nc.t oper,1ted
by the tnuit Art Founc;J....ttlon
non·prolltent~'rprlsc
SPRING
QAGGIQ
2000
•
•
•
•
Carving demonstrations
Slide presentations
Show and sale of Inuit art
Throat singing and drum dancing
Sat May 6, 2000 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Sun. May 7, 2000 12 p.m.-4 p.m.
2081 Merivale Road in Nepean
For more information or to reg ister for
slide presentations, please cafl224-8189.
P.O. Box 466, Timmins_Ontario. Canada P4N 7E3
Tel/Fax: (705) 267-7514: email: info@inuitplus.com
48
ruSit US at ...
Byward Market
16 Clarence SHeet,
Ottawa
(613) 241-9444
Country Place
2081 Merivale Road,
Nepean
1613) 224-8189 ext. 33
Vol. 15. No. 1 Spring 2000
COLLECTOR WISHES TO SELL HIS
PORTFOLIO OF 21 INUIT PRINTS
all signed, nnmbered and in mint condition
I. All Different Thoughts (1978)
Irene Avaalaaqiaq
2. Big Eyes (1983)
3. Bird Swallowing Transforming Fish (1988)
4. Diving for Fish (1984)
Andrew Karpik
Ekidlouk Komoartok
5. Transforming His Image (1987)
6. Vanquishing the Spirits (1987)
7. What the Walker Thinks (1988)
Myra Kukiiyaut
8. Aurora (1974)
Victoria Mamnguqsualuk
10. The Shaman's Power Beings (1973)
11. The Vision of a Man Cutting Snow Blocks (1978)
9 The Shaman flies with his Helpers (1980)
William Noah
12. Aggigtag - Running Taward the Crossing (1986)
13. Muskoxen Migrating South (1990)
Francoise Oklaga
14. Naming the Children after Grandmother (1986)
Jessie Oonark
15. The Right Spot (1990)
16. Ikaluk Ulu (197B)
lypa Pitsiulak
17. Shaman's Costume (1984)
Simon Tookoome
18. Qadruhuaq, The Mysterious Helper (1973)
Celina Utatnaq
19. I Am Always Thinking of the Animals (1974)
20. Giants Adopt an Inuk Person (1981)
21. Our Food from the land (1985)
Please telephone with offer: 505-275-9937
TO BE SOLD AS A GROUP
BOOKS
InSearchof M
GERALDINE
DONNY WHITE
RECINA: CANADIAN PLAINS
RESEARCH CENTRE,
UNIVERSITY OF RECINA,
182
211
1998
PACES,
ILLUSTRATIONS,
$24.95
Reviewed by Amy Adams
he early history of photography
in North America has a characteristic navour of discovery, of
casting light into dark, unexplored comers of the world and
captu.ring (he visual riches found there.
II is perhaps one of its subtle ironi es
that while early photographers illuminated a weal th of such details, they often
remained in the shadow behind the lens.
This is particularly true of early female
photographers, and Geraldine Moodie, as
Donny White makes abundantly clear
in his book 111 Search of Geraldille Moodie, is
an excell en t case in point.
Though the granddaughter of legen -
dary Upper Canadian writer Susanna
Strickland Moodie and great-niece of the
distinguished botanist Catherine Parr
Traill, Geraldine Moodie has languished
in relative obscuri ty - until now. This
book is the cu lmination of the IS yea rs
While spem searchi ng for the details of
this remarkable ear ly photographer's
50
li fe behind the lens. The search, as he
describes in the introduaion, began with
some "frontier photographs" (how apropos, considering that the frontier narrative
Roughillg It iI/ the Bush made Geraldine's
grandmother famous) in the Old Timers'
Museum in Map le Creek, Saskatchewan.
Upon discove ring the phorographer's
id ent it y and familial ties, White "suspected that [he] had unearthed an exceplional personality and was detennined to
discover as much as possible about this
woman, who was an apparent anomaJy
for her time" (p. I). Through painstaking
and meticulous r,esearch, White has constructed a portrait of a strong, determined
woman who seems to have been ahead
of her time.
White's task was formidab le. As he
notes, Geraldine herself left precious few
personal writings, and even second-hand
details about her are few and far
bet ween, scattered across Canada and
Britai n and densely interwoven with
information about other members of her
family. Basing a biography on sllch second-hand fragments is risky, though at
limes necessary. Historiographical issues
associated with appropriation of voice,
those that arise when male writers choose
to wriLe abou t females (and vice versa),
are dangers here. White's approach, however, is that of an interested and sympathetic sleuth, and he fully admi ts th e
absence of substantive personal perspective from his subject. Further, he
wisely and astutely points the reader to
where Geraldine's personal voice can best
be heard: in her photographs. He stresses
the primacy of h er visual language in
communicating who she was and what
she thought. Her photographs thus communicate what diaries and memoirs
might have done, although perhaps not
as well. White also takes care to leave her
captions int act, so they can be taken as
authentic personal statements as much as
functional descriptors.
OODm
White uses a simple chronological format to construO a cohesive narrative from
the many fragmellls turned up in his
search. He successfull y manipulates this
style to produce prose which at once fulfils
h is intentions - to presem "an inventory
of Moodie's work, as well as an illustrated hi s tory of her life and selected
works" (p. 2) - and engagingly transmi ts his own excitement and curiosity,
th e thrill of the search.
Whit e Iraces Geraldine'S beginnings to
Toronto in 1854. He relates how in the
care of her mother. Agnes Dunbar Moodie,
Geraldine'S artistic talent was encouraged
through the illustrations she paimed for
the botanical books of Catherine Parr
Traill, Agnes's celebrated aunt. He fol·
lows Geraldine th rough her marriage to
John Douglas Moodie (a distant relative
and later North West Mounted Police
Superinte ndent Moodie), and follows
their steps through a li fe journey that
would see the couple and their six children posted to "nearly every major North
West Mounted Police stat ion in western
Canada and illlo the Hudson Bay distria
of the eastern Arctic" (p. 7). From "The
Battleford Years" to "The Arctic Years,"
White's melding of thousands of historical fragments contributing to Geraldine's
sto ry is highly readable. It moves easily
from descriptions of the diffi cu lties she
faced as a young wife and mother on the
Canadian frontier to the documenting of
her successfu l professional photographic
pra ctice and a detailed probing of the
significance of her images.
This is not to suggest that the book
is congested with text - quj(e the contrary. White has taken care to assert the
Vol. 15. No. I Sprin92000
integrit y and strong visual presence of
Geraldine's images by grouping them at
[he close of [he chronologi cal /geographical chapter from whi ch the y spring.
Thus, a gallery of Geraldine's bo[anical
watercolour sketches follows the chapter
describing her "Early Years," and so on. A
marvellous selection of her images from
"The Balli eford Years," clearly a pivo[al
period in her life, captures the magnitude
of her contribution to, and imporlance
in, history. Images taken in her rust studio
celebrate Geraldine's di stinction as the
first fema le photographer to operate a
professiona l studio on th e Canadian
prairi es (p. 10). Images chronicling a
Native Sun Dance ceremony were not
only the first of their kind, but were also
taken, significantly, from a female per·
spective, documenting "views of women
and children and family groupi ngs [hal
would not have interested her male coun·
[erpar[s" (p. 10). These highligh[, in [heir
contributi ons to photographic, Native
and wom en's history, how Geraldine
was, in many ways, ahead of her time.
The Ballieford images also include photos
of a vis it Prim e Minister Mackenzie
Bowell paid [0 Alberta, her photographic
contribution to western Canadian history.
The book prog resses in this fashion,
each chronological/geographical episode
followed by a wealt h of visual reinforce·
ment. Not only does this format give the
images [he "space" [hey need [0 speak
th ei r volumes, bu t it allows White clev·
erly [0 propel [he reader from chapter 10
chapter, images and text tantalizing the
eyes and piquing the curiosity along the
way. A previous essay entitled "[0 Search
of Geraldine Moodie: A Project in Pro·
gress," publ ished in Imaging tile Arctic, by
l.C.H. King and Henriella Lidchi (1998),
gave a brief ove rvi ew of the information
in [his vo lume, highligh[ing Geraldine's
stint at Fullerton in the eastern Arctic.
The Moodi es spent [he period from 1904
[0 1905 in [he compa ny of A.P. Low,
Captain Joseph Bernier, Captain George
Comer and many Inuit famil ies from th e
surrounding region w ho camped near the
winte r quart ers of the Low Expedition
ships.
lnuitArt
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An Inuit widow with her two children.
Geraldine Moodie. Fullerton Harbour.
1904·05. National Archives of Canada
C89351.
t>'"'b "(")' <l' L..> '1'),'1:'1' L'I\ 1904-05
III Searc" of Ceraldille Moodie clearly
represent s a major milestone in White's
project: it contains the detail the previous
report could not , including a great ly
expanded selecti on of Moodie's arctic
photographs. These represent [he apex of
her docum ent ary ca reer. The portraits of
{nuit women, children and elders from
thi s period demon strate her technical
mastery, strength and independence of
vision, as well as a great love and respect
for her subjects. They are phenomenal
and haunting.
This book revea ls, according to Whjte's
hun ch, a truly exce ptional personalit y
and an ex tra ordinary life. In piecing
IOge[her [he events of her life, While celebrates and mak es concrete Geraldine
Moodie's wide scope of influence. Her
life was made challenging by [he rigouIs
offrontier life and the tunnoil of travel, at
a time wh en women's ambitions were,
as a rule, narrowly defined. Nevertheless,
Geraldine persisted, and in so doing she
redefined prevailing concept ions of what
women, moth ers, wives and photogra·
phers were, making clear th at a woman
co uld be all of [hi s and more.
As While sugg ests, "[his remarkable
woman, who witnessed and documented
[he final days of [he Na[ive peoples' culture on th e prairie, the passing of the
open·ran ge ranching frontier, and the
turn·of· th e·century Inuit culture of the
eastern Arcti c, I would nUl remain for·
gotte n . Gerald in e may not have left
a chronicle of her life, full of personal
reflections and musings, but she did leave
a remarkabl e vis ual legacy, spanning
half a century, that has, in recent years,
begun to be ap preciat ed and recognized
by researchers, scholars, and stud ents of
women's studi es from around the world"
(p. 156).
Collec[ions of early photography [hal
cover so great a tim e· span and are this
ri ch and varied in subject matter are rare
enough; that this is a womall's oeuvre
makes it raIe indeed. Thus White takes
us along on hi s search for Geraldine
Moodie, and even as he publishes thi s
volume, he admits he is nUl yet finished.
We can onl y wait with anticipation for
Whi te to relate his "second story" - that
of the search itself, a "chronicl e of the
remarkable coincidences a nd un ca nny
experiences th a t see med to lead me
through eleme nts of [he search" (p. 2).
For fellow researchers and sleuths, pro·
fessiona1 and amateur, this will no doubt
be a fitting sequel to this odyssey. For the
time being, however, Whit e's catalytic
curiosity about the behind·the· lens per·
sonality respon sibl e for th ose "frontier
pho[ograph s" has resulted in a happy
reversal of early photography's sub[ le
irony. Like [he work of her fellow early
North American phOlographers, Geraldine
Moodi e's wor k revea led peop le a nd
places previously obscured from history's
eye. Now, through White's meticulou s
research and enthusiastic recounting, her
images can lake thei r right ful place in
North America n p hotographic history
and beg in to reveal the arti st herself: "a
distinguished photographer, an extra or·
dlnary woman and a personalit y the hislory books ca n no longer ignore" (p. 2).
Amy Adams is all Ollawa·based writer/researcher
who recel1lly compleled a IIlt/Sler's research paper enli/led
"Colltemporary IlIlIil Photography." Excerpts frol1l this
paper alld other articles Oil arctic alld fllllil photography
\\tiI! appear ill flltllre issiles of lAO.
NOTE
.
I Ii is understood thai Wh ile here refers not 10
the outrig ht dem ise of Aborigi na l cultures in
the West, bUI 10 the irrevocable changes Ihey
lUldcrwenl as a resu lt of sustai ned CO ni act wi lh
European·Canadi an cu hurc. Far fro m di sa p·
pearing, Aboriginal cultures in Ca nada's West
have remained vibrant and cominue to gal her
richness and strength.
51
HIGHLIGHTS OF
JOHN TIKIAK
CHARLIf AVAKANA
Rankin Inlet
Coppermine
Cope Dorset
IO.5"·26.1rms
511 ,500.
1J".43.2(ms
54600.
Joyfully 15ee Ten Caribou
54370.
CHARm UGYUK
Spence Bay
fNNUT51AK
Iqaluil
1"-17.8cms
55980.
13"·33(ms
514,260.
POOTOOGOOK
IfSm OONARK
Boker lake
Big Waman
55060.
PACOMf KOlAUT
Igloolik
HfNRY fVAlUARDJUK
Iqoluil
10.5"·16.7rms
55750.
/1 "·27.9cms
54155.
lUCY QINNUAYUAK
Cope Dorset
Large Bear
56900.
KIAK5HUK
Cope Doml
Ancient Meeting
54140.
JOHN KAVIK
Rankin Inlet
11"·27.9(ms
56611.
JOHN TIKIAK
Rankin Inlet
6.S"·16.5cms
55750.
NAPATCHlf
Cope Dorset
6's"-16.5cms
55980.
III Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. M5Y 2Rl
Telephone: (4 16) 504-9100 Fax: (416) 504-0033
E-mail: info @ waddingtonsauctions .com
Inte rne!: www.waddingtonsauc tions.com
For consignment information, cal l
Duncan McLean at extension 249
OUR NOVEMBER 1999 INUIT ART AUCTION
NOAH NOWRAKUOLUK
PAUlA lAlLA
(ope Dorset
16"·40.6cms
Inukjuok
IO"·IS.4ems
18050.
, . . . - - - -....., JOE lALIRUNILI
Povungniluk
6"·15.2cms
13680.
118,400.
0lUI10K IPEELEE
Cape Dorset
JOHN PANG NARK
Arviol
39-·99cms
128,750.
PAUlA lAlLA
6"· IS.2(ms
Cape Dorset
\4830.
10"·SO.Bems
141 ,400.
PAUL 100LOOKTOOK
Boker Lake
13"·33e/J1S
1\980.
UNIOENnflEO
IO.S"·16Jems
15750.
OAVIOIALUK AMITTU
Povungniluk
!"-I7.Bems
JOElALIRUNILI
Povungniluk
15980.
IO"·15.4ems
150,600.
..PII"":W
KAROO AIHEVAK
Spen(e Boy
6"· 15.2rms
15750.
KELLYPALIK MANGITAK
Cope Dorset
Hunters on Ice
12415.
SALE TOTAL: $810.000.
UPDATE
PRESIDENT OF FRANCE
HONOURS INUIT ART
In a visit to Canada in September, French
president Jacques Chirac was given a
lOur of the Inuit art exhibit lqqaipaa:
perfectly channing, very relaxed and very
enthusiastic," said von Finckenstein of
French president Jacques Chirac
Celebrating Inl/it Art 1948-1970 at the
examines a sculpture at the
Canadian Museum of Civilization
(CMC) in Hull and the permanent
and temporary exhibits at th e Musee
d'art Inuit Brousseau in Quebec City.
to enjoy the ex hibition for himself. It
mu st have been hard to enjoy with so
many officials trailing behind." Accompanied by Prime Minister Jean Chretien,
Chirac then travelled to Iqaluit, capital
of Nunavut. where he addressed a crowd
of over 60 in the Legislative Assembly
and announced the unveiling of a new
virtual museum of Inuit art, created in
partnership with the French embassy
Canadian Museum of Civilization
exhibition /qqaipaa with curator
Maria von Finckenstein (right). Chirac
visited the exhibition during a whirl-
wind tour of Inuit art museums and
CMe curator of Inuit art Maria von
Finckenstein guided the president
the territory of Nunavut in
September 1999. through Iqqaipaa, while cu rator and
,;>t:," 4't,"bn.'';>'' ~, '>i' ('f'n4a-')') owner Raymond Brousseau discussed
'f'r'l4'> ~o. '~4L'r bo.Cr Cd,l-b'N,4't the history of lnuit art with Chirae during
Ll..Dr'('"""f\.a-C> r~..D .6.~...J~..,.J<1\:lLa-
the visit to hi s museum. "He was
Chirac. "I just wish he had had an hour
in Canada and Iqaiuit's Nunatta
Sunakkutaangit museum. The website,
located at lvww.ambajrance.org, showcases
20 works available for viewing in three
dimensions and docum ents stories told
by lnuit elders. He also recognized the
struggles and victories of Inuit leader
John AmagoaJik, widely known as "the
father of NunavuL" by making him a
knight of the Legion of Honour. Chirac
went on to visit the art-producing communities of Cape Dorset - where he met
several artists, including Order of Canada
Companion Kenojuak Ashevak at the
West Baffin Cooperative - and Pangnirtung, where he toured the studios of the
Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts and Crafts.
The visit was the first paid by a world
leader to the new territory of Nunavut.
Kenojuak Ashevak (right) unveils
In Transition, the aquatint etching
commissioned from her by the
Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec to
commemorate the first commercial
show and sale of Inuit art and craft.
held at the guild SO years ago.
Kenojuak travelled from
Cape Dorset for the opening on
September 24, 1999.
'P ..D~<I~ 4r'<:\ ~lIopncn,.1Io ~Q...1>1..f" a-
Cd,l-b't\'r d<t:,'r
54
Vol. 15, No. I Spring 2000
UPDATE
UNITING
CULTURES
The
Federation Franco-Tenoise
unveiled its monumental carving insta l·
lation in Yellowknife on the eve of th e
millennium. The installation, standing
high on MacAvoy Rock overlooking 'he
Old Town section of the territorial capitaJ, was created as a symbol of the unity
of 'he NWT's francophone and Aboriginal communities. Four carvers worked
'hrough 'he summer and fall of 1999 '0
bring the communities lOgelher in this
artistic efron. Metis Sonny MacDonald,
Inuvialuit Eli Nasogaluak, Oene John
Sabourin and francophone Armand
Vaillancourt created an installation highligh,ed by a monumen'al sculp'ure, a
twisting mass of animal motifs - the symbols of each community - under a disk
representing the drum (the universal language of music) and 'he sun (,he giver of
life). MacDonald carved the symbol of the
Me'is, an arching fish; Nasogaluak carved
a bear as a symbol of the Inuvialuit; and
Sabourin's eagle represents the Dene.
Vaillancourt, representing the Francophone
communi(y that initiated the project,
created the monumental background of
hand prints etched imo the living rock.
The projec" fu nd ed by the Canada Coun·
cil and the Government of the Northwest
Territories, was planned al a workshop
ga th ering together all four ar tist s in
June 1999.
Carvers Sonny MacDonald (left),
Eli Nasogaluak (bottom right) and
John Sabourin (top right) carve the
symbols of their communities into a
sculpture representing the solidarity
of the Northwest Territories francophone and Aboriginal communities
in August 1999.
~o. ~«J ~<r L'C.D' (~~r'<r). A<...i!.
ci..""":..:><r' (<<ere)". ~t)P'(J") <1-L..:> ~..
'-ill>n.' ('<k:.<r ~~r'<r)
INUKSUIT IN
BUDAPEST
Two Inuit artists and dru m dancers new
to Hungary in Sep'ember 1999 to ,ake
part in a symposium on the effects of
sound and to erect two giant inuksuit
in the capi'al ci' y of Budapest. IqaJuit's
Mathew Nuqingaq and Cape Dorset's
Pootoogook Qiatsuk were in vi ted to the
symposium, organized by 'he Nadasdy
Foundation - an international nonprofit
organjzation -to demonstrate Inuit drum
dancing. They were commissioned (0
build the inuksui t by Count Ferenc
Nadasdy, head of th e innovative foundation, which supports artistic creativity
and ecological responsibility worldwide.
The counl new the art ists to Budapest
to erect the inuksuit, one outside the
organization's headquarters in the
BOO-year-old Nadasdy family castle and one
on the premises of the Canadian embassy.
While most of the stone for the twO inuksu it was tak en from a nearby Hungarian
q uarry, the cenlIal pieces are native to
Nunavut, a final touch provided by
Nuqingaq and Qialsuk. The two artists
also gave seve ral slide lectures about
their work, including one at the University of Debrecen tn eastern Hungary.
ABORIGINAL
NETWORK
LAUNCHED
WITH MUSIC
AND DANCE
The Aboriginal People's Television
Network (APTN), a new Slation
included on basic Canadian cable, was
inaugurated on September 1 with a show
featuring some of Canada's most prominent Native performers. Inuit singer
Susan Aglukark, the Me,is folk group
Fifth Generation and several drumming
groups from the (oumry's Nat ive commllllities, including the lnuvik Drummers
were among the performers. Th e event
was stage-hosted by Alanis Obomsawin,
pioneer .in Aboriginal documentary filmmaking, and Marty Ballantyne of 'he
APTN board of directors, while the on-air
segmenlS were hos,ed by 'he NWT's
George Tuccaro and Nunavik's Evie
Mark. The network, dedicated to bringing Aborig inal content to viewers across
Canada, began regular broadcasting after
the inaugural show.
55
UPDATE
ELDERS
RECOGNIZED FOR
CONTRIBUTIONS TO
ARCHAEOLOGY
The Inuit Heritage Trust, the body
established in 1993 to take responsibility
for the repatriation and care of Inuit arti·
faCls in Nunavul, honoured Inuit elders
for their contribution to the history of
arctic archaeology. The trust chose three
elders, one from each region of th e territory, whose contributions 10 early archaeological research in the Arctic have been
invaluable bUl, until now, unrecognized .
The elders were honoured with a cash
award and a commemorative plaque at
the October 27, 1999 annual general meeting of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.
Although th e recipienls - Barnabas
Peryouar of Baker Lake (Kivalliq),
Cornelius Nutarak, Sr. of Pond Inlet
(Baffin) and Frank Analok of Cambridge
Bay (Kitikmeot) - were unabl e to allend,
the presid ents of th eir region al associations accepted the awards on their behalf.
"This project is meant to recog ni ze elders
who have contributed enormously to
archeaology in Nunavut," said ass istant
executive directo r Rhoda Arreak. "We
hope to continue this project because it is
important, and also educates the public
about the Inuit Heritage Trust. Our mission states that we arc to follow the wisdom and knowledge of the elders. This is
part of thaI. " The trust hopes that the
awards will trigger more mainstream
recognition for the elders from universities
or institutions such as the Archaeo logy
Society of Canada.
MONUMENTAL ART
AVAILABLE
At a September 25, 1999 celebration ceremony, the Nunavut Arts and Crafts
Association (NACA) unveiled the results
of two months of artistic experimentation
with large-sca le sculpture in granite.
NACA's symposium "Our Life in Stone,"
56
which drew together carvers from across
Nu navut and Canada to create Iqaluit 's
first public monumental art, wrapped up
in mid-September. NACA, which retains
possession of the carvi ngs, is now entertaining proposals for their long-term lease
to public and private organizations to decorate both imerior and exterior settings.
UNIFIED
TIME ZONE
FOR NUNAVUT
On October 31 , th e dat e of the North
American changeover 10 Daylight Savings
Time, the resid ent s of Nunavut syn chronized their clocks and wristwatches. The
territory, which had previously spanned
th e Mountain, Central and Ea stern time
zones, adopted a unified tim e zo ne Central Time - which meant that res idents of the eastern Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin)
communities moved their clocks b ack
two hours. The central Kivalliq co mmuniti es moved back one hour, and th e
Kitikmeot communities, on Standard
MOllntain Time, did not chan ge th eir
clocks. Nunavut gove rnment offic ials
be li eve that a standardized tim e ZO ne
will make both trad e and governmental
communications easier for residents across
Nunavut. Althou gh th e municipa lities
of Iqaluit and Ig loolik initially refused to
comp ly with the legislation, the government of Nunavut went ahead with the
change on October 31.
NEW PRINTMAKING
TECHNIQUE
IN HOLMAN
The Holman Eskimo Co-op, the studio
that produces th e yearly Holman print
collection, called in a New Jersey couple
in 1999 to demonstrate a new etching
tech nique that is free of caustic agent s.
"Last yea r we had a fellow come in from
Montreal to teach us how to do etchings
lIsing a system that i_nvolves a lot of caustic chemicals. We wanted to get away
from that," said manager BilJ Simpson
(News/North October 4, 1999). Simpson
co nt acted Omri an d Marlon Behr, a
chemi st/artist co uple who have d eve loped a caustic-free etching technjque they
ca ll ElectroEtch. The technique involves
pass ing a low -voltage electrica1 current
through a bath of zin c and copper sulphat e solution. The electric current moves
the metal from the etched plate to a co llector plate, resulting in a style very similar to that produced by the techniques
used by the original Holman printmaking
st udio. The Behrs trave lled to Holman in
the fa ll of 1999 to give workshops on
th eir technique to Holm an prinlmakers
Louie Nigiyok , Peter Palvik, Mabel
Nigiyok, Susie Malgokak, Mary
Okheena and Roberta Memogamak.
COPYRIGHT OF
INDIGENOUS
DESIGNS
Major co ntroversy fl ared over the qu es tion o f th e intellectual ownership of
indi genou s designs in September 1999
when New York fashion d es igner Donna
Karan SCIlI an agent 10 the Araic in search
of ideas and to purchase used traditional
clothin g. The trip, and th e subsequ ent
mark eti ng of the collected used clothing
in Karan's trendy vint age sto re in New
York, caused the Canadian nat ional Inuit
wom en's association. Pauktuutit, to
question th e right of non-Inuit design ers
to appropria te basic d esig ns developed
and used b y Inuit over hundreds of years.
Bonn ie Young, the "globa l fashion con sultant" who travell ed to Yellowknife,
Holman, Fort Simpson and Fort Provi ·
dence, reportedly stated that she was
lookin g for inspiration for Karan 's
October 2000 collection as well as used
clothing with traditional design s.
Pauktuutit president Veron ica Dewar
said in a prepared stateme nt that she is
"deepl y concerned about the cultural and
financi a l ap propriation of OUf coll ective
and individual propert y by an organization with annual reven ues in excess of
$600 million a year." Although garment
designs are not prot ected as intellectu al
propert y, Pauktuutit broached the issue
with the United Nations World Intell ectual Property Organi zation and is aaively
seeking protection for designs such as
that of th e Inuit wom an' s amauti under
intern atio nal copyright law.
1'01. 15. No.1 Sprin;2000
UPDATE
Leo Uttaq experiments with
caribou antler at the Inuit
Art Foundation'S Fall
Qaggiq '99.
c-t> t>(~ L...o.."'1J<r>
)~j
..''''dn'('L~ l>.b..!'n'd
"'f',,'n'nn" ~ !>P<I-;'d 1999-r
KITIKMEOT
CARVERS
GATHER IN
OTTAlNA
Artists from across the Kitikmeot region
of Nunavu t gathered in Ottawa in
October 1999 for the Inuit Art Foundation's Kitikrneot Carvers' Symposium.
Guided by Taloyoak arti st elder Gideon
Qauqjuaq and Ivujivik carver Mattiusi
Iyaituk, five artists speOl two weeks
working together and discussing their
work, new techniques and solutions to
practical difficulties of producing art in
the Kitikrneot. Supported by the Canada
Counci l for the Ans, the Government
of Nunavut, the Ontario Arts Council
and severa l other public institutions,
the visiting artists included Inuk Chautie
of Cambridge Bay, Wayne Puqiqnaq
of Gjoa Haven, Pootoogook Ashevak
and Leo Uttaq of Taloyoak and Kugluktuk's Jorgan Klengenberg. Each produced several works over the two-week
symposium.
The artists also participated in the
foundation'S Fall Qaggiq '99, a cultural
festival held from October 30 to 31. Joined
by th e foundation 'S artist-d irectors, the
InuitArt
Q
u
~
•
1
[
•
I
•
symposium participants gave carving
demonslrations and interacted with the
public. Directors Qauqjuaq, Iyaituk and
Shirley Moorhouse (Happy ValleyGoose Bay) gave slide presentations and
Ivujivik singer Evie Mark gave an informal session on throat singing, discussing
its history, fun ct ion and practice.
Mathew Nuqingaq, president of the
Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association,
who was in Ottawa for the two-day
event, drum danced and sang ayaya songs
with Qauqjuaq. The foundation'S directors also raised an inuksuk on the lAF
premises in Nepean. The inuksuk, made
of blue-flecked labradorite donated and
shipped to Ottawa by the Labrador Inuit
Development Corporation, was raised
to mark the birth year of Nunavut and
the turning of the millennium. It was
dedicated in a ceremony on October 30.
FIRST INUIT
FEATURE FILM
Atallarjllal, the first feature film 10 be
cont roll ed and executed by an all-Inuit
team, is nearing completion. Director
Zacharias Kunuk finished filming in
early fall 1999 after five months of rigorous work in the Igloolik area, involving
over 60 of the community's residents.
The film, produced by Igloolik Isuma
Productions, was initiated by directorl
writer Paul Apak, who died suddenly in
Inuit Art Foundation president
Mattiusi Iyaituk (left) and drum
dancer Eva Sowdluapik (centre) lead
a procession to dedicate the inuksuk
raised during the Inuit Art
Foundation's Fall Qaggiq '99. The
inuksuk commemorates the birth
year of Nunavut and the 50th
anniversary of the first commercial
show and sale of Inuit art.
<I'\."'bn.~I>-.!' l>.b"·n'dL.D L'n!>"
6.7/J,C)'" ((c-"""'o-) <flL-" 'fIc...I>I-;''iIon
6<:'
L...t>c....l<l.N ('fIn<1d-C)"') N~>6 .6...D~rLt>
.6.0-<1..£1, C:"o.. .6...D~rL" Lpn(I>c....I>~>
l>.b,,·n'd "'I'''<n'nn"~ !>p<I-;'tIn"->J
1999-r
December 1998. Unable to find funding
after being refused by Telefiltn Canada in
April 1998, the film was stalled until
the following year, when a substantial
grant from the Canada Council for the
Arts and a co-production agreement with
the National Film Board trigg ered a
flow of support from a variety of public and private sources. The film is scheduled to premiere nationally on CSC
April 1,.2000, in celebration of NunavUl's
first birthday.
57
UPDATE
PEOPLE
Nancy Wachowich, a doctoral candi-
dale in anthropology at the University
of British Co lumbia, recently published
Saq/}Iuq: Stories from the Lives of Three Inllit
Women, writlen in collaboration with
Pond Inlet ham let admin istrati ve officer
Rhoda Kaukjak Katsak, her daughter,
legal assistam Sandra Pikujak, and her
mother, the late Apphia Agalakti Katsak,
a lifetime resident of the eastern Arclic.
The book chronicles the lives of Kaukjak
Kat sa k, Pikujak and Agalakti Katsak ,
givi ng insight inlo the intergenerational
relationships and historical life cycles of
Inuit women . • Viviane Gray was
appointed Aboriginal Arts Co-ordinator
to the Canada CouneiJ for the Arts in
September 1999. Gray, a member of th e
Mi'gmaq Lisluguj Band in Quebec, was
involved in arts policy with the Depart-
ment of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development for over 10 years before
she moved to the Canada Council, acting
as chief of the Indian and Lnuit Art
Centres from 1997 to 1999 . • lnuvik 's
Ishmael Alunik, who is co-author ing a
book ca ll ed Neolilhic 10 NlillaVII I: The
Complete History oJ Ca1lada 's North. received
a Northwest Territories Arts Council
award in the summer of 1999 to further his
work. Organizers of the Great Northern
Arts Festival in Inuvik also received an
Arts Council award which allowed them
to hold a series of developmental workshops for visual artists at the 1999 instalmen! of the festival. held in July . • John
MacDonald, coordinator of the Igloolik
Researc h Centre in Nunavut , gave a
lecture entitled "Inuit Astronomy: More
than Meets the Eye" at Carleton, McGill
and Laval universities in October and
November 1999. The lecture, drawing
on the collaborative research MacDonald
carried out among eld ers in Igloolik for
hi s book Tile Arctic Sky: 11luit Astronomy.
Star Lore alld Legl'lld, dealt w ith the importance of the celes ti al and atm ospheric
spheres to the belief systems and cosmology of the Inuit. • Inuit Art Foundation instructor Maureen Flynn-Burhoe
launched her Inuit art "webliography"
over the October 30-31 weekend at the
found ati on's Fall Qaggiq '99. Providing
links to all websiles of interest to the
Lnuit art researcher and enthusiast. the
web liography "acts like a gateway to
what's out there about lnuit arl." FlynnBmhoe, a Carleton University doctoral
candidate in sociology, said, "I'm hoping
that people will let me know as other
things become availab le on the web, so
that the site can act as a way for people to
share information. I'm also hoping to get
northern individuals and communities
working with me on this, so the y can
have some input and commentary about
how their art , and they themselves, are
being portrayed." The site can be found at
www. carietol1 .calil1llitartwebliography . •
Seamstress Irene Avaalaaqiaq (Baker
Lake) was presented with an honorary
doctorate by the University of Guelph at
its OClObcr 19 convocat ion ceremony.
Ava a laaqiaq, who was nominated
for the Doctorate of Laws hal/oris causa
by the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
(Guelph) in recognition of her artistic
achievements and leadership in the Baker
Lake arts community, gave an address
at th e ceremony . .....
Newton, MA .. Sun, March 5
AUanta, GA .. Sun. March 12
Bethesda, MD - Sat March 18
Valley Forge, PA - Sun, March 19
Eagan, MN .. Sun. March 26
Columbus, OH .. Sun, April 2
Secaucus, NJ .. Sal April 8
Rye,NY - Sun,Aprll9
Newton, MA -- Sun, April 30
call or write for our full schedule with all the detal/s.
P.O. Box 308, Sandwich, MA 02563 (508) 833-8250
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
58
Vol. 15, No. / Spring 1000
Lending a Helpi
Your donations
are helping the
ideas become
reality,
•
C;br\C
lr: I =J I"k
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rt
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Supporters ($100-$499)
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Patrons (S1,OOO or more)
ACART
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Please see the donation card in this magazine or contact: Inuit Art Foundation
2081 M erivale Road' Nepean, Ontari o, Canada K2G 1G9' Tel: (613) 224-8189. E-mail : iaf@ inuitart. org
Canadian an d American donors are provided with ta x recei pts and all donations are acknowledged in Inuit Art Quarterly. Charitable registration #12 103 3724 RR0001
AT
THE
GALLERIES
AT THE
GALLERIES
PUBLIC
Mark Up: The Character of Drawing opened
at the Carleton University Art Gallery
on Sep tember 20,1999, along with Inuit
art exhibits The Intelligent Eye: The R.D. Bell
Collection aiIt/uit Art and A Parallel Visio11:
The Tyler/Brooks Collection of Inllil Art. Mark
Up curator Robyn Jeffrey, who chose
46 drawings from the gallery's perma~
nent collection to illustrate the nature
of contemporary Canadian drawing,
included work by first~gcneraLion Cape
Dorset artist Parr and young graphic
artist Pitaloosie Saila.
-
The exhibit Where Myth. Dream and Reality
Intersea: The Art of Irene Avaalaaqiaq opened
September 23 at the Macdonald
Stewart Art Centre in Guelph, Ontario.
The exhibit celebrated Avaalaaqiaq's
receipt of an honorary doctorate from the
University of Guelph on October 19. She
gave a public talk on October 18 at the art
centre in conjunction with the exhibi~
tion, along with Baker Lake seamstress
and studio owner Sally Qimmiu'naaq
Webster. Avaalaaqiaq participated in
another talk on November 10, giving an
address at the opening of the art centre's
conference" A Visionary Tradition." The
j ~1
Young Caribou, 1999,
Sheojuk Etidlooie, Cape Dorset
(stonecut on paper; 25 x 30 in.) .
..D~~q" 1999, r't>~<10 M1 c.JA P 'L.6.C
L
Coustcsy of Wesl Baffin Eskimo Cooperative
60
exhibition, curated by Macdonald
Stewart director Judith Nasby, is set to
close on February 20, 2000. The centre
simultaneously opened Masterworksfrom
Nunavut, an exhibition of wall hangings.
drawings and sculptures comp lementing
the Avaalaaqiaq show and celebrating
the birth of Canada's youngest territory.
The exhibition includes drawings by
Sheojuk Etidlooie (Cape Dorset) acquired
just prior 10 her death in Ma y 1999, as
well as a series of graphic works by Cape
Dorset artist Kananginak Pootoogook
illustrating his recollections of the community 'S early interactions with southerners. It will close on July 30, 1999.
-
The travelling Macdonald Stewart Art
Centre exhibition Qamaniltuaq Drawings
opens at th e SUREKH art gallery in
Jwahar Kala Kendra, India, on March 3.
The show travell ed from its prev ious
venue at the University of Iceland in
Reykjavik, and will be exh ibited at the
Indian gallery until April 30. Curator
Judith Nasby will give a lecture on
Canadian Inuit art in lwahar Kala
Kendra on March 3.
-
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) held
a series of programs featuring Holman
printmaker Elsie Kiengenberg in conjunction with the exhibit Elsie Klegel1berg:
Legend of Uvajuq, at th e gallery from
Oaober 9, 1999 to January 23, 2000. The
ex hibiL showcased the prints th e
Kitikmeot Heritage Society commissioned from Klengenberg to illustrate a
book and a film about the legend. The
society partnered with writer David
Pelly and filmmaker Vic Pelletier to
make the film and book. both entitled
This print by Elsie Klengenberg of
Holman is number six in the series
illustrating the story of a mythical
giant for the book Uvajuq: The Origin
of Death, written by David Pelly.
The print series, borrowed from the
Kitikmeot Heritage Centre collection,
was exhibited at the Winnipeg Art
Gallery from October 1999 to
January 2000_
.6.1>'-r' ~("'''L~>c. I>-, ~"<;I,j<lo. 1999
Uvajuq: The Origil1 of Death. Klengenberg
gave a stencil workshop on October 19
and a lunchtime artist's talk on the 20th,
and att ended a public screening of the
newly released English version of the
film. Pelly, director of th e Kitikmeot
Heritage Society, was also in attendance,
introducing the film an d discussing the
book and Klengenberg's illustrations.
-
The National Gallery of Canada (NGC)
has organized an exhibit entitled Carvil1g
an Identity: Inuit Sculpturefrom the Pennanent
Collection . Celebrating the 50 years of
sculpture since the first public exhibition and sale of Inuit artwork, Carvil1g
an Identity features 70 works from the
NGC's collection of co ntemporary work.
Organized thematically, the exhibit juxLaposes different images of similar subjects
to illuminate the unfolding of an Inuit
identity in sculpture and its perception in
the South. ft opened on November 26,
1999 and will run until th e same date
in 2000. Curator of Inuit art Marie
Routledge, who has return ed 10 the
NGC after a three-year sabbatical, curated
the show. On November 28, she gave a
Vol. 15, No. I Spring 2000
AT
THE
GALLERIES
Cape Dorset carver Tayaraq
Tunillie's Woman with Violin
was one of the pieces displayed
in a solo exhibition at the Inuit
Galerie in Mannheim, Germany,
in September and October 1999.
<l"o.. <f' <lLc-!,.'ilo) , C!,.~'ilo ) u"C'""". P'"""t...6.c
The Canadian opening of the
40th anniversary Cape Dorset print
collection took place at Montreal's
Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec
on October 22, 1999. Several Inuit
artists, including Ivujivik's Mattiusi
Iyaituk and Taloyoak's Gideon
Qauqjuaq, were in attendance.
L'A'ct>~· nL..>J 40-t> <l«:J<la- P"'L'rt>
nnlt>,'a-d'f"a- bn'~&' Cd,L,,'I\<l
d<.t:.' r
ex hibit's Na tiv e advisory co mmittee,
talked abou t the reOecti ons of thei r culturalt rad itions and childhood memories
in the ir work.
public talk and guided a tour of the exhibition. On February 27 the gal lery will
also h ost l/a9iikllll - a fam il y fun d ay
exploring lnu ir an and culture through
stories, music and games - in conjunction
with Carving all Identity. Other activities
planned for the summer and fall of 2000
will be announced early in the new year.
Quebec at the request of outgoing Governor Ge nera l Romeo LeB la nc and h is
wife, Diana Fowler LeBlanc. Celebrating
the artistic achievements of Nunavumiut
and the birth of their new territory, the
exhibit features artwork from the collection
of the Department of Indian and Northern
Affairs. It closed in February 2000.
The ex hi bition Tral'lSitiolls: Contemporary
Indian and ll1l1il Work collli nues to tour
Southeast Asia. It was displayed at the
Tainan Municipal Cultural Centre in
Taiwan from Sep lem ber 24 to October 17, 1999.
The University of Alaska Museum in
Fa irbanks he ld a series of lectures in
conjuncti on with the exh ibit Not lllst a
-
Inuit NI/llavut Arlists, curated by the Inuit
Art Centre's Ba rry Pottle, opened at
La Cita d e l - th e Canadian Governor
General's official residence in Quebec
City - in September 1999. Displayed at
Rid ea u Hall in Ottawa from April to
August 1999, the exh ibition travelled to
lnuitArt
Q
U
••
,
[
•
L
"
-
Pretty Face: Dolls and Hllmall Figurines ill
Alaska Native ClIllures. Cura tor of
Elhnology Molly Lee and gues l curator
Angela Linn elabo rated on th e imporlance of the museum's do lls in a la lk
entitled "Evolution of a Doll Collection."
On October 28, Inupi aq dollmakers Ken
Lisborne and Lillian Tepton and Yup'ik
artists Umara Nupowhotuk and Dora
Buchae di scussed th ei r craft and th e
vagaries of being an Al aska Native artist.
A second artists' discussion was held on
November 18; Ma rtha Demientieff
(Ai Ulii q), Rebecca Petersen (Yup' ik ) and
Eva Heffle (lnupi aq ), memb ers of the
CoMMERCIAL
Cape Dorset art ist Ta yaraq Tunillie was
fealUred in a solo show at the Inuit Galerie in Mannheim, Germany. Dr. Peter
Bolz of the Berlin Mu seum of Ethnology
spoke at the September 16 opening. Th e
exhibit is Tunillie's first solo show. It
closed on October 23.
-
James Houston appeared at the Inuit
Artists' Shop on November 15 to sign
copies of Hideaway: Life on the Queen
Charlotte [slal1ds, the latest instalment in
his autob iographical series. He was also
present to sig n, wit h co-auth or Maria
von Finckenstein, copies of the newly
released ca ta log ue of th e Ca n ad ia n
Museum of Civili zat ion (C MC) ex hibit
Iqqaipaa: eelebra/ill9 limit Art 1948-1970.
Houston and vo n Finckenstein also
attended a catalogue signing at the CMe
the following d ay.
61
AT
THE
GALLERIES
Female Figure, 1980, George Arluk,
Arviat (dark green-g rey st one;
4 x 8.4 x 3.3 in.; National Gallery of
Canada; gift of Dorot hy M . Stillwell).
<l~QJ> nr'L, 1980, "I! <l!r?" <l1....)~. <l1t\<lC
-
The 40th anniversary edition of the
annual Cape Dorset print collecti on
opened simultaneously on October 22,
1999 at the Canadian Guild of Crafts
Quebec in Montreal and Images of the
North in San Francisco. West Baffin
Eskimo Co-operative manager Terry
Ryan spoke at the Montreal opening,
which also fealUred slid e talks and carving demonstrations by artists John
Terriak, Henry Kudluk, Mattiu si
Iyaituk and Gideon Qauqjuaq, facilitaled by Inuit Art Foundation director
MarybeUe Mitchell. The 1999 collection
features prints from drawings editioned
in past years but not published. The
p rints were also displ ayed in an exhibiti o n at Nunatta Sunakkutaangit
Museum in l qal uit in celebration of the
collection's 40th anniversary.
-
The Isaacs/lnnuit Gallery in Toronto
opened an exhibit of prints and wall
han gi ngs by Baker Lake artist Irene
Avaalaaqiaq on September 18 to celebrate the honorary doctorate she received
from the University of Guelph . The
exhibit dosed on October 19.
Waddington's and Feheley Fine Arts
in Toronto jointly held "The Gathering" an evening celebration of Inuit art and
culture - on November 14. The event preceded a major auction of Inuit art at
Waddington's on November 15 and 16.
Ken Lister, assistant curator at the Royal
Omario Museum's Department of
Anthropology, gave a talk and presented
his video Between Generations: The
TrallSfercnee of Kayak Know/edge. The evening
continued with a screening of White Dawn,
the 1975 classic filmed on Baffin Island
and based on the novel of late-19th-century
Inuit life by James Houston .......
~.~------------------------------~
~ Verm9n
hos Inuit Sculpture,
Fine Native Art
ond Jewelr~
' WALl\lN1; IIlAR"
In' l'O,\l\1Y 'l'AI\l'A~'ilt~ SR.,
J(jALlin
rel.1i1 store open {'wry d.1Y!
I-listori c Main Street Mancheste r Centrr, Vc rmmlt 05255
802- 362-3435 . ·mail : longago@sovcr.net
on the web: w\Vw.LongAgoantiFarAway,com
c
fcmiJ~
t rcditl9n-representlng Inuit sculpture since 1;'13
LONG AGO & FAR AWAY
62
Vol. J5. No. J Spring 2000
CALENDAR
Tile Raven mId lite Loon: flluit Sculpture al1d
to April 9. 2000. A small boxed vers ion
of the exhibit called Tlte Tlllli! is current ly
Pri1lts from tile Chaulleey C Nash Collectioll,
curated by Maija Lutz, Tozzer Library,
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
and the Northwest Territories. For more
information, call (613) 776-8242.
EXHIBITIONS
Ethnology, Harvard Un iversity, 11 Divinity
Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 5,
1999 until May 2001. Tel: (617) 495-2269.
Inuit Art: A Heritage for the Future, at the
Canadian Guild of Crafts, 2025 Peel Street,
Montreat Quebec, September 23, 1999 to
March 30, 2000. Tel: (514) 849-6091.
Masterworks from
NIIIWVU(,
(urated by
Judith Nasby, Macdonald Stewart Art
Centre, 358 Gordon Street , Gue lph,
Ontario, September 23. 1999 to July 30,
2000. Tel: (519) 767-2661.
Can/jllg all Identity: Inuit Swipfllre from tile
Permall ent Col/ectioll, curated by Marie
Routledge, National Gallery of Canada.
380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario,
November 26. 1999 to Novembe r 26.
2000. Tel: (613) 990- 1985.
travelling
10
communities in Nunavut
Qamal'littuaq: Where the River Widens,
Drawings by Baker Lake Artists, co-curaled
by Judith Nasby. Marion Jackson and
William Noah. organized by the
Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. Guelph.
Ontario. Itin era ry: Heard Museum,
Phoenix, Arizona, November 1999 until
April 2000. Catalogue is available
from the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre.
Tel: (519) 837-0010.
Qamallirtllaq
Drawings by Baker Lake Artis/s,
curated by Judith Nasby. organized by
the Macdonald Stewart Art Cen t re,
Guelph, Ontario. Itillerary: SUREKH an
gallery, Jwahar Kala Kendra. March 3
10 April 30, 2000. For more information,
ca ll (519) 837-0010.
Tramilio1lS: COllfemporary 11Idia1l alld II1Uil
Art. co-curated by July Papatsie and
Barry Ace, Indian and Inuit Art Centre
TRAVELLING EXHIBITIONS
Lost VisiollS, Forgotten Dreams: Allcient Life
(DIAND), Hull, Quebec. Itinerary: yet-
of an Arctic People, co·curatcd by Patricia
to-be-confirmed venues in Taiwan and
Sutherland and Robert McGh ee, Cana-
Australi a . For more information, call
(819) 997-8311.
dian Museum of Civi lization. ltil1erary:
For great gift ideas, visit
the Inuit Art Foundation
website at www.inuitart.org
and click on the Inuit Artists'
Shop homepage.
-
1998 lAO INDEX
Now AVAILABLE
The 1998 Inuit Art Quarterly
Index is FREE to subscribers.
If you would like a copy
please contact us by phone:
(613) 224-8189, fax: (613)
224-2907 or e-mail:
iaq@inuitart.org.
Your name will be kept on
a permanent list for future
indices.
InuitArt
Q
u
~
~
!
[
•
l
y
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto)
Chedoke-McMaster Hospital
(Hamilton)
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
(Kleinburg)
National Gallery of Canada (Onawa)
Toronto-Dominion Gallery of lnuil
AIl (Toronto)
Quebec
Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec
(Montreal)
McCord Mu se um of Canadian
History (Montrea l)
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
(Montreal)
Musee d'art Inuit Broussea u
(Quebec City)
Manitoba
Crafts Museum, Crafts Guild of
Manitoba (Winnipeg)
Eskimo Museum (Churchill)
Winnipeg Art Gallery (Winnipeg)
United States
Oennos Museum Center
(Traverse City, Michigan)
Alaska Museum of History and Art
(Anchorage, Alaska)
Palazzo Reale, Milano, Italy, February II
Inuit Art on the Web
PERMANENT EXHIBITIONS
Ontario
Advertiser Index
ABoT ig in ArI, Toronto, Ontario ....................... 29
Acari, Onawa, Omario ....... " ............................ 2
Alaska on MadisoTL New York. New York ...... 31
Albers Gallery of I.nuit Art,
San Francisco, California ............................ 41
Arnie Artist ry Inc.,
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
.. 15
Arctic Co-operatives Limited,
Mississauga, Ontario... .................... .. I.F.c.
Arctic Inu it An, Richmond, Virginia .... .......... 64
An Space Galtery, Toronto, Omario
...... 15
Arts Induvik, Iqatuit, Northwest Territories;
Momreat, Quebec:
Vancouver, British cotumbia
....... .37
Fehetey Fine Arts, Toronto, Omario .............. 37
Gaterie d'an Vincent,
Ottawa, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario:
Quebec City, Quebec.
................. B.C.
Galerie Elca London,
Montreal, Quebec ........................................ 41
Galerie Inuit PI os,
Timmins, Ontario ......
. ........ ..48
Gallery of the Midnight Sun,
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories ........... 40
Gallery Phittip, Don Milts. Ontario ..... .......... 37
Great Northern Arts Festival,
inuvik , Northwest Territories ...
. ........ 30
Hous ton North Gallery,
Lunenburg. Nova Scotia
.................... 31
Images Art Gallery,
Toronto, Ontario .................................. .... ...... 45
Inuit Artists' Shop,
Ncpean, Ontario
........ .48
Inuit Art Foundation, Donor Ad,
Ne pean, Ontario
................... 59
Inu it Images,
Sandwich, Massac husetts ............................. .58
Inukshuk Inc..
rnukjuak, Nunavik
............ ...... ..... 15
lsaacsll nnu it Art , Toronto, Ontario ........... ........40
Long Ago and Far Away,
Manchester, Vermont
................ 62
Macdonald Stewart Arl Centre,
Guelph, Onlario ............ .. .................... ....... .... 58
Musee d'a rt Inu it Brousseau,
.. I.B.C.
Quebec.City, Quebec
No rthern Images,
Yellowknife, North west Territories ...... ......... 30
Northern Reflections,
La Jolla, California ........
.. ................... 62
Oorningmak Musk Ox Producers'
Co·Operat ive, Anchorage, Alaska
............49
Orca Aart Gallery, Chicago, Ill inois .....
.. ..49
Upstairs Gallery,
Winnipeg, Manitoba...
.. ......................... 29
Waddington'S. Toromo, Ontario ...................... 52
Wascrman,
Albuquerque, New Mexico ............................49
63
64
Vol. 15, No . ] Spring 2000