Exhibitions

Textile Art from Arctic Canada

In traditional life, women had to be experts at stitching because survival in the Arctic depended on warm, adaptable clothing. Beautifully stitched skin clothing was a source of pride and often, decorative patterns were made by insets of lighter and darker parts of the seal or caribou skin. Patterns and techniques were passed down from generation to generation. As trade increased in the later nineteenth-century, Inuit seamstresses began to replace skin with imported cloth for the inner parka. They also began to decorate with beads, coins and even spoons.

The social and economic changes which took place in the Arctic from the 1950s on resulted in many Inuit leaving their traditional camps and moving to permanent settlements. To ease the transition to a cash economy, art advisors travelled to many of the communities to encourage the making of arts and crafts for sale, including skin purses decorated with skin patterning.The art of larger scale textiles developed in Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), an inland settlement west of Hudson Bay, in the 1960s. Commercial materials including duffel, embroidery floss and felt allowed for the creation of larger wall hangings. The most common technique involved the application of felt cut- outs on duffel, which were then enlivened by fine embroidery. Some artists created abstract designs but most made references to traditional life. Artists are still making wall hangings in Qamani’tuaq and nearby settlements today.This piece incorporates the characteristic technique found in wall hangings from Qamani’tuaq: felt cut- outs of animals and humans stitched onto duffel then enhanced with elaborate embroidery. Each artist has a distinctive style – some use more embroidery and cover the entire surface, such as is found in Elizabeth Angrnaqquaq Qiayuq’s piece. Others, such as Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq, rely more on the patterns created by alternating coloured felt to define their composition. Joy Hallauk is one of the few artists who used tanned skin instead of felt, enlivened by beadwork and faces carved from antler. The artists are not limited in scale or shape as they cut out the duffel as they wish.

Joy Kiluvigyuak Hallauk   (1940 – 2000)
(also referred to as Kilihiguak; Kilugikyuak; Hallow)

Community: Arviat, Nunavut.

Hallauk began carving in the mid-60s and has cited Arviat carver John Attok as her teacher. Her preferred subjects were people, often mother and children. Also an avid seamstress, Hallauk enjoyed the creative freedom associated with creating wall hangings, and would also make traditional clothing from skins and duffle.

“[Hallauk] depicts maternal or multiple head motifs in stone, using small axes and files. The bulky volumes of her figures, with their juxtaposed rounded and angular masses, present dynamic as well as powerful images. [Hallauk] also produces exquisite dolls and is probably the most gifted maker of appliqu wall hangings in Arviat. Her wall hangings generally consist of rows of figures with carved antler faces, dressed in traditional bleached caribou skin clothing decorated with elaborate bead trim, sewn onto duffle cloth. Her largest such wall-hanging measures fourteen-by-four-and-one-half feet.”
Ingo Hessel on Halluak’s piece Kiluvigyuak In “North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary” 1995.

Celebration by Joy Hallauk
Hallauk is known as a sculptor, though did state that she enjoyed the freedom of making wall hangings. In this case, she has incorporated beads, caribou antler and tanned caribou skin in the piece. This combination of materials adds both texture and a three-dimensional feeling which help to underline the subject of a joyful celebration or dance.