The release of the 2003 Pangnirtung Community Print Collection marks the 30^th anniversary of printmaking in this community. The last true retrospective of Pang prints occurred in connection with Expo ’86 – thirteen years of printmaking to that point.  Since then, the printmakers have chiseled, stamped, rolled, etched and pulled their way through seventeen more collections. We hope that select galleries will soon mount a retrospective encompassing the full 30-year arc. For the moment, though, readers of this introduction will find it interesting to re-visit observations by writers who have prefaced past catalogues. In the preface to the first Pangnirtung collection, George Elliott, then-Chairperson of the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, refers to the relationship between the imagery from Pangnirtung and that found in modern art:

In this premiere collection from Pangnirtung you will find images of the way the Inuit used to live alongside the forms of this century, the outboard motor and the snowmobile. You will hear echoes of Egypt and of the Incas in these pictures. The mythical undercurrent of universal form flows strongly at Pangnirtung. The spirits of Picasso and Klee have touched the drawing hands at Pangnirtung. Or was it the other way around?¹

Elliott’s reference to Picasso is interesting. Late in his career, Picasso commented that he had spent his life learning how to draw like a child. The fresh and naïve perspective of the child’s way of seeing is often evident in Pang prints.

 

John Houston, long-time advisor to the printmakers and friend of Pangnirtung, contributed a substantial introduction to the 1986 retrospective catalogue. Houston’s observations remain completely relevant today, at the thirty-year demarcation. He writes:

 

Pangnirtung produces prints that tell a story, soft, as if seen through a veil, memories of past seasons around the Cumberland Sound. Geographically, this places Pangnirtung and its outpost camps high in Canada's eastern arctic, on central Baffin Island's inland sea, sheltered in the lee of the cruel north-east wind.

 

Historically, the Uqqurmiut (o-kho-mi-o), or “people of the Lee Side,” were first written about in 1840 by explorer Penny, who estimated their number to be sixteen hundred. While most continued their nomadic circuit through the hunting camps, many joined the American and Scottish whalers, lances and harpoons in readiness for the bounty described in Penny's journals, wintering off Kekerten and Blacklead Island in wait for the spring hunt. They adapted more readily to the work economy than to the new diseases, which reduced the Uqqurmiut to two hundred and forty-five by 1880, when pioneer anthropologist Franz Boas wintered in the Sound.

 

A century later, one thousand souls –  the people of Pangnirtung and its camps – constitute the surviving Uqqurmiut. These souls had been won over to Christianity at the turn of the century, when Reverend E. J. Peck established his mission on Blacklead Island and introduced syllabic writing –  both in the face of much resistance from the shamans.

 

With its deep harbour to receive supplies by ship, Pangnirtung attracted a H.B.C. trading post, and an R.C.M.P. outpost in the 1920's, and the Anglican mission and infirmary also became fixed points in the travels of each family. Then, in 1962, much of the nomadic life gave way, after a disease among the sled dogs made hunting impossible. The people were evacuated to Pangnirtung, where most still reside today.

 

What did the people make of the tremendous changes they were facing? Our first opportunity to see came when the Government of the North-west Territories fostered the creation of a drawing and print-making program, under the supervision of Gary McGee.

 

In 1973, the first collection of prints was issued. Immediately apparent was the fond longing the Inuit of this area felt for life in the camps. We could also feel their awe of the whalers in their heyday, and their desire to share and preserve images from legends nowhere recorded. The expressive needs of the people of Pangnirtung are different from those of Cape Dorset or Baker Lake, and these images began to gather them their own admirers.

 

In 1975, with the project now part of the Pangnirtung Eskimo Co-operative, the second collection was produced. Under the guidance of artist/printmaker Lipa Pitsiulak, the stone-cut technique was brought into prominence. The importance of the printmaker in the interpretation of Pangnirtung imagery was also established. While artists like Nowyook and Josephee Kakee were becoming known, so were printmakers like Solomon Karpik and Mosesee Nuvaqirq.

 

It was my good fortune to be chosen as the new print advisor. First, I sat down and examined the hundreds of drawings made since 1969. From this treasure trove of images would come the third group of prints.

 

In 1976, artistically and technically, using every resource at their command, the artists and printmakers of Pangnirtung made their collection a visual poem to life on the Cumberland Sound. The four years I spent as manager of the printshop were years of experimentation, creating an environment in which Thomasie Alikatuktuk and his peers could redefine the art of stencil printmaking. For every image included in the annual collections, we withheld two. The printmakers were training to assume the duties of the printshop, and in 1980, they undertook the planning, editioning and quality control on their own.

 

A period of instability at the Co-op created a hiatus until 1982-83, when Stephen Osler was brought in as advisor. Together, Osler and the printmakers have taken the stencil print to a level of control not previously thought possible. As some of the well known artists have passed away, others have been encouraged to express their artistic ideas. Josea Maniapik and the second wave of apprentices are now master stencil printers, confronting the new techniques of etching and engraving.²

Like the wheel of an etching press, fortune has continued to turn for the printmakers in Pangnirtung. Taking up from where John Houston’s 1986 observations leave off, we can point to another period of instability in printmaking in this community during the late 1980s, when the old Eskimo Co-operative withdrew its support from the activity here. The community rallied against this potential catastrophe by establishing the Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association, a non-profit, all-Inuit body that is still active today in fulfilling its mission of keeping Pangnirtung arts and crafts alive. Rose Okpik, then-Chairperson of the UIAA (now deceased), sums up the attitude of the members at that time in her 1992 catalogue remarks referring to that period:

People told us that printmaking in the North was in trouble and perhaps should just die. But we didn’t care about those things! We just kept going! The printmakers were patient, and they knew that some day the Uqqurmiut would keep its promise to them.³

 

Successul fund-raising resulted in the UIAA acquiring the print-shop assets from the Co-op. The printmakers resumed releasing annual collections in 1992 and have continued uninterrupted to the present.

 

In 1991, the UIAA’s fund-raising and organizational efforts resulted in the construction of the Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts, a collection of unique, high-quality buildings with facilities for displaying crafts and carvings, for weaving tapestries and working with wood. The printmakers moved into the adjacent building previously occupied by the Pangnirtung weavers.  Then, in 1993, the UIAA entered into a milestone partnership with the then-Northwest Territories Development Corporation (now Nunavut Development Corporation), an arrangement that continues today, with NDC assisting in supporting a foundation for continued success and future growth – not just for the printmakers but for the entire Pangnirtung arts community.

 

The following year, in 1994, the printmakers faced – and overcame – yet another potentially devastating challenge when the old print shop was decimated by fire. The determined printmakers simply took what equipment and materials they could salvage or borrow, set up shop in temporary facilities, and proceeded to deliver an excellent collection that year. As noted by many since then, the printmakers were like a Phoenix rising from the fire. The UIAA subsequently went on to conduct successful fundraising activities under the leadership of Rose Okpik, and this resulted in the construction of the superb printmaking facility that exists in Pangnirtung today. Sadly, Rose Okpik succumbed to cancer several years ago, but she would doubtless have been pleased with the way the wheel of fortune has turned to an upward position for the Pangnirtung printmakers.

 

In this spirit of onward and upward, the printmakers have just this year acquired a new lithography press to replace the one they lost in the fire nine years ago. They plan to reintegrate lithography into the Pangnirtung collection beginning in 2004.

 

Judith Leidl, master printmaker and teacher from Wolfville, Nova Scotia, was invited to return to Pangnirtung as arts advisor for this 30^th anniversary collection, working with the printmakers on site during the month of March. The collection encompasses the work of ten printmakers based on the original images of many Pangnirtung artists, and the images continue to demonstrate a wide range of techniques, such as stencils (pochoir), relief prints, etchings (intaglio) and stone-cuts.

 

Josea Maniapik and Enookie Akulukjuk, two men who are still active from the second wave of printmakers that John Houston referred to, have witnessed first-hand the wheel of fortune turning for printmaking in Pangnirtung, even as they themselves have turned many a wheel in their practice of this art form (to say nothing of pounding many a stencil brush). The second wave of printmakers, which brought us these two dedicated men, was followed by a third, led by well-known Andrew Qappik and Jolly Atagooyuk, two individuals who have gone on to become master printmakers in their own right. And now a fourth wave of artists and printmakers is emerging. Last year’s collection presented a print based on the work of Andrew Qappik’s high school-aged daughter, Samatha. This year the collection instigates what we hope will be an annual practice of presenting the work of a talented emerging young artist from the local high school. For 2003, that individual is fifteen-year-old Dorcus Young, who created and editioned the lino-cut print “Whirling Whales.”

 

While women have always played an integral role in providing art work to be made into prints, recent years have seen a core group participating and developing into highly skilled printmakers, such as Annie Kilabuk, Geela Sowdluapik, Leetia Alivaktuk and Abigail Ootoova. All four women are represented here.

 

We are delighted, too, in this 30^th anniversary collection to bring the wheel full circle by presenting a single work by Malaya Pitsiulak, the eighteen-year-old daughter of famous Lipa Pitsiulak, the man who led the first group of Pangnirtung printmakers through their early years of development. One of Lipa’s prints was reproduced as a Canadian postage stamp in 1977, and the National Film Board of Canada produced a short film about him, simply titled “Lipa.” He has subsequently gone on to specialize in stone carving, for which he is world-renowned, but his drawings are still used in Pangnirtung prints, and this year’s collection is no exception. Although daughter Malaya Pitsiulak makes her debut here in the Pangnirtung Print Collection, she is already a highly skilled stone carver following in her father’s footsteps.

 

The Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts would like to thank the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Sustainable Development and Kakivak Association’s Apqut Training Program, for their financial support in making the 2003 Pangnirtung Community Print Collection possible. The Uqqurmiut Centre also wishes to acknowledge the ongoing successful partnership, referred to previously, between the Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association and Nunavut Development Corporation.

 

While it remains certain that the wheel of fortune will keep turning for the printmakers in Pangnirtung – as it does for people everywhere – it seems equally certain that these spirited individuals will always rise to any challenge, and printmaking will survive as a unique art form in this tiny Arctic community. Ultimately, the printmakers will continue to turn their own wheel, spinning stories with ink and paper to delight us all.

 

Peter Wilson, General  Manager

Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts

Pangnirtung, April 2003

 

¹ George Elliott, Chairman, Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, reprinted from the catalogue for 1973 Pangnirtung Prints, published by the Government of the Northwest Territories, 1973.

 

² John Houston, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, reprinted from the catalogue for Pangnirtung Print Retrospective, 1973-1986, published by the Pagnirtung Eskimo Co-operative, 1986.

 

³ Rose Okpik, Chairperson, Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association, reprinted from the catalogue for The Pangnirtung Community Print Collection 1992, published by the Uqqurmiut Iniut Artists Association, 1992.

 

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This page was last updated on Monday February 21, 2005